Witness To Myself by Seymour Shubin

He knew he was guilty... but of what?

I enjoy discovering new authors in the Hard Case Crime series. They are republishing old pulp detective and crime novels, and finding new novels from vintage crime writers. Witness To Myself has a great cover, and great title. Seymour Shubin had written a dozen more titles in the 50's (Anyone's My Name, My Face Among Strangers and The Man From Yesterday), but this one has never before been published.

Fifteen years ago, teenager Alan Benning jogged off a beach - and into a nightmare.

Alan meets a young girl, and in his mind innocently touches her bathing suit. He realizes how it looks and runs off in a panic, throwing her to the ground. Thirty years later, he still thinks of that day, and begins to investigate what happened to her. He is hounded by a terrible voice saying he killed her that day. He drives to the spot and through the town nearby. The more time he spends there the more people might recognize him. He looks through old issues of the local paper, and finds she did die that day. Was it him, or possibly the work of a drifter in the area at the time with other murders to his name?

He is filled with dark secrets and begins driving everyone away, plagued by paranoia and guilt. There is also a shadowy adversary - a man he helped save from falling before a train - a man who wanted to die, and now stalks Alan for saving him. He feels the force of justice drawing a net around him, tighter every day...

Witness starts with a grim sense of doom and never lets up. I found it remarkable that Shubin could maintain the tension for 250 pages, piling endless agony onto Alan, watching him fall deeper into the hole. It seems no one could help him, no one could hear the tortured guilt in his mind. The curiosity about that incident turns into raving paranoia. Each avenue he pursues seems destined to end in his getting charged with murder.

As a dark noir novel, I'm reminded of the films Detour, or I Wake Up Screaming. There is a hopelessness to the character, and the slow acceptance they have met the end of the line. Most noir titles I've read have a character or incident which lightens the story, there is a promise he will stay with the girl, the police will find the real murderer, etc. I was surprised by how insistent the voice of guilt was in Witness, right to the end. It was a tense, paranoia filled journey with Alan, but very well written and entertaining. It just never let up!

2006 / Paperback / 250 pages