Shadows As Truth

Strip noir down and three ideas do the heavy lifting:

• Light is a lie detector. Where a face sits between shadow and glare tells you how trustworthy it is.
• Power has a price tag. Money, sex, and ambition all come with a bill, and someone always pays.
• The narrator is doomed. The story is usually told by someone already sunk, so the ending feels sealed from the first line.

Get these three and you can read almost any noir scene on sight.