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Talk of the Town
Stranded in a small town, a stranger falls for a suspected murderess
Bored, divorced, and unemployed, Chatham is on his way to the Gulf of Mexico when he passes through a small town by the river. It's a miserable little burg - four stoplights and not much else - and he's almost escaped it when a drunk's car darts out in front of him, causing a nasty fender-bender. The thought of three days waiting for his clunker to get fixed is a grim one, but though he doesn't know it, there won't be a dull minute.
Chatham finds hospitality in the lovely form of Mrs. Langton, motel owner and local pariah. Seven months ago her husband was murdered, and though the police could find no evidence to support the theory, everyone in town is convinced she killed him. Now a string of anonymous threats have left her close to a nervous breakdown, and the violence is about to become real. In a town this small there's no room for secrets, but plenty of places to bury a corpse.
Bored, divorced, and unemployed, Chatham is on his way to the Gulf of Mexico when he passes through a small town by the river. It's a miserable little burg - four stoplights and not much else - and he's almost escaped it when a drunk's car darts out in front of him, causing a nasty fender-bender. The thought of three days waiting for his clunker to get fixed is a grim one, but though he doesn't know it, there won't be a dull minute.
Chatham finds hospitality in the lovely form of Mrs. Langton, motel owner and local pariah. Seven months ago her husband was murdered, and though the police could find no evidence to support the theory, everyone in town is convinced she killed him. Now a string of anonymous threats have left her close to a nervous breakdown, and the violence is about to become real. In a town this small there's no room for secrets, but plenty of places to bury a corpse.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
12 people are currently reading
140 people want to read
About the author
Charles Williams
33 books100 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 12, 2020
Charles Williams was one of the greatest of the pulp and thriller writers of the fifties and sixties and the proof of that is books like this one. "Talk of the Town" is a story of a lone guy who comes through a small Southern town on his way across country. He left California after beating a suspect who got off on a technicality and resigning from the police force. His marriage ended in divorce and, for no particular reason, he was headed to Miami.
The narrator has no intention of staying in this tiny town, but his car is in the shop and he ends up at a motel run by a woman who seemed tired and as if she had walked through hell and the whole town seems to hate her. "There was almost an unfathomable weariness far back in those fine gray eyes." She was in a state of panic whenever the phone rang. "She went rigid, as if she had been sluiced in the back with ice water." "One of these days she was going to come apart like a dropped plate."
You can feel the air filled with panic and desperation.
This is one of those stories where conventional wisdom says the narrator should keep his mouth shut, mind his own business, and keep moving on, but he gets involved and unearths murder and conspiracy and small-town nastiness. It is a fine story and Williams does a great job of painting the picture of the outsider all alone in this town with the authorities itching for him to move on and not make trouble. He ends up getting involved because he was a good cop and he is a white knight kind of guy. You do feel how the odds are stacked against him and how he simply doesn't belong there.
This is good old-fashioned southern noir, but it doesn't hit you over the head with pulpiness. I highly recommend this one, but I tend to think Williams was one of the best ever.
The narrator has no intention of staying in this tiny town, but his car is in the shop and he ends up at a motel run by a woman who seemed tired and as if she had walked through hell and the whole town seems to hate her. "There was almost an unfathomable weariness far back in those fine gray eyes." She was in a state of panic whenever the phone rang. "She went rigid, as if she had been sluiced in the back with ice water." "One of these days she was going to come apart like a dropped plate."
You can feel the air filled with panic and desperation.
This is one of those stories where conventional wisdom says the narrator should keep his mouth shut, mind his own business, and keep moving on, but he gets involved and unearths murder and conspiracy and small-town nastiness. It is a fine story and Williams does a great job of painting the picture of the outsider all alone in this town with the authorities itching for him to move on and not make trouble. He ends up getting involved because he was a good cop and he is a white knight kind of guy. You do feel how the odds are stacked against him and how he simply doesn't belong there.
This is good old-fashioned southern noir, but it doesn't hit you over the head with pulpiness. I highly recommend this one, but I tend to think Williams was one of the best ever.
May 15, 2023
04/2016
This is the third book I've read by him, and I find Charles Williams to be one of the most satisfying writers ever. Even when, as in this case, the plot and the characters are just okay, nothing amazing. There's just a great sense of movement, of suspense, of readability. The action scenes are impressive.
This is the third book I've read by him, and I find Charles Williams to be one of the most satisfying writers ever. Even when, as in this case, the plot and the characters are just okay, nothing amazing. There's just a great sense of movement, of suspense, of readability. The action scenes are impressive.
May 8, 2021
Ex-cop (Dirty Harry) Chatham was just passin' thru.
"In other words, you’re not in town thirty minutes before you’re up to your neck in police business. You’re a trouble-maker, Chatham; I can smell you a mile."In three days, he battles hick gangsters and ham-fisted cops, dodges shotgun blasts, cracks all the cases, woos a widow, and refurbishes a hotel. Charles Williams writes the best mysteries, but Chatham is insufferably heroic.
December 29, 2021
I thought this was pretty well handled for a mystery case. Not that I did not have a strong suspicion of who the culprit was and was right in my guess at the end, but this actually felt like I was fed only the necessary amounts of exposition and the rest was actual snooping around digging up dirt shamus stuff. I also really admired Williams kind of disdain for the stereotypical stoical detective fiction with the femme fatale and all the trimmings, in fact one stand out jump off the page line discusses how the femme fatale in this novel isn't wearing a ridiculous skimpy outfit and wielding a .45 but is instead seemingly wholesome. Seemingly. Great action punctuates the slow bits, I enjoyed the romance and the happy ending, and the final act lets off the brake and zooms to the finish.
August 1, 2020
Fast-paced, with plenty of action. Less character development than a lot of Williams's books and the barest of plots. That's okay, though, as it rips along from one complication to the next. The basic story is a stranger comes to town and has the bad luck to get in a car accident. In the three days it takes to get his car repaired he becomes enmeshed with a woman whom the whole town suspects murdered her husband. The stranger, however, is an ex-cop and he just can't help himself from investigating, which quickly turns the town against him, too. Will he survive long enough to solve the murder? That's the question the novel poses. All the action takes place over three days and there is barely a let up from start to finish.
August 5, 2012
Talk of the Town is an Everyman noir-cum-whodunit via a damsel in distress with occasional patter tossed in from a screwball comedy. The premise is vaguely similar to an earlier Charles Williams novel, Go Home, Stranger (1954), as both feature amateur outsiders attempting to solve crimes (though Bill Chatham, the protagonist of Talk of the Town, is a former professional). Unfortunately, the plotting of Talk of the Town is thin, largely because so many of Chatham's decisions are based on there-was-a-small-chance-but-it-was-the-only-chance logic. Nevertheless, Talk of the Town is somewhat more engrossing than Go Home, Stranger because Williams does a better job of making his protagonist a participant in (rather than an observer of) the plot.
January 31, 2024
This was originally published in the US as "Talk of the Town." "Stain of Suspicion" is the title of the British release. Also please note that the "Stain of Suspicion" title was also released as an abridged edition. Upon having read the first few pages, I realized that I had seen the TV adaptation of this novel. It was the 1971 pilot movie for the "Cannon" series with William Conrad. I loved the TV movie, so I read on. Williams' original story takes place in the Florida Panhandle, somewhere near the Georgia line. Bill Chatham, a former San Francisco Police Detective finds himself in a small City rather by accident and spends a few nights just outside of town at The Magnolia Lodge. It was bad enough, the way he was treated when a local good-ole boy backed into his vehicle. He soon finds out that the Lady Innkeeper is the recent second wife and widow of the murdered favorite son of the town. The locals suspect she had something to do with the killing and since he's now her only guest, their gaze is upon him as well. As the hostility of some rather unsavory characters rubs off onto Chatham, he finds himself asking questions about the murder case. As he runs down the very few known leads, the anger ensues, and violence begins! The setting and character development of this story are superb. There is plenty of action and a very climactic ending. Go for it!
June 6, 2020
Charles Williams : a Master.
May 21, 2021
It wasn't a very large town. The highway came into it from the west across a bridge spanning a slow-moving and muddy river with an unpronounceable Indian name, and then ran straight through the central business district for four or five blocks down a wide street with angle parking and four traffic lights at successive intersections. I was just pulling away from the last light, going about twenty miles per hour in the right-hand lane, when some local in a beat-up old panel truck decided to come shooting backwards out of his parking place without looking behind him.
Such a wonderful first paragraph. It hooked me in.
But Talk of the Town is not one of Williams' best. But even a middlebrow Williams novel is worth a read.
Chatham, a disgraced cop gets involved in a small accident while passing through a small town. He had started early from New Orleans and his only immediate goal was to have a dip in the Gulf before grabbing dinner. A slender woman - Mrs.Langston stands up for him when the small town folk gang up on him at the scene of the accident. After tempers are cooled and insurance numbers are exchanged, Mrs.Langston leaves. Chatham is at the garage, getting his car repaired when he asks around for a place to stay until his car is repaired. He is directed to a motel called the Magnolia, which is owned by Mrs.Langston who stood up for him. But a few minutes after he reaches the motel, Mrs.Langston gets a terrifying call threatening her. Chatham who has to wait a few days before his car gets repaired, decides to find out who is behind the threatening calls that affects Mrs.Langston both mentally and physically. He learns that the small minded town folk believe Mrs.Langston killed her husband, who is sort of a local hero.
Williams is an expert at effortlessly capturing the ambience of a small town. Some interesting detail about smudge pots to protect bougainvillea and how to lay a brick properly. The mystery and the twists are nothing to write home about. Williams usually writes excellent scam procedurals. This one was a bit of a dud. None of his usual clever misdirections and tricks to bamboozle the bad guys. The ending was a total mess. Recommended only to hardcore Williams fans and completists.
Such a wonderful first paragraph. It hooked me in.
But Talk of the Town is not one of Williams' best. But even a middlebrow Williams novel is worth a read.
Chatham, a disgraced cop gets involved in a small accident while passing through a small town. He had started early from New Orleans and his only immediate goal was to have a dip in the Gulf before grabbing dinner. A slender woman - Mrs.Langston stands up for him when the small town folk gang up on him at the scene of the accident. After tempers are cooled and insurance numbers are exchanged, Mrs.Langston leaves. Chatham is at the garage, getting his car repaired when he asks around for a place to stay until his car is repaired. He is directed to a motel called the Magnolia, which is owned by Mrs.Langston who stood up for him. But a few minutes after he reaches the motel, Mrs.Langston gets a terrifying call threatening her. Chatham who has to wait a few days before his car gets repaired, decides to find out who is behind the threatening calls that affects Mrs.Langston both mentally and physically. He learns that the small minded town folk believe Mrs.Langston killed her husband, who is sort of a local hero.
Williams is an expert at effortlessly capturing the ambience of a small town. Some interesting detail about smudge pots to protect bougainvillea and how to lay a brick properly. The mystery and the twists are nothing to write home about. Williams usually writes excellent scam procedurals. This one was a bit of a dud. None of his usual clever misdirections and tricks to bamboozle the bad guys. The ending was a total mess. Recommended only to hardcore Williams fans and completists.
April 2, 2018
Another great, fast Williams yarn. Great pace. Reminds me of Man on the Run.
March 2, 2019
Classic pulp fiction. It starts with a fender bender on the wide Main Street where the cars are parked on the diagonal, then a couple past murders, a robbery and even a Bell and Howell salesman.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
April 26, 2023
Under-rated writer. Only found him through reading an old interview the Master John D. I the found out he wrote Dead Calm also a great movie.
September 2, 2024
Flawless
July 27, 2018
Charles Williams seems to go through cycles of neglect and rediscovery. To my mind, he is one of the best Gold Medal writers. He arguably could've been in the Library of America collection of Crime Novels of the 1950s, sitting alongside Jim Thompson.
"Stain of Suspicion," also known as "Talk of the Town," may not be among the best of Williams' books, but it moves along in his usual feverish pace. It's basically the story of transient, tough ex-cop Bill Chatham who gets caught up with a woman, Georgia Langston, who is rumored to be involved in the murder of her husband. Chatham subsequently is accused of a crime himself, so he's a man on the run, who must clear his own name, solve the Langston murder, fight local corruption, and so on.
Some readers may find the books a little dated, with a semi-swooning woman, but Williams handles growing romance better than a lot of (male) writers of the era. This one is worth reading for Williams' fans or fans of hard-boiled fiction of the 1950s-1960s. If you're new to Williams, it's easier to find a copy of "The Hot Spot." Williams' ocean-going "blue water noir" novels are worth checking out, too.
"Stain of Suspicion," also known as "Talk of the Town," may not be among the best of Williams' books, but it moves along in his usual feverish pace. It's basically the story of transient, tough ex-cop Bill Chatham who gets caught up with a woman, Georgia Langston, who is rumored to be involved in the murder of her husband. Chatham subsequently is accused of a crime himself, so he's a man on the run, who must clear his own name, solve the Langston murder, fight local corruption, and so on.
Some readers may find the books a little dated, with a semi-swooning woman, but Williams handles growing romance better than a lot of (male) writers of the era. This one is worth reading for Williams' fans or fans of hard-boiled fiction of the 1950s-1960s. If you're new to Williams, it's easier to find a copy of "The Hot Spot." Williams' ocean-going "blue water noir" novels are worth checking out, too.
November 14, 2011
well written crime story by a master of noir.if you want to read a good crime novel read any one of charles williams 22 unputdownable books.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews