 First edition | |
| Author | Jonathan Latimer |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Galdone |
| Language | English |
| Series | Bill Crane series |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | 1936 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 246 pp (paperback edition) |
The Lady in the Morgue (1936) is one of the novels by Jonathan Latimer featuring private detective William Crane. The lady of the title is a female corpse which is stolen from a Chicago morgue before the dead woman's identity can be established.
The book is to a large extent a send-up of the hardboiled school of crime writing. Crane is depicted as an ambivalent figure. Although he is tough and eventually solves the case through reasoning and cunning strategy, he is also a heavy drinker and ever so often prefers taking a nap to investigating the crime for which he has been hired. On the other hand, he is not afraid to deal with gangsters when he believes this might help him clear up the mystery.
Historians Robert A. Baker and Michael T. Nietzel describe The Lady in the Morgue as Latimer's "masterpiece" and "as funny and bizarre as a Marx Brothers comedy."[1]
- ^ Baker, Robert A. and Michael T. Nietzel. Private Eyes: One Hundred and One Knights : a Survey of American Detective Fiction 1922-1984. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1985. p 101. Accessed 13 February 2018.