The Dark Tunnel
1944 crime novel by Kenneth Millar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dark Tunnel is the first novel by Kenneth Millar. The first edition was published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1944 New York; in January 2020, a fine-condition copy was priced at US$8,500 (equivalent to about $10,600 in 2025).[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]
First-edition book cover | |
| Author | Kenneth Millar |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Publisher | Dodd, Mead & Co. |
| Publication date | 1944 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
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]
