“Amidst the shadows, misdeeds, and double-crosses that seem to define noir cinema, one doesn’t customarily stumble upon trust, hope, or moral judgment among the disillusioned detective with a pint of cheap hooch next to a heater in his bottom desk drawer and the femme fatale who comes on hot as lava but has ice water pumping through her veins. But that’s exactly what Robert von Hallberg does come up with in this fascinating examination of the role of hope in film noir, trust between the utterly untrustworthy, between friends and lovers, between the individual and the state. This is a completely original take on noir, and those fascinated by the genre are most fortunate to have Robert von Hallberg adding his name to a list of serious scholars, reaching back to Siegfried Kracauer, who have illuminated these dark corners for the rest of us.”—August Kleinzahler, author of The Hotel Oneira: Poems
“Von Hallberg contributes to noir knowledge with this cogent analysis of trust among film noir characters. . . . The volume is well written, and its analyses are intriguing.”—Choice
“A compelling and marvelously personal essay on the psychology and morals of trust in the beleaguered world of noirs and spies, a world riddled by suspicion, shame, and guilt, yet not, it appears, without hope.”—Maria DiBattista, author of Fast-Talking Dames
