What do you think?
The Fifth Grave: The Unexpurgated Text
A detective finds nothing but trouble when he hits town to rescue a young woman from a religious cult only to find that his partner has been murdered. Several different versions of this book have been published over the years. This is the definitive unexpurgated edition, reprinted under the American―and the author’s preferred―title.
- GenresMystery
218 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
About the author
Jonathan Latimer
42 books34 followersJonathan Latimer was born in Chicago on 23rd October 1906. His main series character was the private investigator Bill Crane. An important character in the development of the hard boiled genre. A notable title is Solomon's Vineyard, the controversy over the content saw the US publication delayed by nine years. The author later concentrated on screen plays and also worked for five years on the Perry Mason television series.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 12, 2017
12/19/17
This is a wonderful book. Short, tight, very dark... about a cult... with terrific action scenes. It was written in 1941, but not published due to its scandalous nature. Eventually it was out in edited form (presumably without the nudity and rough sex). My copy is a paperback I bought new in 2006. And, yes, the myriad of typos is astounding. I take it the book was public domain and this is a poorly scanned copy.
12/12/17
I read this before some 11 years ago, and i still have the book. I remember nothing, but that the trade-size paperback has typos in it. I had found one of Latimer's Bill Crane novels at a thrift store (The Dead Don't Care), loved it, and this is why I bought this. Time to read them both again, or at least this one...
This is a wonderful book. Short, tight, very dark... about a cult... with terrific action scenes. It was written in 1941, but not published due to its scandalous nature. Eventually it was out in edited form (presumably without the nudity and rough sex). My copy is a paperback I bought new in 2006. And, yes, the myriad of typos is astounding. I take it the book was public domain and this is a poorly scanned copy.
12/12/17
I read this before some 11 years ago, and i still have the book. I remember nothing, but that the trade-size paperback has typos in it. I had found one of Latimer's Bill Crane novels at a thrift store (The Dead Don't Care), loved it, and this is why I bought this. Time to read them both again, or at least this one...
June 14, 2023
Latimer wrote five detective novels about PI William Crane in the 1930s, prior to this standalone novel that was originally released in 1941 as Solomon’s Vineyard in the UK. Judged too graphic for the American market, it didn’t appear stateside until 1950 as The Fifth Grave. Stark House went back to the original for their reprint, hence “the unexpurgated text” notation on the front cover.
The expulsions were violence and sex, both deemed too graphic for the 1940s US market. Indeed, the book opens with this provocation:
“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.”
It might’ve still been expunged today, but for slightly different offenses. On the violent side of things, the offense is violence against an woman, but it this case she’s asking for it:
“I put my arm around her and tried to kiss her lips. She wouldn’t let me. Anywhere else, but not her lips. It was damn queer. I tried again, and we struggled. She began to pant.
“‘Hit me,’ she said. ‘Hit me!’”
Karl Craven and Oke Johnson are PIs—partners—that is, until Johnson gets himself killed working a case that Craven is now compelled to resolve. “Penelope Grayson was thin and blonde and almost beautiful.” Johnson was hired by her uncle to rescue her from a religious cult, now Craven’s problem. And he’d like to settle the score on who murdered his partner as well.
“It all came back to something I’d figured out about the detective business. There were two ways to go along: underground or on top. I never found out which was best. Underground you had the element of surprise on your side, but it was harder to move around. On top you went everywhere, taking cracks at everybody, and everybody taking cracks at you. You had to be tough to play it that way. Well, I was tough.”
So Craven play it tough, nosing in where he isn’t wanted; making enemies of most of the men he encounters and impressing the women along his way with his bravado and sometimes overconfidence. He takes the bumps and bruises in stride and keeps pushing against the resistance until he finally shakes loose the answers he’s due.
Latimer rewards fans of hardboiled diction with scintillating prose, gripping mysteries, and stimulating action. A first-rate, five-star adventure!
The expulsions were violence and sex, both deemed too graphic for the 1940s US market. Indeed, the book opens with this provocation:
“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.”
It might’ve still been expunged today, but for slightly different offenses. On the violent side of things, the offense is violence against an woman, but it this case she’s asking for it:
“I put my arm around her and tried to kiss her lips. She wouldn’t let me. Anywhere else, but not her lips. It was damn queer. I tried again, and we struggled. She began to pant.
“‘Hit me,’ she said. ‘Hit me!’”
Karl Craven and Oke Johnson are PIs—partners—that is, until Johnson gets himself killed working a case that Craven is now compelled to resolve. “Penelope Grayson was thin and blonde and almost beautiful.” Johnson was hired by her uncle to rescue her from a religious cult, now Craven’s problem. And he’d like to settle the score on who murdered his partner as well.
“It all came back to something I’d figured out about the detective business. There were two ways to go along: underground or on top. I never found out which was best. Underground you had the element of surprise on your side, but it was harder to move around. On top you went everywhere, taking cracks at everybody, and everybody taking cracks at you. You had to be tough to play it that way. Well, I was tough.”
So Craven play it tough, nosing in where he isn’t wanted; making enemies of most of the men he encounters and impressing the women along his way with his bravado and sometimes overconfidence. He takes the bumps and bruises in stride and keeps pushing against the resistance until he finally shakes loose the answers he’s due.
Latimer rewards fans of hardboiled diction with scintillating prose, gripping mysteries, and stimulating action. A first-rate, five-star adventure!
October 2, 2019
This book was written in 1941 by American writer Jonathan Latimer. The book was originally called Solomon’s Vineyard. It has been banned from publication in the US for years and was only available in the UK. In 2014, it was published in the US under the name The Fifth Grave. Goodreads users would find plenty of reviews of this book under the Solomon’s Vineyard title.
This is a very well written fast paced classic hard-boiled mystery with some unique twists like a religious cult, human sacrifice, kinky sex, revenge, a small town taken over by gangsters as well as plenty of violence. The story is about a tough guy private eye from St. Louis, Karl Craven, who was hired to go to a small Missouri town called Paulson to rescue his wealthy client’s niece Penelope Grayson from the cult she was in. The huge compound of the cult is called Solomon’s Vineyard. The cult is also behind the local mob operations. After a lot of fighting, investigating, double crossing and legwork, Craven was able to uncover the secret of the cult and saved Penelope in the nick of time, right before she was killed for some religious and sex ritual.
This is a very well written fast paced classic hard-boiled mystery with some unique twists like a religious cult, human sacrifice, kinky sex, revenge, a small town taken over by gangsters as well as plenty of violence. The story is about a tough guy private eye from St. Louis, Karl Craven, who was hired to go to a small Missouri town called Paulson to rescue his wealthy client’s niece Penelope Grayson from the cult she was in. The huge compound of the cult is called Solomon’s Vineyard. The cult is also behind the local mob operations. After a lot of fighting, investigating, double crossing and legwork, Craven was able to uncover the secret of the cult and saved Penelope in the nick of time, right before she was killed for some religious and sex ritual.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2025
3.75 rounded up.
Enjoyable yarn that will keep one entertained for two or three days. The prose is spare, clear, and tells its story in no more than 200 fast moving pages.
PI Karl Craven has arrived in a small town during the hot summer of 1940 to rescue a young lady from a strange religious cult that has been set up not far from there. His client is determined to get his niece back and won't stop hounding Craven until mission accomplished.
Craven finds this task a little harder than expected, as the lady he meets there is not willing to leave.
He also finds that a colleague who was also sent on the case has now been murdered. So, he has double the amount of work on hand - who killed his colleague, and why?
The plot gets more intriguing as we meet a cast of characters who populate the town - corrupt cop, a lawyer who may be more than he first appears to be, a thug gangster who has business interests with the cult and the gangsters' girls, of course. Perhaps the most intriguing lady in the book is Princess, who works at the cult site. A kinky lady with rough desires who is likely to be a rather dangerous lady for any man to get too involved with.
Overall, a fun entertaining read. While tame enough now, it's easy to see why censors wanted edits made before publication. There are plenty of fights, punch-ups, shootouts, as one would expect from a book like this. The cult site - known as Solomon's Vineyard - is as corrupt as a place can be, dealing with many vices and somewhat dubious or gross religious practices.
To say more will mean entering spoiler territory, those who decide to read the book will find out if PI Karl can rescue his lady and manage to get out of that town alive.
Enjoyable yarn that will keep one entertained for two or three days. The prose is spare, clear, and tells its story in no more than 200 fast moving pages.
PI Karl Craven has arrived in a small town during the hot summer of 1940 to rescue a young lady from a strange religious cult that has been set up not far from there. His client is determined to get his niece back and won't stop hounding Craven until mission accomplished.
Craven finds this task a little harder than expected, as the lady he meets there is not willing to leave.
He also finds that a colleague who was also sent on the case has now been murdered. So, he has double the amount of work on hand - who killed his colleague, and why?
The plot gets more intriguing as we meet a cast of characters who populate the town - corrupt cop, a lawyer who may be more than he first appears to be, a thug gangster who has business interests with the cult and the gangsters' girls, of course. Perhaps the most intriguing lady in the book is Princess, who works at the cult site. A kinky lady with rough desires who is likely to be a rather dangerous lady for any man to get too involved with.
Overall, a fun entertaining read. While tame enough now, it's easy to see why censors wanted edits made before publication. There are plenty of fights, punch-ups, shootouts, as one would expect from a book like this. The cult site - known as Solomon's Vineyard - is as corrupt as a place can be, dealing with many vices and somewhat dubious or gross religious practices.
To say more will mean entering spoiler territory, those who decide to read the book will find out if PI Karl can rescue his lady and manage to get out of that town alive.
August 2, 2025
Wow. I can see why the US publication was delayed by nine years over its content. For 1941, this is a bit rough. Not that things like this didn't happen, but it wasn't common knowledge. People like to think things like this never happen, that they couldn't happen. They have faith in society. Which is fine, if everyone else feels the same way, but many people are not just asocial, but antisocial. They have no moral compass, no feelings of belonging to a society where people look out for each other, and would never want to hurt anyone. That's the ideal, anyway. For some reason or another, people get that way, but some are born that way, completely cut off from society, from other people, and from caring what happens to anyone but themselves. And a few are bat-shit crazy. All of those are the people private detective Karl Craven has to deal with in this story, and there are a lot of them. Craven, despite the name, is not one of them. He is not the best of men, but he has a job to do, and nothing is going to stop him. It's a rescue, and he cares about the result. More than that, he has to save her life, even if she doesn't care. Along the way, he finds out more than he ever wants to know, including about himself. Violence claims many people, but a few are saved. All is well. Hah!
December 22, 2024
I stumbled across publisher Black gat Books website last month and decided to try a few books. The Fifth Grave struck me as particularly intriguing and I'm glad I picked it up. It's a terrific slice of hardboiled detective fiction from 1941 and it rips along at a rapid pace from start to finish. The protagonist, Karl Craven is, as you might expect, a hard-drinking tough guy who comes to town and goes about his business like the proverbial bull in a china shop. He's memorable if not exactly admirable but that's part of what makes this novel so effective.
Latimer's terse, clipped writing style perfectly suits the genre and he keeps you turning the pages and the plot, involving a girl Craven needs to extricate from a cult, is engaging. I found this one hard to put down. Highly recommended.
Latimer's terse, clipped writing style perfectly suits the genre and he keeps you turning the pages and the plot, involving a girl Craven needs to extricate from a cult, is engaging. I found this one hard to put down. Highly recommended.
November 23, 2020
The main character is not a likeable person. In addition the plot is poor but at least the writing is fine. Lately I've been relying on far too many reviews from newsletters I subscribe to and this was another let down.
August 18, 2020
I liked it. A fun, quick, raunchy noire.
September 2, 2025
A wild ride with the brutality of Mickey Spillane.
Want to Read
April 21, 2019Synopsis: PI Karl Craven didn’t ask for trouble in Paulton, MI, but it found him. His partner was shot and there were two femme fatales.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews