The Dark Tunnel

PublisherDodd, Mead & Co.1944Publication placeUnited StatesMedia typePrint

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 US$8,500 as of January 2020^[update].^[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]