{"id":41600,"date":"2026-06-29T07:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=41600"},"modified":"2026-06-26T23:00:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:00:37","slug":"dont-shoot-the-piano-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=41600","title":{"rendered":"DOWN THERE aka SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER by David Goodis \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4mBT0Y5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2026\/z062926zview_dont_stpp.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"771\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4w7pvll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER<\/a> by David Goodis<\/p>\n<p>First sentences&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There were no street lamps, no lights at all.\u00a0 It was a narrow street in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia.\u00a0 From the nearby Delaware a cold wind came lancing in, telling all the alley cats they&#8217;d better find a heated cellar.\u00a0 The late November gusts rattled against the midnight-darkened windows, and stabbed at the eyes of the fallen man in the street.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The Overview:\u00a0 Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Eddie Lynn is a piano player in a small jazz club. Eddie comes in each night, plays the piano and keeps to himself. Eddie is an enigma. He keeps quiet.\u00a0 Never talks about his past.\u00a0 But boy, can he play the piano.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">One night when Eddie is playing, a man rushes in. He&#8217;s Eddie&#8217;s estranged brother who is on the run from two thugs who aren\u2019t far behind. Eddie wants no part of his brother\u2019s problem, yet he can\u2019t stand by and do nothing. The choice to get involved will expose Eddie&#8217;s past, drag him into a world of crime and result in several murders.<\/p>\n<p>Will Eddie survive?<\/p>\n<p>+++<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">DOWN THERE, David Goodis&#8217; classic crime novel was written in 1956.\u00a0 It was adapted into a 1960 French film by Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut.\u00a0 The film was titled <em>Shoot the Piano Player<\/em>. Some reprints of Goodis&#8217; novel use the SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER title.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Although based on David Goodis\u2019 classic noir novel, DOWN THERE, the screenplay makes significant changes to the protagonist.\u00a0 In the movie his name is Charlie, in the novel it is Eddie. In the movie Charlie is small, shy and passive.\u00a0 In the novel, Eddie is physically imposing and he projects confidence.\u00a0 Eddie chooses to be private for an unknown reason.\u00a0 Charlie is naturally introverted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I like the film adaptation, but the novel is better.\u00a0 Much better.<\/p>\n<p>DOWN THERE is one of my all-time favorite novels.\u00a0 It&#8217;s hardboiled noir at its best.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Rating:<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/logo\/zview_a.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"100\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER by David Goodis First sentences&#8230; There were no street lamps, no lights at all.\u00a0 It was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61,52,51,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-crime","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41600"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42037,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41600\/revisions\/42037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}