What do you think?
Rate this book
The Adventures of Latimer Field, Curate
Latimer Field, humble curate of St Mary's Church in the sleepy English town of Banfield enjoys his work curing souls and preaching sermons. But when his keen sense of justice leads to an altercation with a burglar, he finds himself thrown into a world of crime and villainy! In these twelve tales, Field finds himself tackling all manner of disturbances of the peace, from anarchist plots to stolen government secrets; gypsy curses to apparently haunted houses. Originally published in 1903, these vintage Edwardian crime stories are available once more for modern readers to rediscover in this new digital edition.
135 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 21, 2019
17 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2026
Heroism isn't the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
God bless anthologies. I learn about authors I would miss otherwise.
I encountered Silas Hocking in "Detection by Gaslight." This book is in Blackheath Classics, the poor relation of the British Library Crime Classics. Silas Hocking was a Cornwall native, the son of a tin mine owner, and a Methodist minister. He had a long, white beard and a serious expression. If you can imagine God in a three-piece suit, you've got it.
He was a successful writer in his day, cranking out religious novels and kiddie-lit. As far as I can tell, this was his only mystery and his detective is a most unlikely character. Incidentally, Silas was a friend of Arthur Conan Doyle and claimed the two men met in Switzerland, where Conan Doyle complained about begin tired of Sherlock Holmes. Hocking suggested Conan Doyle bring his detective to the Swiss alps and toss him down a crevass. The rest is history.
Their creators may have been BFF's, but Latimer Field is as far from Conan Doyle's arrogant, fearless detective as it gets. He admits to being a great coward, physically weak and extremely nervous. Even a good ghost story is enough to make him sleep with the lights on. Yet he's prone to dangerous adventures and always manages to acquit himself well.
He's a curate (sort of an associate pastor) in the small town of Banfield. He lives on a tiny salary, performs whatever tasks the vicar doesn't want to do, and hopes someday to have his own church and be able to marry. Meanwhile, he rooms at the boarding house of Miss Pinskill, where he meets the man who will be the source of several of his adventures - Mr Ball.
We never learn Mr Ball's first name. It was a formal time when women addressed good friends by their Christian names, but men used last names. Mr Ball is an active, outgoing young man - charming, friendly, physically fit and always ready for a dust-up. He might get one because the town has had a rash of burglaries and everyone is on edge.
The gang leader may not be a criminal mastermind, but he's smarter than the local police and arranges for them to be on the opposite end of town from the house being burglarized. Latimer feels sorry for those who've lost valuable items, but his main feeling is relief that when Miss Pinskill's house is burglarized the gang escapes without him seeing them. He has nothing of value to lose, but he knows he'd be terrified if he faced a burglar.
Mr Ball (in Banfield for a month of rest) attempts to capture the burglars himself, but without result. In the end, it's Latimer Field who catches the chief burglar and it's a someone no one ever suspected. The cowardly curate tackles the burglar, getting shot in the process, and meeting Miss Mabel Rutherford, a lovely young woman - the kind of girl he'd like to marry, if he could afford a wife.
The burglar escapes, but it won't be the last time he tangles with Latimer Field. The next adventure comes when strangers rent an isolated house on the river. Field wonders why the elderly father and his beautiful daughter want to stay in such a lonely spot. He also wonders why they have so many men coming and going. When he finds out, they imprison him and threaten him with death. They're revolutionaries on a mission and they don't intend for a curate to stop them.
Once Field realizes what that mission is, he must stop them, even at the risk of his life. It's his duty as a patriotic Englishman and a man who values political stability. He's not strong or brave, but he's resourceful when he has to be. Once, again, he outwits the criminal. When in trouble, he prays for help, but he believes the old saying "The Lord helps those who help themself."
His third adventure comes when he's invited north for the wedding of his cousin. He's disappointed she's jilted a friend of his to marry a wealthy stranger and decides to skip the wedding. When a gypsy woman warns him to avoid the mountainous north, he assures her he has no intention of travelling.
Then he changes his mind, goes to the wedding, and an attempt is made against his life. The "wealthy stranger" is an old friend of his and not very happy to see him. While recovering from injuries suffered in that meeting, he's introduced to a puzzler by the young doctor who's treating a young woman for a mysterious illness. Her father (a medic himself) claims to know the cause of the girl's ailment and says nothing can be done. Both Field and the doctor are surprised the father is so willing to give up his daughter's life without a fight.
Then they learn he's a not her father, but her step-father. Apparently, step-fathers can be just as evil as step-mothers and in this case there's a large fortune at stake. Can they get the poor girl away from danger in time to save her life?
There's a story about two young men, rivals for the same girl, who are as different as chalk and cheese. One can do no wrong and the other can do no right. It seems like the girl should have no trouble deciding between them, but she sees something others are missing. As any clergyman can tell you, people aren't always what they seem.
Benji Jenkins is the son of a widow who keeps her little boy very close to her. Too close, according to many on-lookers, who believe the boy should go to school and "toughen up." His mother refuses and Benji himself prefers to go his own way. He has decided opinions about the closeness of heaven, particularly after his mother's sudden death. Even Latimer Field isn't able to prevent their reunion.
Then Latimer goes to visit his wealthy uncle who's entered politics. Important government plans are missing (as they always ARE when an official takes them home with him.) Uncle knows Latimer as an amateur detective and wants him to get those plans back. Latimer is suspicious of his uncle's secretary, but his uncle refuses to consider that possibility. Latimer is puzzled by his uncle's stubbornness and also that his uncle's hard-of-hearing butler is strangely familiar.
Old "friends" meet again. One earns a large reward for the return of the precious plans and the other loses his life.
While he's visiting his uncle, he meets another stern, self-made man. His two daughters have failed to make the brilliant marriages he expected and been banished from his sight. Now his hopes rest with his son. The father earned the money to get them into high society, but his Oxford-educated son must marry well to move the family into the aristocracy. The son has another girl picked out and (once again) the angry father shows one of his children the door. Only a serious illness and a pretty nurse bring about their reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Latimer Field is astonished to learn he's gained a reputation as a fine preacher and is invited to preach or make speaches all over England. His vicar is agreeable and the money he receives is welcome. On one trip, he's hosted by an eccentric gentleman who has only one weakness - diamonds. Several guests have had diamond jewelry stolen while staying in his house and the old man is determined to have a maid arrested. Latimer persuades him to wait. Then the detective-curate borrows a diamond ring from his uncle and sits up at night to see what happens. No one is more surprised than the real thief when Latimer solves the mystery.
On a speaking trip to Cornwall, he's approached by a gypsy lad whose father is dying and needs a clergyman. It turns out to be a trap. The sister of his old nemesis is seeking revenge for the death of her brother, which she blames on Latimer. Can he escape the woman and her husband?
In the final story, Latimer learns the truth of the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished." He's performed a generous act, but the beneficiary is anything but grateful. Once again he finds himself in danger of being murdered. He escapes, but with a serious illness that may mean his death.
You have to like old mysteries (which I do) but I think Silas Hocking created a unique detective. Most writers strive to create a detective who fits the mold - bold, brave, and swaggering. It's harder when the hero is a humble man who falls apart at the thought of danger, but who always rises to the occasion. I doubt Hocking could have gone on with the series (as his friend Conan Doyle was forced to do) without it becoming absurd, but these twelve stories are a fascinating look at the world's least likely hero. I enjoyed it.
God bless anthologies. I learn about authors I would miss otherwise.
I encountered Silas Hocking in "Detection by Gaslight." This book is in Blackheath Classics, the poor relation of the British Library Crime Classics. Silas Hocking was a Cornwall native, the son of a tin mine owner, and a Methodist minister. He had a long, white beard and a serious expression. If you can imagine God in a three-piece suit, you've got it.
He was a successful writer in his day, cranking out religious novels and kiddie-lit. As far as I can tell, this was his only mystery and his detective is a most unlikely character. Incidentally, Silas was a friend of Arthur Conan Doyle and claimed the two men met in Switzerland, where Conan Doyle complained about begin tired of Sherlock Holmes. Hocking suggested Conan Doyle bring his detective to the Swiss alps and toss him down a crevass. The rest is history.
Their creators may have been BFF's, but Latimer Field is as far from Conan Doyle's arrogant, fearless detective as it gets. He admits to being a great coward, physically weak and extremely nervous. Even a good ghost story is enough to make him sleep with the lights on. Yet he's prone to dangerous adventures and always manages to acquit himself well.
He's a curate (sort of an associate pastor) in the small town of Banfield. He lives on a tiny salary, performs whatever tasks the vicar doesn't want to do, and hopes someday to have his own church and be able to marry. Meanwhile, he rooms at the boarding house of Miss Pinskill, where he meets the man who will be the source of several of his adventures - Mr Ball.
We never learn Mr Ball's first name. It was a formal time when women addressed good friends by their Christian names, but men used last names. Mr Ball is an active, outgoing young man - charming, friendly, physically fit and always ready for a dust-up. He might get one because the town has had a rash of burglaries and everyone is on edge.
The gang leader may not be a criminal mastermind, but he's smarter than the local police and arranges for them to be on the opposite end of town from the house being burglarized. Latimer feels sorry for those who've lost valuable items, but his main feeling is relief that when Miss Pinskill's house is burglarized the gang escapes without him seeing them. He has nothing of value to lose, but he knows he'd be terrified if he faced a burglar.
Mr Ball (in Banfield for a month of rest) attempts to capture the burglars himself, but without result. In the end, it's Latimer Field who catches the chief burglar and it's a someone no one ever suspected. The cowardly curate tackles the burglar, getting shot in the process, and meeting Miss Mabel Rutherford, a lovely young woman - the kind of girl he'd like to marry, if he could afford a wife.
The burglar escapes, but it won't be the last time he tangles with Latimer Field. The next adventure comes when strangers rent an isolated house on the river. Field wonders why the elderly father and his beautiful daughter want to stay in such a lonely spot. He also wonders why they have so many men coming and going. When he finds out, they imprison him and threaten him with death. They're revolutionaries on a mission and they don't intend for a curate to stop them.
Once Field realizes what that mission is, he must stop them, even at the risk of his life. It's his duty as a patriotic Englishman and a man who values political stability. He's not strong or brave, but he's resourceful when he has to be. Once, again, he outwits the criminal. When in trouble, he prays for help, but he believes the old saying "The Lord helps those who help themself."
His third adventure comes when he's invited north for the wedding of his cousin. He's disappointed she's jilted a friend of his to marry a wealthy stranger and decides to skip the wedding. When a gypsy woman warns him to avoid the mountainous north, he assures her he has no intention of travelling.
Then he changes his mind, goes to the wedding, and an attempt is made against his life. The "wealthy stranger" is an old friend of his and not very happy to see him. While recovering from injuries suffered in that meeting, he's introduced to a puzzler by the young doctor who's treating a young woman for a mysterious illness. Her father (a medic himself) claims to know the cause of the girl's ailment and says nothing can be done. Both Field and the doctor are surprised the father is so willing to give up his daughter's life without a fight.
Then they learn he's a not her father, but her step-father. Apparently, step-fathers can be just as evil as step-mothers and in this case there's a large fortune at stake. Can they get the poor girl away from danger in time to save her life?
There's a story about two young men, rivals for the same girl, who are as different as chalk and cheese. One can do no wrong and the other can do no right. It seems like the girl should have no trouble deciding between them, but she sees something others are missing. As any clergyman can tell you, people aren't always what they seem.
Benji Jenkins is the son of a widow who keeps her little boy very close to her. Too close, according to many on-lookers, who believe the boy should go to school and "toughen up." His mother refuses and Benji himself prefers to go his own way. He has decided opinions about the closeness of heaven, particularly after his mother's sudden death. Even Latimer Field isn't able to prevent their reunion.
Then Latimer goes to visit his wealthy uncle who's entered politics. Important government plans are missing (as they always ARE when an official takes them home with him.) Uncle knows Latimer as an amateur detective and wants him to get those plans back. Latimer is suspicious of his uncle's secretary, but his uncle refuses to consider that possibility. Latimer is puzzled by his uncle's stubbornness and also that his uncle's hard-of-hearing butler is strangely familiar.
Old "friends" meet again. One earns a large reward for the return of the precious plans and the other loses his life.
While he's visiting his uncle, he meets another stern, self-made man. His two daughters have failed to make the brilliant marriages he expected and been banished from his sight. Now his hopes rest with his son. The father earned the money to get them into high society, but his Oxford-educated son must marry well to move the family into the aristocracy. The son has another girl picked out and (once again) the angry father shows one of his children the door. Only a serious illness and a pretty nurse bring about their reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Latimer Field is astonished to learn he's gained a reputation as a fine preacher and is invited to preach or make speaches all over England. His vicar is agreeable and the money he receives is welcome. On one trip, he's hosted by an eccentric gentleman who has only one weakness - diamonds. Several guests have had diamond jewelry stolen while staying in his house and the old man is determined to have a maid arrested. Latimer persuades him to wait. Then the detective-curate borrows a diamond ring from his uncle and sits up at night to see what happens. No one is more surprised than the real thief when Latimer solves the mystery.
On a speaking trip to Cornwall, he's approached by a gypsy lad whose father is dying and needs a clergyman. It turns out to be a trap. The sister of his old nemesis is seeking revenge for the death of her brother, which she blames on Latimer. Can he escape the woman and her husband?
In the final story, Latimer learns the truth of the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished." He's performed a generous act, but the beneficiary is anything but grateful. Once again he finds himself in danger of being murdered. He escapes, but with a serious illness that may mean his death.
You have to like old mysteries (which I do) but I think Silas Hocking created a unique detective. Most writers strive to create a detective who fits the mold - bold, brave, and swaggering. It's harder when the hero is a humble man who falls apart at the thought of danger, but who always rises to the occasion. I doubt Hocking could have gone on with the series (as his friend Conan Doyle was forced to do) without it becoming absurd, but these twelve stories are a fascinating look at the world's least likely hero. I enjoyed it.
August 7, 2024
A composite novel from 1903. The first chapter (“A Perverted Genius”) was anthologized in Douglas Greene's Detection by Gaslight, and I sought out this volume based on it, not because I thought it was particularly interesting as a crime story, but because I thought the narrator was charming. That summary could encompass the entire criminal portion of this collection, really; only one story does something that approaches cleverness (and prefigures a much more famous detective story from about a decade later, Chesterton's ). In fact, there's very little detection at all; Field's modus operandi is dumb luck.
Pivoting towards the positive, I do enjoy the prose (“As a matter of fact, I felt pretty confident that if I found a burglar in my room in the dead of night, I should simply collapse, and let him work his will on me and on my property without the least resistance. I did not feel called upon, however, to say so. A man may be a coward, but he need not tell people. They generally find it out quite soon enough.”), and I find the title character charming; existing outside of the tradition of the Great Detective, he feels like an actual human with the kinds of experiences that would be beneath Sherlock Holmes's dignity, but which his readers can readily recognize and sympathize with (I've never been to a country house, but anyone who's gone to a fishing lodge should sympathize with Field, stuck at dinner with strangers whose conversation is making him miserable; and who hasn't ruined their day by looking up symptoms and convincing themselves that something is seriously wrong with them?)
Although published by “Black Heath Crime Classics,” these are not all crime stories. The best of the non-criminal set is “A Fair Mediator”; it's the sort of story Wodehouse would parody (an old rich dude is angry at his son for wanting to marry a poor but honest woman, things work out in an improbable way), and Field doesn't really do anything useful in it, but I have a soft spot for redemption stories.
Unfortunately, the book is marred by anti-Roma prejudice towards the end. Extremely confused prejudice, I have to say; it turns out that a “gipsy” woman is the sister of the villain of the first story, which suggests that Hocking might not have realized that the Romani are an ethnic group? Because the villain in the first story was definitely intended to be White. I guess it's conceivable that he's thinking of the Irish Travelers, but the sister really plays up the Romani stereotypes with her fortune-telling shtick. What is clear, unfortunately, is that the woman who says that “I mistrust the entire race of gipsies” is proven right by the narrative, and Field's attempt to be kind to a boy of that tribe almost gets him killed. The book is better-hearted in other ways (e.g. in terms of class prejudice), but a sour ending will cast a pall over even an otherwise strong work, and this collection was already teetering on the abyss between two and three stars by the time I got to that part.
Pivoting towards the positive, I do enjoy the prose (“As a matter of fact, I felt pretty confident that if I found a burglar in my room in the dead of night, I should simply collapse, and let him work his will on me and on my property without the least resistance. I did not feel called upon, however, to say so. A man may be a coward, but he need not tell people. They generally find it out quite soon enough.”), and I find the title character charming; existing outside of the tradition of the Great Detective, he feels like an actual human with the kinds of experiences that would be beneath Sherlock Holmes's dignity, but which his readers can readily recognize and sympathize with (I've never been to a country house, but anyone who's gone to a fishing lodge should sympathize with Field, stuck at dinner with strangers whose conversation is making him miserable; and who hasn't ruined their day by looking up symptoms and convincing themselves that something is seriously wrong with them?)
Although published by “Black Heath Crime Classics,” these are not all crime stories. The best of the non-criminal set is “A Fair Mediator”; it's the sort of story Wodehouse would parody (an old rich dude is angry at his son for wanting to marry a poor but honest woman, things work out in an improbable way), and Field doesn't really do anything useful in it, but I have a soft spot for redemption stories.
Unfortunately, the book is marred by anti-Roma prejudice towards the end. Extremely confused prejudice, I have to say; it turns out that a “gipsy” woman is the sister of the villain of the first story, which suggests that Hocking might not have realized that the Romani are an ethnic group? Because the villain in the first story was definitely intended to be White. I guess it's conceivable that he's thinking of the Irish Travelers, but the sister really plays up the Romani stereotypes with her fortune-telling shtick. What is clear, unfortunately, is that the woman who says that “I mistrust the entire race of gipsies” is proven right by the narrative, and Field's attempt to be kind to a boy of that tribe almost gets him killed. The book is better-hearted in other ways (e.g. in terms of class prejudice), but a sour ending will cast a pall over even an otherwise strong work, and this collection was already teetering on the abyss between two and three stars by the time I got to that part.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews