 Bad news. Your husband refused to pay the ransom. He also wanted me to tell you it's not you, it's him. 
A while back we moved Jonathan Latimer from the decent bin to the mandatory bin off the back of his crazy thriller Solomon's Vineyard. We're returning him to the decent bin. The Dead Don't Care is an okay book, but not top notch. Latimer wrote it in 1938, and it was the fourth entry in a detective franchise starring a boozy dick named Bill Crane, and an equally boozy sidekick named Thomas O'Malley. The two engage in such shenanigans as ordering double-triple bourbons and generally pickling their livers at every opportunity—which we totally respect‚ but the actual mystery, divorced from its comedic elements, is overly talky and populated by characters that tend to blend after a while. Basically, Crane and O'Malley are called in when an upper crust woman is kidnapped, and someone is murdered. As usual in such books, the first murder isn't the last, and the second killing provides key clues to finally unmasking the eventual culprit. In all, it was meh. But it did well enough to spawn a film adaptation, 1938's The Last Warning, which we may watch at some point. We're in no way discouraged by The Dead Don't Care. We already know Latimer can write. But it isn't surprising he'd run into problems four entries into a series that would peter out after one more outing. We'll move on to his other books and do so eagerly. This MacFadden-Bartell paperback came in 1964, and the cover art is by Robert Schulz.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
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