When I decided to re-read and review the Bill Crane series a couple of years ago, I started with The Lady in the Morgue (HERE) and moved on to Murder in the Madhouse (HERE), somehow oblivious to the fact that Headed for a Hearse was actually the second book, followed by Lady in the Morgue. That was pretty dumb.
While the other four books are clearly centered around Crane and his hard-drinking detective pals, this one begins as a locked room mystery in which the protagonist initially appears to be convicted murdered Robert Westland. Crane makes his first appearance on page 42, amid a roomful of other colorful characters, and it takes awhile for him to assume the leading role. And even after he does, point of view continues to shift back to Westland and his last-minute attempt to escape electrocution.
While the rest of the cast (excluding Crane's fellow-detective Doc Williams) are the sort of serious-minded folk inhabiting other mysteries of the time, Crane emerges as the cockeyed outsider who cares as much about having fun (i.e. getting drunk and chasing women) as he does about solving the case.
The plot itself is a ticking clock. Westland has only six days to live when he decides to challenge the verdict, and finding evidence to clear him becomes a group effort. Crane does his share of the detecting, but so do others. It's just that he has a lot more fun doing it.
The novel seems made-to-order as a film story, so it's no surprise it was filmed two years later as The Westland Case. We'll talk a little about that next Tuesday in Overlooked Films.
11 comments:
Nice feature on one of my favorites. As a sidebar or footnote to your survey of the Crane series, you should read The Search for My Great-Uncle's Head. Colonel Black, Crane's agency boss, turns up as the sleuth in this 1937 one-shot by Latimer, writing as "Peter Coffin". This one's belongs to the murder-in-an-isolated-country-house genre.
Art Scott
I have that book and can't remember if I've read it. Guess it's time, eh?
P.S. Left Coast Crime wants YOU.
The only one of his I've read is THE MAN IN MY GRAVE which I liked and reviewed a year or two back. This sounds pretty oddball.
I've liked all of Jonathan Latimer's books. Something is always off-kilter in a Latimer novel.
The Man in my Grave?
Don't know that one.
Here are the Latimer titles in the Lewis library:
Headed for a Hearse (aka The Westland Case)
The Lady in the Morgue
Murder in the Madhouse
The Dead Don't Care
Red Gardenias (aka Some Dames are Deadly)
The Search for my Great-Uncle's Head
Dark Memory
The Fifth Grave (aka Solomon's Vineyard)
Sinners and Shrouds (aka The Mink-Lined Coffin)
Black is the Fashion for Dying
Richard's having a senior moment. The Man In My Grave is by Wilson Tucker, who was thus credited in the Broken Bullhorn review.
A.S.
Hey Evan, I hope you have the unexpurgated Solomon's Vineyard instead of the clipped version called The Fifth Grave.
It's like the difference between Jack & Coke, and Coke.
John Hocking
Oops, A.S is right. The one I read is LADY IN THE MORGUE. Man, I need a nap.
You're right, John. Yeah, I got that purple-bound limited hardcover of S.V. when it came out back in '82. It even has Latimer's autograph in it.
Would like to know the artist of the McFadden Books paperback. It shows a woman covered in a sheet standing before a mirror.
Art Scott would know (probably). Not me.
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