‘Devil’s Garden’ based on high-profile crime

Ace Atkins is another Florida reporter done good.

Like Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey and Michael Connelly (and so many others), Atkins has carved out a pretty nice career as a novelist after spending part of his early years at a Florida newspaper. Atkins is a former reporter for the Tampa Tribune and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his investigation of an unsolved 1950s murder in that city.

Since then, Atkins has written the Nick Travers mystery series and novels based on true crimes, including “White Shadow” and “Wicked City.”

Recently released in paperback, “Devil’s Garden” is another novel based on a real-life crime, a high-profile case that involved an actor, a dead actress and publishing scion William Randolph Hearst.

It’s San Francisco in September 1921. The city is still in rebuilding mode after a deadly earthquake 15 years earlier, and the era of
Prohibition is beginning. Flophouses and speakeasies are seemingly everywhere. World War I is over, and the Roaring ’20s is under way.

Silent-screen comedy star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is celebrating some time off by throwing a wild party at the downtown St. Francis Hotel. He reserves three rooms for the bash, and friends and friends of friends enjoy the festivities. The party has it all — girls, jazz, booze, drugs. But a young actress, Virginia Rappe, gets violently sick and soon dies.

An investigation begins, and the district attorney says Arbuckle killed her by crushing her under his weight during sex. Arbuckle is charged with manslaughter and faces a highly publicized trial. Always eager for a good story, whether it's true or not, Hearst and his newspapers incite the public and demand a guilty verdict.

Enter Sam Dashiell Hammett, the future author of “The Maltese Falcon” and other famous crime stories. He is a young detective with the famed Pinkerton agency. His wife is pregnant, and he wants to earn more money to support his family. Arbuckle’s defense team asks him to investigate the case. Hammett’s journey will take him to some of the seediest areas of San Francisco, and he will confront some shady characters. Finding the truth — if it can be found — will take more than just ordinary detective work.

Atkins has written a spectacular story that has moxie. It’s more than just a crime drama; it offers a gritty look into the life and people of San Francisco in the 1920s. “Devil’s Garden” has a spooky atmospheric quality to it, something not easily forgotten. Wearing his reporter's hat, Atkins uses original court records and details from the story’s characters to infuse the story with a hard dose of reality.

“Before he became the creator of some of the best crime novels ever written, Sam Hammett was just a young detective trying to support a pregnant wife on three bucks a day,” writes Atkins in the afterword. “And in 1921, he just happened to play a supporting role in one of the great tragedies of twentieth-century America.”

I've now become an Ace Atkins fan. His new hardcover book, "Infamous," was released earlier this month. Let's hope it's as powerful as "Devil's Garden."