Review: ANY WHICH WAY BUT SOUTH WALES

In the current culture of Celebrities "pointing the way" and "Influencers" directing "Followers" how to think, feel, and act, I commend the rare Outliers who act according to their own lights, such as author David Owain Hughes, who only ever follows his own Drum, and his Series protagonist Samson Valentine, feckless antihero/private investigator of Hughes' Crime Noir SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST WALES Series. No matter the "reality," fedora-fashionable Samson views life through his own perspective, in which late 20th century Cardiff, Wales, becomes an alternate 1940's Chicago. Samson is a strong-at-the-core character eliciting readers' admiration, a true "good guy." Like Bogart's Sam Spade from "The Maltese Falcon," or the police detective in the film "Laura," Samson's core worth shines in an environs of Noir.
I think if somehow Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler could time-travel to fin de siecle Cardiff, they would adjudge Samson Valentine "a Kindred Spirit."

Title: ANY WHICH WAY BUT SOUTH WALES
Series: SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST WALES
Author: DAVID OWAIN HUGHES