NIGHTFALL by David Goodis (Vintage: $8)....

NIGHTFALL by David Goodis (Vintage: $8). The latest installment in the Vintage reprints of the Black Lizard pulp detective stories is a very noir urban tale that pits a not-too-hard-boiled police investigator against a haunted man on the run. Goodis, best known as the author of “Dark Passage,” avoids the cliches of the genre by giving Detective Fraser a warm, supportive family. He also manages to pull off the neat trick of keeping both the reader and the characters uncertain whether Jim Vanning is really guilty of murder and absconding with stolen goods. The psychology of the identity crisis that resolves the case seems a bit pat today, but probably satisfied audiences in 1947. Goodis captures the steamy discomfort of summer in New York City in his clipped, direct style--the story opens with the line: “It was one of those sticky nights that makes Manhattan show its age.” “Nightfall” is being reissued with two of Goodis’ other novels, “The Burglar” and “Street of No Return.”