The Dark Tunnel
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The Dark Tunnel is the first novel by "one of the giants of twentieth century crime fiction", Kenneth Millar. The first edition was published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1944 New York, a fine-condition copy of which was priced at Template:US$ Template:As of.[1] Millar's biography describes The Dark Tunnel as "a hybrid of old-fashioned puzzle-mystery, Buchanesque spy adventure, and Chandleresque exposé of sexual perversion.[2] Because of the latter, a 1950 paperback reprint was subtitled "The story of a homosexual spy".[3]
As an author, Millar was influenced by John Buchan and Raymond Chandler, with The Dark Tunnel bearing a strong resemblance to The Thirty-Nine Steps, and echoing Chandler's hallmarks of "rough-and-ready humor, its extravagant similes, and its more lurid events and descriptions".[2]
Millar's protagonist is Professor Robert Branch, a dichotomous character heavily influenced by the Professor Millar himself. Branch has studied T. S. Eliot, W. C. Handy, Norse mythology, and William Shakespeare; Branch is skilled in lock picking, athletic, and possesses a Doctor of Philosophy.[2]