The Night of the Hunter

The bestselling, National Book Award–finalist novel that inspired Charles Laughton’s expressionist horror classic starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.
 
Two young children, Pearl and John Harper, are being raised alone by their mother in Cresap’s Landing, Ohio. Their father Ben has just been executed for killing two men in the course of an armed robbery. Ben never told anyone where he hid the ten thousand dollars he stole; not his widow Willa, not his lawyer, nor his cell-mate Henry “Preacher” Powell. But Preacher, with his long history of charming his way into widows’ hearts and lives, has an inkling that Ben's money could be within his reach. As soon as he is free, Preacher makes his way up the river to visit the Harper family where—he hopes—a little child shall lead him to the fortune that he seeks.

“60 years after its original publication, Davis Grubb’s Night of the Hunter remains the gold standard of Southern Noir. Grubb’s unforgettably charismatic and psychopathic villain, Harry Powell, still has the power to flood your 21st century dreams with terror.” —Richard Price

“A thriller which commands one’s frozen attention. It is also a work of beauty and power and astonishing verbal magic.” —The New York Times