Reviews for Solomon's Vineyard

The average rating for Solomon's Vineyard based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-07-26 00:00:00 Tommy Morgan The best hardboiled detective novel you've probably never heard of, Solomon's Vineyard was published in Britain in 1941, but never issued in unexpurgated form in its author's native U.S.A. until 1988. As Detective Karl Craven tells us in his brief introduction: "This is a wild one. . . it's got everything but an abortion and a tornado." Does it ever. It begins like classic Hammett (a wandering daughter job, a murdered partner, "Red Harvest" style intrigue), gradually transforms into Chandler baroque, and then--three-quarters of the way through--metamorphoses again, this time into "The Arabian Nights" Mike Hammer style: a crypt crammed with gold and jewels revealed to our hero by a hot blonde called "The Princess," who is very into very rough sex. Want to hear more? It also features: a razor-wielding negro bouncer in a bordello, a brother mourning his sister who, when reckless with grief, fires randomly into a steam room, a black-robed assassin, a roadhouse shoot-out which ends with an exploding car, and a religious cult grown rich on bootleg hootch that still has time for human sacrifice and purchases of large lots of rotting meat. Plus a dash of necrophilia and (well, kind of) the resurrection of the dead. I couldn't decide whether this was the sleaziest great detective novel I'd ever read, or just the greatest sleazy detective novel I'd ever read, so I erred on the side of caution and gave it four stars. Then I thought about it for three years, and one day said to myself: what the hell, give it five.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-08-30 00:00:00 Dalal Almansour [Okay, it's probably unlikely your mom was screaming "Hit me! Hit me!" when you were conceived, but you never know. . . (hide spoiler)]