Latimer wrote five detective novels about PI William Crane in the 1930s, prior to this standalone novel that was originally released in 1941 as Solomon’s Vineyard in the UK. Judged too graphic for the American market, it didn’t appear stateside until 1950 as The Fifth Grave. Stark House went back to the original for their reprint, hence “the unexpurgated text” notation on the front cover.
The expulsions were violence and sex, both deemed too graphic for the 1940s US market. Indeed, the book opens with this provocation:
“From the way her buttocks looked under the black silk dress, I knew she’d be good in bed. The silk was tight and under it the muscles worked slow and easy. I saw weight there, and control, and, brother, those are things I like in a woman. I put down my bags and went after her along the station platform.”
It might’ve still been expunged today, but for slightly different offenses. On the violent side of things, the offense is violence against a woman, but it this case she’s asking for it:
“I put my arm around her and tried to kiss her lips. She wouldn’t let me. Anywhere else, but not her lips. It was damn queer. I tried again, and we struggled. She began to pant.
“‘Hit me,’ she said. ‘Hit me!’”
Karl Craven and Oke Johnson are PIs—partners—that is, until Johnson gets himself killed working a case that Craven is now compelled to resolve. “Penelope Grayson was thin and blonde and almost beautiful.” Johnson was hired by Grayson’s uncle to rescue her from a religious cult, now Craven’s problem. And he’d like to settle the score on who murdered his partner as well.
“It all came back to something I’d figured out about the detective business. There were two ways to go along: underground or on top. I never found out which was best. Underground you had the element of surprise on your side, but it was harder to move around. On top you went everywhere, taking cracks at everybody, and everybody taking cracks at you. You had to be tough to play it that way. Well, I was tough.”
So Craven plays it tough, nosing in where he isn’t wanted; making enemies of most of the men he encounters, and impressing the women along his way with his bravado and sometimes overconfidence. He takes the bumps and bruises in stride and keeps pushing against any resistance until he finally shakes loose the answers he wants.
Latimer rewards fans of hardboiled diction with scintillating prose, gripping mysteries, and stimulating action. A first-rate, five-star adventure!
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