Jonathan Latimer Biography and List of Works

American hard-boiled mystery writer, noted for his Bill Crane series, described as an "alcoholic private detective", but who represents more accurately the "screwball-comedy" school of the 1930s mystery fiction. Latimer wrote screenplays; most noteworthy is script for Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key. Without a serious commitment to the hard-boiled mystery genre, Latimer produced splendid private eye stories, which today still provide fresh and lively reading.

Jonathan Wyatt Latimer was born in Chicago, and named for an ancestor who served on George Washington's staff during the Revolutionary War. He was educated at Arizona's Mesa School and at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. From 1930 to 1933 he worked for the Herald-Examiner (later Chicago Tribune), and in the late 1930s he began screenwriting career, making scripts among others for the Lone Wolf and Charlie Chan series.

MURDER IN THE MADHOUSE (1935) was Latimer's first novel, in which the protagonist was the hard-drinking William Crane, an operative for a New York-based detective agency headed by a man named Colonel Black. "He felt very pleased he had fooled them into thinking he was drunk... He carried out his role so thoroughly he had to be helped into the phone booth..." Latimer admitted, that his intention was to kid the hard-boiled school of writing. He felt, that Sam Spade was "a pretty deadly serious guy." Crane series turned out to be very popular - three of the books were made into films in the late 1930s with Preston Foster as Crane. After five books Latimer abandoned his hero. "I just got kind of bored with him," he later explained.

During World War two Latimer served in the United States navy (1942- 45). Latimer then settled in La Jolla, California, where he later became friends with Raymond Chandler. He was a successful television writer, writing some fifty episodes for the Perry Mason TVC series (1960-65). Among the twenty films he scripted were TOPPER RETURNS (1941), THE BIG CLOCK (1947), and THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948). Latimer died on June 23, 1983.

Bill Crane is a young, handsome, and tough private detective, who spends most of his cases drinking or suffering in a hangover. Crane's taste in spirits includes martinis, bastardies, champagne, bourbon, whiskey, and absinthe - he is eager to gulp almost anything, and he also gets drunk. Despite the bottle, Crane is smart enough to solve his cases, which are borrowed from the classic whodunit. In Murder in the Madhouse the hero presented himself at a lunatic asylum as C. Auguste Dupin. Four other adventures of Crane and his drinking buddies, Doc Williams and Tom O'Malley, followed: HEADED FOR A HEARSE (1936), in which Crane is in race with the clock to establish a condemned man's innocence before he is sent to the electric chair, THE LADY IN THE MORGUE (1936), THE DEAD DON'T CARE (1938) and RED GARDENIAS (1939), in which Crane is paired with Ann Fortune, his boss's niece, as a reminiscent of Hammet's Nick and Nora Charles. SOLOMON'S VINEYARD, which was written in 1941, appeared under the title FIFTH GRAVE in 1950. Now Crane is married and retired - so Karl Craven solves the murder of his partner. Other later novels include SINNERS AND SHROUDS (1955) and BLACK IS THE FASHION FOR DYING (1959), a story of the murder of an unpleasant Hollywood star. The hero is Richard Blake, Latimer's alter ego. - See also "hard-boiled" mystery writers: Horace McCoy, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane

Bill Crane films: The Westland Case (1937), dir. by Christy Cabanne, based on the novel Headed for a Hearse; The Lady in the Morgue (1938), dir. by Otis Garrett; The Last Warning (1938), dir. by Al Rogell, based on the novel The Dead Don't Care.

For further reading: Encyclopaedia of Mystery and Detection, ed. by Otto Penzler and Chris Steinbrunner (1976); Jonathan Latimer's William Crane - Part Two by Jim Mc Cahery (in The Not So Private Eye, no. 2/1978); Jonathan W. Latimer: An Interview by Jim Mc Cahery (in Megavore, no. 11/1980); Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, ed. by John M. Reilly (1985); The American Private Eye by David Geherin (1985); Encyclopaedia Mysteriosa by William L. DeAndrea (1994)

Screenplays:

Murder in the Madhouse, (1935)
Headed for a Hearse, (1935)
The Lady in the Morgue, (1936)
The Search for My Great Uncle's Head, (1937)
The Dead Don't Care, (1938)
Red Gardenias, (1939)
Dark Memory, (1940)
Solomon's Vineyard, (1941)
The Fifth Grave, (1950)
Sinners and Shrouds, (1955)
Black is the Fashion for Dying, (1959)
THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT, (1939)
PHANTOM RIDERS, (1940)
TOPPER RETURNS, (1941)
A NIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS, (1941)
THE GLASS KEY, (1942)
WHISTLING IN DIXIE, (1942)
THE WON'T BELIEVE ME, (1946)
NOCTURNE, (1946)
THE BIG CLOCK, (1194)
SEALED VERDICT, (1948)
BEYOND GLORY, (1948)
THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES, (1948)
ALIAS NICK BEAL, (1949)
COPPER CANYON, (1950)
THE REDHEAD AND THE COWBOY, (1951)
SUBMARINE COMMAND, (1951)
BOTANY BAY, (1953)
PLUNDER OF THE SUN, (1953)
BACK FROM ETERNITY, (1956)
THE UNHOLY WIFE, (1957)
THE WHOLE TRUTH, (1958)