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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rollicking fun in the depression era.,
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This review is from: Headed for a Hearse (Library of Crime Classics) (Paperback)
Jonathan Latimer is one of the lesser know great detective genre writers from the 30's and 40's. This is a shame, since he deserves to be better known. HEADED FOR A HEARSE was his second novel, and like the first (MURDER IN THE MADHOUSE) it starred an alcoholic, wise cracking Private Eye named Bill Crane. Despite drinking enough to kill a lesser man, Crane usually found time to use what brain cells were left to him to figure out complex, mysterious crimes, and to flirt with the "usual suspects".In this second of what would be a series of novels, Crane is hired by a millionaire on death row to try to prove his innocence. The only problem is that there are only six days left till convicted wife murderer Robert Westland is scheduled to go to the chair, along with two very different men in the cells adjoining his. The case seems open and shut, involving as it does evidence proving that Westland was at his wife's apartment (they were separated and in the process of divorcing) around the time of her murder, a weapon just like one he owns was the murder weapon, and the body was found in a locked room and he's the only person other than his wife known to own a key! Latimer had great fun with Crane and the host of suspects and characters involved in this almost week long excursion of broads, booze, smart aleck comments, and sleuthing in the bars and mean streets of Chicago. I guarantee that you the reader will have fun too. The only drawback is that the book was written in the non politically correct 30's and contains some racial epithets and stereotypes. If you can get past that then I strongly suggest getting a copy and making the acquaintance of Bill Crane. Five stars for humor, well drawn out mystery, and all around fun.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Screwball Comedy/Mystery,
By
This review is from: Headed for a Hearse (Library of Crime Classics) (Paperback)
Jonathan Latimer was a reporter with Chicago Herald Examiner in the thirties before publishing this first novel in 1935. The central character is Bill Crane, an operative with a detective agency in Chicago. There are 4 other Bill Crane books by Latimer, all of them hilarious. Crane has to be the hardest drinking private dick in the history of literature, even surpassing Hammett's Nick Charles. This whole series is a screwball comedy lover's dream. Hearse follows the efforts of Crane and his cronies to save an innocent man on death row with only twenty-four hours until the execution (and for Crane, that's a lot of drinking!). Latimer is superb at mixing comedy, suspense and pathos. This is a great first novel.
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