Samuel Hopkins Adams

"You have one rare faculty, Jones. You can, when you choose, sharpen the pencil of your mind to a very fine point. Specialize, my boy, specialize." Adrian Van Reypen Egerton Jones -"Average," to his friends-has spent the five years since graduation from college "specializing in life," indulging his wanderlust and living comfortably on twenty-five thousand a year. In order to inherit the millions that his late uncle has bequeathed, Average must spend...

The story of a self-made, yet well born young man and a runaway debutante who meet on an Atlantic crossing.

Excerpt: "Pain. Pain. Pain. The primal curse, the dominant tragedy of life. Who among you, dear friends, but has felt it? You men, slowly torn upon the rack of rheumatism; you women, with the hidden agony gnawing at your breast" (his roving regard was swift, like a hawk, to mark down the sudden, involuntary quiver of a faded slattern under one of the torches); "all you who have known burning nights and pallid mornings, I offer you r-r-r-release!"

The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout ship "Laughing Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. In the solution, there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man ever undertook.

Mystery thriller from the prolific American author best known for his investigative journalism.

In addition to writing as a reporter uncovering the conditions of public health in the United States, Samuel Hopkins Adams was a prolific fiction writer, who wrote numerous novels and hundreds of short stories. "The Man Who Spoke Latin" features protagonist Average Jones, a detective who finds cases, clues, witnesses -- and often solves the crime -- through classified ads.