Grave Descend (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback)) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

In a relatively short time, Hard Case Crime has become well known for periodically exhuming classic works of crime fiction and giving them the distribution and packaging they deserve. This month's exhibit is GRAVE DESCEND by John Lange. The cover, I would submit, speaks for itself, standing out on the shelf like a rose among a garden of weeds. The contents within are up to the billing.

GRAVE DESCEND was nominated for an Edgar Award, which no doubt surprised and delighted John Lange, who was busy at the time doing other things besides writing. "John Lange" is in fact a pseudonym for a gentleman who later became a phenomenally successful author with crossover success in film and television. I'm not stating his name simply because I don't want it to detract from this book, which is a work of such quality that it deserves to be judged on its own merits.

It begins with a mystery of sorts. James McGregor is a deep sea diver who ekes out an existence in Jamaica running an undersea salvage company. McGregor's best days are behind him; even so, he somewhat reluctantly agrees to the proposition of Arthur Wayne, a mysterious stranger who is a mass of contradictions. Wayne holds himself out as an insurance company representative who wants McGregor to undertake a recovery operation on Grave Descend, a luxury yacht that, McGregor is told, has just sunk off the coast of Jamaica.

McGregor reluctantly agrees, even as he learns that practically nothing Wayne has told him is true. As McGregor becomes more deeply involved in the project, he finds that he is not only being misled but is also being set up.

Lange devises quite an interesting scenario here. McGregor is neither rich nor a rocket scientist; the people who are using him are wealthy and intelligent, with an apparent infinite supply of resources. McGregor has friends, a journeyman's working knowledge of his field and the ability to think on his feet. It makes for an interesting battle of wits, and more.

Ultimately, Lange's narrative strength makes GRAVE DESCEND the readable, accessible work that it is. The author mixes background subject matter --- Jamaica, deep sea diving, World War II --- with interesting characters and an exotic plot to create an ultimately timeless novel.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

"Every story was different, and they were all, to his ears, improbable. But not like the Grave Descend. That was not merely improbable; it was weird. Even the name of the ship was weird." -- from Grave Descend

Author John Lange is actually the pseudonym of a massively bestselling author whose name you would instantly recognize if I chose to reveal it. Hard Case Crime, seeing the first reprints of Lange's books since their original publications, would like us to respect his privacy, but as we all know, there are no secrets on the Internet, and his identity is only as far away as a single click.

Coincidentally, John Lange was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Grave Descend. The author actually won the Edgar for another novel he wrote around the same time under a different pseudonym. (He has also won one under his own name, but not for a novel.)

Jim McGregor, a diver by occupation, is hired to investigate the sinking of the Grave Descend, a luxury yacht with an unlikely moniker (it's actually a quote from Samuel Johnson, the source of all the epigraphs in the book), off the coast of Jamaica. The main trouble is that McGregor can't seem to get a straight series of events surrounding the sinking -- everyone has a different take on what happened, even where the boat went through customs.

To make things more difficult, the sinking is being kept from the press for 24 hours due to the presence of the boat's single passenger, Monica Grant, who is not only striking beautiful (especially in a bikini) but is also the "good friend" of the boat's married owner, Robert Wayne. McGregor discovers a few other details while involved with this mysterious crew, and begins to piece together a puzzle that's got his name written all over it.

John Lange offers up a straightforward, taut thriller with no frills but more than a little John D. MacDonald in its pedigree. The short chapters and reliance on dialogue make the relatively complicated plot flow easily and quickly toward its conclusion. A slight but entertaining piece of escapism, Grave Descend is likely to pass through your mind without touching much along the way. It's by no means a crime classic, but it's completely engrossing during the reading -- I finished it in just a couple of hours and I don't imagine it took Lange much longer -- there's just not a whole lot of substance. I'm even having trouble coming up with things to say about it, but fans of MacDonald and Richard Stark could do worse than to take a short cruise aboard the Grave Descend. Just watch out for those hammerheads.

The cover of this book has a statement that says this book was nominated for the Edgar award. If so, that year was hurting for good books. Grave Descend feeds off of Sean Connery's James Bond and the slick caper productions of the late 1960's. John Lang's book feels to me like more of an excuse to get some action licks in rather than an attempt to create a seriously engaging thriller.

The character we follow is Jim McGregor, a diver by trade who is pulled into a scheme. Just what is happening is pretty much the jist of the rest of the book. McGregor investigates why he is being set up or not told the whole truth and the stakes keep getting higher. Really in the end, this story is almost laughable in its silly twists and turns.

The hardest thing for me here, was in following just what was happening. Characters disapear from scenes with no explanation and Lange seems to have written whole chapters or series' of events in his head that he has failed to let the reader in on. Just what the heck was happening romantically here is beyond piecing together.

It feels like the author only spent a couple of days writing this. And the lack of quality shows. In my opinion, this is not worthy of the Hard Case Crime re-prints.