Putnam
April 2009
On Sale: April 2, 2009
Featuring: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle; Dashiell Hammett
368 pages ISBN: 0399155368 EAN: 9780399155369 Hardcover Add to Wish List
From the critically acclaimed, award-nominated author comes a new noir crime classic about one of the most notorious trials in American history.
Critics called Ace Atkinsβs Wicked City βgripping, superbβ (Library Journal), βstunningβ (The Tampa Tribune), βterrificβ (Associated Press), βrivetingβ (Kirkus Reviews), βwicked goodβ (Fort Worth Star-Telegram), and βAtkinsβ best novelβ (The Washington Post). But Devilβs Garden is something else again.
San Francisco, September 1921: Silent-screen comedy star Roscoe βFattyβ Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel: girls, jazz, bootleg hooch . . . and a dead actress named Virginia Rappe. The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed herβcrushing her under his weightβand brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearstβs newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict. But what really happened? Why do so many people at the party seem to have stories that conflict? Why is the prosecution hiding witnesses? Why are there body parts missing from the autopsied corpse? Why is Hearst so determined to see Fatty Arbuckle convicted?
In desperation, Arbuckleβs defense team hires a Pinkerton agent to do an investigation of his own and, they hope, discover the truth. The agentβs name is Dashiell Hammett, and heβs the bookβs narrator. What he discovers will change American legal historyβand his own lifeβforever.
βThe historical accuracy isnβt what elevates Atkinsβ prose to greatness,β said The Tampa Tribune. βItβs his ability to let these characters breathe in a way that few authors could ever imagine. He doesnβt so much write them as unleash them upon the page.β You will not soon forget the extraordinary characters and events in Devilβs Garden.
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