Hard Rain Falling

Hard Rain Falling is a 1966 crime novel written by Don Carpenter. The novel was Carpenter's first published book, and follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon.

Upon its release the book was heralded as a readable, grim, and masterful debut. “…a first novel . . . of remarkable quality, written with authority, detachment and an almost uncanny, deadpan intelligence," wrote Martin Seymour-Smith in The Spectator, adding "I have seldom come across a new novel in which such compelling readability coexists with such absolute seriousness of purpose and keenness of psychological insight."

Thirty-three years after its publication, it was re-published by the New York Review Book classics. Fourteen years after the suicide of Don Carpenter in 1995, the novel received a wave of renewed national and international interest, including an acclaimed review by the Washington Post in 2009. The novel also received posthumous international recognition for Carpenter, including a 2009 reviewed by the UK Independent.