Customer Reviews

Devil's Garden

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Dashiell Hammett investigating the first-ever celebrity murder trial on the foggy streets of San Francisco, a silent-film star hounded in the newspapers by William Randolph Hearst himself -- Ace Atkins knows how to make historical fiction out of a hard-boiled detective story.
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was roaring through the '20s with plenty of showgirls and hooch when he pajama-partied a little too much and a starlet got dead. At the time, Hammett was a Pinkerton operative hired to find witnesses whom prosecutors were hiding. Hearst, of course, deployed his yellow-journalism reporters to crucify the "portly beast" Arbuckle. (Chris Farley wanted to play Fatty in a movie, and it would have been a match, because Arbuckle was a self-loathing porker with a gift for making people laugh and no desire ever to grow up.)
Ace Atkins -- yeah, that's really his name -- writes cinematically: Short scenes with clever "buttons" alternate with long swaths of snappy dialogue. One flimflam man, for example, describes another as "a phony bird. That's halfway between crazy and a con man, and that's the middle of the road, brother."
Hammett -- he was "Sam" then, back before his Dashiell days -- tails tricksters and crooks into ornate hotel lobbies and up San Francisco's hills, wheezing with the effort and pausing to spit blood into his handkerchief. While some good-hearted folks appear -- Sam's first wife, one of the Pinkertons, a snitch named Pete the Fink -- the speakeasies and courtrooms of The City are filled by people with their hands out, thumbing their noses at what passes for an upright legal system.
Atkins works too hard at blackening Hearst's character in the epilogue, but Devil's Garden still rises far beyond pulp fiction to a much higher level. The three central characters -- Sam, Fatty and W.R. -- are all blameworthy, all filled with shame but unwilling to do much about it. In Atkins' world, prudes are really grifters, a power broker is just a little boy, a legal case is like a melodrama and a scalawag can be a stand-up guy. There aren't many moralistic blacks and whites in Devil's Garden -- just a lot of grays, melting off into that San Francisco fog.

In 1921, following a wild party at a San Francisco hotel, silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle is arrested for the alleged murder of actress Virginia Rappe. The evidence is circumstantial at best, but William Randolph Hearst using his colossal newspaper kingdom assaults the actor accusing him of suffocating the poor starlet with his humongous weight.

Pinkerton private investigator Sam Dashiell Hammett investigates the case for the defense. He finds at best a sloppy official inquiry by SFPD and an even more questionable autopsy; as if everyone feared the wrath of Hearst. Rightfully so, as the newspaper mogul keeps up the tirade until Arbuckle is condemned in public and his comedic movie career buried under innuendos and disinformation. Hammett finds all sorts of Hollywood scandals, but none as perverse as Hearst's unethical efforts that the sleuth believes is to save the movie career of his mistress Marian Davies at the expense of Arbuckle.

Ace Atkins' third historical mystery (see WHITE SHADOW and WICKED CITY) is a terrific silent movie era noir focusing on the notorious Arbuckle murder case. The story line is fast-paced, filled with action, loaded with real persona, and captures the era especially how influential the newspapers (specifically Hearst) as well as anyone since Citizen Caine.

Harriet Klausner

With the publication of WHITE SHADOW and WICKED CITY, the novels published just prior to DEVIL'S GARDEN, Ace Atkins entered into the big leagues of great, memorable fiction. Now with the publication of DEVIL'S GARDEN, Ace proves that he deserves a permanent slot on every major best seller list (New York Times, USA Today, etc.) and that people who enjoy a great read should stand up and take notice. Ace has a wonderful flair for taking unique historical events, researching them impeccably and then turning them into "movies for the mind". I've been a fan of Ace for a long time and have read all of his books. And DEVIL'S GARDEN is Ace's best book yet. This is an author who deserves to be sharing the spotlight with everyone from Grisham to Parker to Patterson to any other of today's biggest names in fiction. If you haven't read Ace Atkins, then you are truly missing out. And if you miss reading DEVIL'S GARDEN, well, you might just not be a serious reader. Do yourself a favor: if you only buy one novel to read this Spring, make it DEVIL'S GARDEN.

This is a highly enjoyable tale of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal seen through several perspectives, chief among them a young lunger working for the Pinkerton's in the City by the Bay named Sam Hammett. This book may look like a thriller, but it's really a historical novel ala E.L. Doctrow. There's lots of period flavor and sharp dialogue, but the whole affair is unpretentious and fast-paced. The portrait of Hammett that emerges and references to his later work are fun and subtle. He comes off as a fully realized character, which isn't always the case in the Poe thriller industry. This would make a great double-bill with the recent Spade & Archer.

Ace Atkins went from being a good writer to an amazing one seemingly overnight. The transformation occurred with WHITE SHADOW, a fictionalized account of an unsolved murder that took place in Tampa, Florida, in the 1950s. His next novel, WICKED CITY, about a corrupt town in Alabama, was every bit as good as its predecessor. But his latest work blows both of them, and just about everything else, out of the water.

DEVIL'S GARDEN begins on a fateful Labor Day weekend in 1921 when silent film comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle came to San Francisco for a holiday of drunkenness and debauchery. Within 72 hours a woman would be found critically injured in his suite of rooms at the St. Francis Hotel; upon her death a short while later, Arbuckle would be charged with manslaughter. Students of the silent film era are familiar with the incident and how it played out; those who are not probably would not care. So Atkins is faced with a double dilemma: How do you make interesting a story whose ending is already writ in history, and how do you attract a reading audience from those whose interests may lie elsewhere?

The solution --- one that Atkins accomplishes with amazing, almost magical ability --- is to paint each character with a vividness that causes them to stay in the mind's eye long after they have passed off the page, all the while sprinkling them through a narrative that flows unhurriedly even as the next sentence, paragraph, page and chapter demand to be read immediately. Atkins performs this Herculean task quite handily, even as he recreates the San Francisco of the 1920s with such vividness that it seems to take over the real world of the here and now if and when one stops reading. The inside front and back of DEVIL'S GARDEN is thoughtfully illustrated with a contemporary street map of the downtown area (coffee stains, creases, and all) so that one might follow along with what happens in the sprawling story. And what a story it is.

With a subtlety and irony mastered by but a few others, Atkins suspensefully reveals how Arbuckle, a man of excessive and unhealthy appetites, came to be charged with manslaughter, which almost immediately derailed his film career. The temptation to tell the story through Arbuckle's eyes must have been strong, and indeed at points it is necessary. It is but one of the many manifestations of Atkins's genius, however, that the viewpoint most prominent here is that of the Pinkerton investigator who was hired by Arbuckle's attorney to conduct a search for the truth that would form the basis for his defense.

That investigator would be a tuberculotic-war veteran named Sam Dashiell Hammett, who would later become far better known for far different reasons. Hammett painstakingly begins to uncover who is behind what amounts to be an official vendetta against Arbuckle, and, even more importantly, the "why" that drives it, even as the city's establishment inexorably begins to grind Arbuckle down. While the City of San Francisco is ultimately the major character in the book, it is the story as told by Atkins that is the true star.

DEVIL'S GARDEN is storytelling and writing at its very best. With this novel, Atkins establishes himself as the literary heir of a closely edited Faulkner, of a more disciplined Thomas Wolfe. This is stirring, impeccable wordcraft that demands to be read and re-read.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

After having read, The Ranger by Ace Atkins, and knowing that Atkins was to be the heir apparent to Robert B. Parker's Spenser, I went looking for his other books and came across Devil's Garden which stars Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, William Randolph Hearst and Samuel Dashiell Hammett, pre--writer, current operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I loved the noir settings and could hear the klaxons, see the fog and smell the ocean under the Golden Gate bridge. Even though the plot was based loosely on historical fact, I found myself pushing the next page button on my kindle as fast as I could to see what would happen next. The characters almost drew their faces into the sketch artist of my brain. I waited for the bad guys to get their comeuppance and for Hammett to start writing. Every time he coughed up blood from being a "Lunger/TB" case, my heart ached for him. I wanted him to be Sam Spade or Nick Charles but the author did not fall to that temptation to make the writer into a superhero. He regaled us with his exploits, warts and all and thankfully so. Making Hammett into a homogenized Sherlock Holmes would have reduced this page turner into a noir version of Barnaby Jones.

The scenes are vivdly decribed and the characters will be memories long after you've gone on to other books. This one will resonate with you or you haven't been paying attention.

Ace Atkins continues to cultivate his niche in the historical fiction genre following "White Shadow" and "Wicked City" with "Devil's Garden". Historical fiction can be a tough challenge since the reader already knows the story and outcome and the action can get tediously bogged down in technical detail if not restrained by a strong hand. Atkins has grown rapidly as a powerful exponent of fiction wrapped around reality particularly as a consequence of his painstaking research. His work seldom bogs down or gets overwrought and he is a master at fleshing out credible characters.

"Devil's Garden" covers the 1921 manslaughter trial of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, the silent film comedian who was a rival of Charlie Chaplin and a huge success until the infamous trial. Arbuckle was a partier and hedonist who enjoyed his celebrity status and the doors it opened with women, bootleggers, and mobsters. This novel follows a weekend of planned partying in the posh St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco that ended, quite calamitously, with the death of minor film actress, Virginia Rappe. Arbuckle is quickly blamed for her death (which occurred days later)and is indicted for manslaughter when the authorities decided they couldn't prove murder.

Atkins employs future author Dashiell Hammett, who was a pinkerton detective during these years, as the thread that both unifies the story and provides the investigatory interest for the reader. Hammett is hired by the defense to ferret out witnesses and the truth about what happened in Arbuckle's rooms at the St. Francis and, in the process, the reader becomes involved in Hammett's investigatory skills as well as his personal challenges at this stage of his life.

As students of history or movies would expect, "Devil's Garden" is filled with real life characters and celebrities (William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, etc.) who interact with Arbuckle and Hammett and in the process, Atkins fashions a tale that attempts to answer many of the mysteries, incongruencies, and down right outrages of the Arbuckle Trial. Why were the Hearst newspapers so determined to prejudge and convict Arbuckle? What role did Davies play in Arbuckle and Hearst's lives? Why did the San Francisco police and district attorney "rush to judgement" and then ignore evidence. Why were some of Rappe's organs destroyed during her autopsy? And who is the mysterious agent who weaves in and out of the story often crossing swords with Hammett? These are but a few of the juicy tidbits that are revealed in "Devil's Garden", a book I highly recommend to those who enjoy historical fiction--or just plain old noir mysteries.

Fatty Arbunkle was a silent movie comic at the top of the box office when he was accused of murdering a young starlet in a drunken debauch. Sam Hammett (later known as Dashiell) was a Pinkerton operative hired to work on the case. Those two sentences are true. What author Atkins does with them is to develop a marvelous feel for the time, early 1920s, the place, San Francisco, and the characters, real and imaginary.

While the great sad faced comedian had nothing to do with the specific incidents portrayed here, so many of Fatty's best shorts had Keaton in them, that it somehow seems like he should have been mentioned.Be that as it may, this is a very readable and enjoyable look at the particulars of the tragic incident that ended the great silent comedian's film career. The historical characters of William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Dashell Hammett, and of course Arbuckle himself (with a cameo by Charlie Chaplin) are living and breathing souls. Somehow, the portrayal of Arbuckle's being set up and the offered motive didn't quite seem right to me. Be that as it may, this is a must read for film afficianados and for true crime buffs, as well as for those who just enjoy a good book with a factual background. Ace Atkins is showing himself to be a master of novelization of true criminal events and personalities.

This excellent novel is based on historical events and characters that I expect are unknown to or forgotten by many present-day readers. Each of the many characters is more than unique enough that none gets lost in the crowd, and the action in the courtroom and during the investigation by the tubercular Pinkerton agent Sam (Dashiell Hammett) is portrayed in realistic detail.