Shoot The Piano Player (originally titled Down There) by David Goodis (1956). So what do I pick up after finishing that thoroughly depressing book about Jelly Roll Morton? Shoot The Piano Player -- another fine, but very melancholy book by Philly's late master of slice-of-hard-life noir, David Goodis. Am I a glutton for punishment or what? This is classic Goodis -- unlike other noir, where characters are done in by dodgy moral choices in a dodgy situation, his characters tend to be doomed from the outset and lacking the will to escape it. Like everything of his that I've read so far, this is set in Philadelphia, opening in the Port Richmond neighborhood, but eventually straying to rural South Jersey. The book picked up its title change when it was adapted into a film by Francois Truffaut (Tirez sur le pianiste). A good movie, though with a few plot changes, like moving the whole shebang to Paris.