11/07/2025
This month we are adding a real treasure to our Film Noir Classic series: BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH by Geoffrey Homes. Homes himself, writing under his real name of Daniel Mainwaring, turned his book into the iconic 1947 film, OUT OF THE PAST. Here's what "Booklist" had to say about our November release:
Under its Film Noir Classics banner, Stark House Press has been reprinting novels that inspired some of the best film noirs ever made. This time out, Geoffrey Homes’ 1946 classic, Build My Gallows High, which was adapted into the 1947 film, Out of the Past (screenplay by Homes). It’s a slim novel, barely cracking 150 pages, but it packs a wallop. Red Bailey retired from the private-eye game a decade ago after a job went bad. Now he’s living in anonymity, and he’s never been happier. His old life is just a dim memory, until someone he thought he’d left in the past comes to him with a request Red can’t turn down. And now his past threatens to destroy his future. Build My Gallows High is the last novel credited to Homes (a pseudonym of novelist and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring), and many regard it as his best. One thing’s for sure. Readers of noir fiction should absolutely read this dark, gritty, and magnificently written novel.
— David Pitt
You can't pass up this one, and it's available wherever books are being sold.
