A Taste for Violence (1949) is one of the Shayne stories set somewhere other than Miami; the setting here is a small fictional mining town in eastern Kentucky. Although the town of Centerville is fictional, Harlan county where Centerville is located is real. The story revolves around a company-run town in the throes of a miners' strike. A liberal owner is about to take control of the mines on his thirtieth birthday and will likely accede to many of the miners' demands.

The owner is murdered the day before his birthday, after having contacted Shayne by letter because of his fear for his life. The small Kentucky town is depicted clearly as a community of haves and have-nots: The mine owners and their cronies run everything, including the police; and the miners and their families are beaten into submission, hopeless and resigned. Davis Dresser's sympathies are clearly...