Solomon's Vineyard
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Narrated by:
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Kevin Kraft
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By:
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Jonathan Latimer
About this listen
Banned from publication in the U.S. due to its mature subject matter, Solomon's Vineyard is a tense, hard-boiled work starring Karl Craven, a non-nonsense guy who predates detectives like Lew Archer and Mike Hammer. Craven is out to rescue a wealthy heiress from a twisted cult. The novel's famous opening passage: "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" - explains why this was too hot for domestic publication. (Initially published in 1941 in the UK, a heavily bowdlerized version came out in the '50s, but the less said about that one the better.)
©1941 Jonathan Latimer. Also published as 'The Fifth Grave'. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Go the f--k to Audible and get this now!
- By Julie W. Capell on 03-22-12
By: Chester Himes
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Koko
- Blue Rose Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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KOKO. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They are Vietnam vets — a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take them from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York.
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7 hours in and I am done
- By bionichands on 01-26-12
By: Peter Straub
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The Monkey's Raincoat
- An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel, Book 1
- By: Robert Crais
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Elvis Cole, L.A. private eye.... He quotes Jiminy Cricket and carries a .38. He's a literate, wisecracking Vietnam vet who is determined never to grow up.
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Slaughtered by sickeningly awful reader
- By Lehua of Pacifica on 06-11-09
By: Robert Crais
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Flood
- A Novel (Burke, Book 1)
- By: Andrew Vachss
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Burke's newest client is a woman named Flood, who has the face of an angel, the body of a high-priced stripper, and the skills of a professional executioner. She wants Burke to find a monster for her - so she can kill him with her bare hands. In this thriller, Andrew Vachss's renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child's murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements.
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Noir!
- By Snoodely on 03-06-14
By: Andrew Vachss
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Cop Hater
- 87th Precinct Series, Book 1
- By: Ed McBain
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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When a sniper begins gunning down cops from the 87th Precinct in cold blood, it’s up to Detective Steve Carella to solve the case. With three cops already dead, Carella delves into the city’s underworld to search for the killer.
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Dang, it's about time for the 87th Precinct
- By Eric J. Toll on 05-17-14
By: Ed McBain
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Bloodsucking Fiends
- A Love Story
- By: Christopher Moore
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A striking red-head, 20-something Jody is attacked and transformed into a vampire while walking home one night in downtown San Francisco. Befriending 19-year-old Tommy, Jody tries to understand her new undead life, but trouble finds her when the cops start suspecting Tommy of being a local bloodsucking serial killer.
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Bloodsucking FUN!
- By SHEILA on 10-02-08
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The Eighth Commandment
- By: Lawrence Sanders
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gibel
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Damaretion, the prized Greek coin from Archibald Havistock's collection, disappears and appraiser Mary Lou "Dunk" Bateson comes under suspicion, Bateson, a cop, and an insurance investigator set out to solve the crime.
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It was a nice listen
- By John on 10-01-12
By: Lawrence Sanders
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The 42nd Parallel
- By: John Dos Passos
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This first entry in John Dos Passos's celebrated U.S.A. trilogy paints a grand picture of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century.
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Powerful document of an all-too-familiar past
- By Ryan on 06-01-13
By: John Dos Passos
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The Land Across
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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An American writer of travel guides in need of a new location chooses to travel to a small and obscure Eastern European country. The moment Grafton crosses the border he is in trouble, much more than he could have imagined. His passport is taken by guards, and then he is detained for not having it. He is released into the custody of a family, but is again detained. It becomes evident that there are supernatural agencies at work.
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Give the man a (dead) hand
- By Tango on 11-29-13
By: Gene Wolfe
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The Stand
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 47 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.
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My First Completed Stephen King Novel
- By Meaghan Bynum on 02-20-12
By: Stephen King
What listeners say about Solomon's Vineyard
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael Kentby
- 03-26-14
Classic Pulp Fiction...with a wink and a nudge.
Would you consider the audio edition of Solomon's Vineyard to be better than the print version?
Yes. The book is very "film noir", so it's fun to hear that stylized tone in the narrator's voice. You don't get that from reading a book like this, only from listening to it or watching movies like "The Maltese Falcon". The narrator did a good job capturing the film noir style, which made it more enjoyable than reading it.
Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?
Yes. As the author says in the foreward , "This is a wild one. Maybe the wildest yet. It's got everything in it...". And it's true! Gangsters, a bootleg-running religious cult and ladies of the night. Kidnapping, murder and gun fights. Corruption, S&M and human sacrifice. I think the author's intent was to get every cliche of the Pulp Fiction genre in the book, without appearing cliche. For example, during Prohibition, they start to play craps in the back room or a speakeasy, with the corrupt police chief a player among others, and Karl makes a big deal out of calling the house out of their crooked game with rigged dice, just to impress the local redhead Ginger he just me and is trying to make, Then the local gangster, who is Ginger's boyfriend comes in and bitch slaps Karl and humiliates him in front of Ginger. The whole thing is so trite, it's funny when you think about it. But it reads like a drama, it doesn't make you roll your eyes. In fact It's great fun to see how this out of town Private Investigator is going to solve all the crimes and come out clean. It kept me on the edge of my seat as all the subplots converged in a dramatic finale that showed our man, Karl Craven, was the smartest man in the room all along.
Which character – as performed by Kevin Kraft – was your favorite?
Karl Craven (and all the many believable female voices Kraft created for Karl's numerous amorous encounters.) Karl was at once brave and foolish, both masculine and ridiculous. A loner and a self-proclaimed ladies man, he struggles with eating to much, and seems almost oblivious about his massive weight ("The scale said 240. That was about 20 pounds too much"). Full of street smarts, his own common sense sometimes seems ridiculous. For example, when a girl tells Karl that he is tough, Karl says "that's cause I was in the army". LOL. An edgy man with a honest conscience, he is still a product of his time (and perhaps his profession) and is slightly racist, as when he refers to the hotel porter as a "negro" or as he talks about his recently murdered partner: "Oke Johnson was the smartest Sweede I knew." And then shortly after, true to his contradictory style, he calls him a "dumb Sweede"! Karl is so infatuated with himself and what he does that he reads G-man comic books. And he hates the goody-goody Boy Scout type Agents, but loves the "wonderful" G man who's always rescuing his girl from the gangsters. Karl is like a perpetual adolescent. He says almost forgivingly forthright about his feelings, like "I decided I would kill him when I got through with the job. That made me feel better. " The first time he deals with the local cops he calls them "dumb cops", and when he beats at the salesman who is hitting on a girl in the bar he says "I hate salesman. And cops."
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
I was probably more scared than "moved" in this book. The ending and rescue from the human sacrifice of the religious cult was very exciting. I was full of tension and suspense when the gangsters attack the speakeasy by rolling a flaming car into the speakeasy full of trapped people. This is not an "emotional" book, so I guess the closes thing to being "moved" was being disturbed, as when an innocent girl is beaten to death for "talking" about the corruption.
Any additional comments?
The author, Jonathan Latimer, is a noteworthy Hollywood Screenwriter and crime novelist (google him) who also ghost wrote for those blacklisted during the McCarthy era as well as for the Perry Mason TV shows. In "Solomon's Vineyard", Latimer strikes a very good balance between writing a darn good pulp fiction crime novel with commenting on the genre itself without passing over into parody. The reader (listener) really has to pay attention to catch the subtle jibes the book makes at itself and it's style. For example, I think it's funny that everyone of that era is presumed to know how to play craps. Ginger, a 21-year-old girl at best from the mid-west, seems to know all about how to play craps. And Karl knows how to spot rigged dice and makes a big display out of it. The gangster in this book, Pug Banta, is described as having long arms, short legs and club foot, but has Ginger as his girl, one of the prettiest girls in town. I mean, a club foot? It's practically comical! But never for a second does Latimer denigrate the genre with his insightful pokes.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jon Koons
- 02-14-23
Engaging Story Well Read
This book is an early entry into the 'hard-boiled detective' genre, and provides an interesting perspective of the 1940's. This racy and often brutal novel, well written by Jonathan Latimer, caused quite a stir when it was released. The tale of crime and passion is expertly narrated by Kevin Kraft. His narration style is a perfect compliment to the genre, and he creates believable characterizations, appropriate amounts of excitement during scenes of action and violence, and just the right touch for the racier bits. This is a good listen for any fan of the rough-and-tumble world of the private dick.
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