Home is the Sailor/Day Keene

Ed Gorman has written eloquently about this novel, most recently here. I can’t add much to what Ed has to say except that HOME IS THE SAILOR is perhaps the quintessential Gold Medal novel. It has all the elements: the tough, somewhat dim hero who stays drunk for much of the story; the beautiful girl who may or may not be what she seems; the dead body that has to be disposed of; and finally the hero on the lam from the cops, charged with something that he didn’t do. Just when poor Swede Nelson thinks his situation can’t get worse, Things Get Really Bad. It all adds up to a fast-paced, maybe not entirely believable novel that’s a heck of a lot of fun to read. If anybody was ever to ask you, “What were those old Gold Medals like, anyway?”, you could do a lot worse than handing them a copy of HOME IS THE SAILOR.

The good thing is that now you don’t have to have the first Gold Medal printing from 1952, like I do (not bragging too much; my copy is BTH). Since HOME IS THE SAILOR has just been reprinted by the fine folks at Hardcase Crime, you can hie yourself down to your local bookstore and buy a brand-new copy that’s not water-stained and falling apart. I recommend that you do so posthaste.