This week, a book by my countryman, Albert Isaac Bezzerides known to friend and foe alike as Buzz.

Buzz was an Anatolian Greek whose family fled the Turks when the writer was 2 years old. Wise choice.

The novel Thieves’ Market was inspired by Buzz’s father’s days as a long-haul trucker. In part, it was payback for Bezzerides the Elder getting screwed in his business life. Keep on truckin’ Buzz.

Thieves’ Market became Thieves’ Highway in the movies. I saw it again recently. It’s a classic film noir with an amazing performance by Nicholas Richard Conte as Nick Garcos.

For some reason, the studios insisted that Conte use his middle name even though he went by Nick and played 8 characters with that name. Go figure.

We, of course, watched Thieves’ Highway on TCM’s Noir Alley. We close with a video triple-header: Eddie Muller’s intro and outro followed by the original trailer.