Shoot the Piano Player

Once upon a time Eddie played conert piano to reverent audiences at Carnegie Hall. Now he bangs out honky-tonk for drunks in a dive in Philadelphia. But then two people walk into Eddie's life--the first promising Eddie a future, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past. Shoot the Piano Playeris a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty: the kind a man owes his family, no matter how bad that family is; the kind a man owes a woman; and, ultimately, the loyalty he owes himself. The result is a moody thriller that, like the best hard-boiled fiction, carries a moral depth charge.

David Goodis (1917-1967), born in Philadelphia, was a screenwriter and author of crime fiction well known for his novel Dark Passage. He wrote the screenplay for Dark Passage which starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. He had received a B.A. in Journalism from Temple University in 1938.