Lawrence BlockBesprekingen

I've been a fan of Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr series for awhile and count his books on writing as the best in my library, but this year I branched out to Keller (Hit Man) and Matt Scudder (this book). Hooray for me for discovering two characters I want to get to know better! Perhaps my favorite thing to discover is that no matter how light or dark the subject, Lawrence Block's writing is so easy to read it makes my part of the experience that much more enjoyable.

This book is being made into a movie. My suggestion: read the book now!

Madeline is considering suicide, then decides not to. The gun she thought about using accidentally goes off and kills an innocent woman on the street. Madeline decides to pick up the threads of her victim’s life, carrying out a mission of vengeance on her behalf against the man she loved and lost—and the nightclub-singing femme fatale who drove them apart.

To me, it makes no sense. Why would she do that? And why would she put so much effort into it? It made for a fairly boring read, following a woman doing something that just seems to be nonsense. Definitely disappointing, as I've enjoyed Woolrich's books before.

Not one of the better ones.

Very different than the other Block books I've read. Walkers gain insights, skills and contentiousness as they walk across America to heal the world and themselves.

For hard-boiled mystery readers, the plot buildup is obvious/dated. Skip to chapter 8 and then things start to get a bit more interesting...and then the end goes very dark.

Fast and fun read. Sure, it's quite far-fetched and convoluted, and unrelated things seem related, but aren't, in the end. But I enjoyed it. I haven't had many Block books to read lately, so this was a nice nostalgic read... it kinda sucks when writers you like, a lot, don't write much any more. I liked this story enough that I am going to dig around some bookstores to see if I can find others in the Burglar series that I haven't read yet.

A rocus randy story, told thru letters, of a mans escape into ..... something new. Good bawdy fun.

This is close to a prototypical noir story i have in my head. An alcoholic detective in a dark blurry unfriendly world struggling with meaning, struggling with a case, struggling for a piece of love and comfort. A very cozy atmosphere of meaningless meanderings and beautiful visuals.

Espionage

Good try but not very interesting½

Haven't read these in years, but they hold up. Just enjoyable nonsense, but smart and funny nonsense rather than the drivel I see sometimes masquerading as light mystery. This one introduces Barnegat Books and his new bestie Carolyn. Bernie steals a rare work by Kipling for a client, but then things go sideways and he ends up accused of murder. Naturally, Mrs. Rhodenbarr's son Bernie sorts through the crowd of suspects (and motives) and comes out mostly unscathed in the end. Don't think too hard. Just go with it for a fun time and a quick read.

After reading this one, I will have to read all of the series, as the first book's proved a quick and fun read.

One of the most satisfying impulse reads that started because I'm also reading Block's AFTERTHOUGHTS and figured it was about time I read the Bernie Rhodebarr series (of which I've had more than three or four for a while now, when I started collecting bibliomysteries years back).

Keller je zabiják. Chladný, zručný a spolehlivý. Dokonalý profesionál. Nájemný vrah. Je složitý: opatrný a uzavřený, ledový a bezohledně výkonný, je ale také samotář, který o sobě často pochybuje, trpí nočními můrami a trápí se obavami o práci. Kellerovo pravé zaměstnání je vražda. Je rozený newyorčan, sní ale o klidném životě na venkově a v každém místě, které navštíví, si plánuje, že si tam vybuduje domov, daleko od všech tlaků a morálních dilemat, které s sebou nese jeho práce.

A sadly weird love story ... that ends in the dumps.

Lawrence Block is still a great writer, even under another name. Interesting book...

Mystery? Good story that gets bogged down in pornagraphic images of the main characters. Did not add anything to the story and turns me off from reading any more of this guy's stuff

These are mystery short stories mostly set on cruises.

But. Short stories so mostly not memorable by the end of the book, though I really enjoyed most of them as I read them (hence the 4 stars, which is higher than I rate most short story collections). One had a short author’s note at the end, which made me happy because I did wonder (the story took place on the Queen Mary, and there were some interesting stats and uses of the ship during WWII). Unfortunately, one of the last stories (and potentially also the longest), I didn’t like, but almost all the others I really liked. Might help that I have enjoyed the cruises that I’ve taken, so the setting is familiar and enjoyable for me.

Fast paced thriller following team of former soldiers fighting crime in only way that can affect the crime - by robbing banks associated with the organized crime and used for money laundering.

After lady friend of one of the soldiers is maltreated by a shady crime boss group decides to bring his crime fiefdom down.

This is a novel written in time when original Mission impossible, A Team and Equalizer shows were very popular. That being said in here we also have a team in which every man is a specialist for certain area - be it technical or social. Also some of them are not that OK themselves - some are troublemakers but Army helped them find their place so to speak. They might all come from various backgrounds but in the Army and in hell that is Vietnam war they learned to look beyond the social status and race and rely on each other through tough times.

Considering the length of the novel and number of the characters they might all seem one-dimensional and cliche - but keep in mind when novel was written. Today we have seen volumes of books, TV shows and movies with the same plots but that was not the case in the day.

All of the above [at least for me] does not deduct anything from the story or novel itself. I truly enjoyed it as a kick ass action story.

Good thriller, recommended.

This was a mixed experience for me. On one hand you have Keller, hard-boiled assassin for hire that gets framed with high profile kill and forced to run. And nothing, just run.

First half of the book is Keller on a scout mission for his latest work, he gets framed and then he runs. But he is not running like he has cops closing on at him - no he eludes his pursuers (shown pretty good how cool and skill can be of great help here) and he gets himself on the run from one place to another.
And he runs.... main goal is to run and nothing else. He runs for days (if I got everything correct even months). And he runs.... And it gets somewhat tiresome but he just keeps running.

Finally he meets a lady and is life turns for better but again nothing happens - now he lives normally, disguised as much as possible but nothing else happens.

So we are talking about a hard man, very proficient at what he does who gets framed, loses all possession he has, has his closest friends killed in a most gruesome way and he does not even think about revenge? At all? Feels slightly out of character, does not it.

Finally twist occurs and he has a conversation and somebody says - "Hey those b******s deserve to die!" and he goes "Hmmmm, sounds kinda cool", does his job and story ends.

I can get that main character is maybe tired of his hired-gun life but I cannot fathom that anybody could get so out-of-character and not even think about getting their hands on those that framed him.

As I said - mixed experience. Nevertheless it is good crime/action novel and if you enjoy these give it a shot - maybe you'll see something I missed and everything will have more sense :)

Lawrence Block shares his early days writing pulp and porn for the paperback original houses through the 1950s and a bit of the 1960s. It was interesting to see first-hand the jaded, duplicitous, nasty side of publishing at that time. He wrote millions of words and was able to make a living, eventually getting into crime fiction and more. It's a fascinating era for writers, and Block shares everything it occurs to him to share. Names, numbers, and opinions.

WARNING: pedophilia

His stories meander with countless asides and tiny details. In one of these, he says something shocking and awful. That a friend of his had a "monogamous affair" with an 11-year-old girl for seven years and that he "didn't really have a judgment about that." Horrifying. It's one of the most throw-away comments in the whole book and completely unremarked upon before or after. WTF. Also, I've not seen any review mention this little window on mid-century pedophilia, either, which is also weird.

This is a great audiobook. It reminded me of film noir voiceover, like hardboiled detective stuff. But our anti-hero is a 1970s burglar, not a 1940s gumshoe. There are a lot of witticisms and funny observations that had me chuckling. The mystery isn't bad either.

I was up until 2am reading this, frustrated with my sleepiness. I started reading again with my coffee this morning. I just couldn't stop.

The central plot seems a bit silly now because we know that there were no murderous satanic cults sacrificing babies at Day Care Centers, the chick from Cannibal Holocaust is still alive and well, Guinea Pig was done with special effects, etc. It all became sickeningly real with the advent of the Internet and easy/cheap digital recording, but in the late '80s it was nothing but an urban legend.

But, child exploitation and pornography was a nasty little problem then (and now), Block got that exactly right and it was enough to hold the central premise of the book.

I usually dislike it when authors throw two plots together and try to make them stick. Most authors do this poorly and it just seems lazy. Block did it brilliantly by keeping the focus of Scudder's investigation within a small part of the city and within the same profession. That made it believable. Working in NYC is the same as working anywhere else - Everybody knows, or has heard of, everyone else. Names, faces and resumes float around in a limited area and people's names live on the edge of your memory and the tip of your tongue. (This was even true when I was in social work in NYC.)

The same is true for people who live in your neighborhood, especially if you see them every day.

So, I was really impressed with the way that Block pulled this book together.

I am absolutely loving this series. I just can't stop reading.

I really enjoyed this quirky collection of stories about a rather whimsical hit man. It's well worth reading.

My thanks to Melki and the folks at the Pulp Fiction group for introducing this and many other fine books.

16 stories and one stage play in this collection.
The title story is really good and really creepy! “Clean Slate” is too! And "Speaking of Greed" and "Speaking of Lust" are a nice one-two punch with the same four storytellers (the policeman, the priest, the soldier, and the doctor), and the same old man dozing in the corner, releasing his flatulence form time-to-time. An overall fun bunch of stories to read, some not for the faint-of-heart!

“And the old man went on dozing by the fire.”

Make sure you know what you are getting into if you read this book. I would say over half of it was previously printed in other Block short story collections. It was still a good book but it is huge and if you have desire to reread previous stories, then you can skip this book.

The new stuff was good but I am not sure it alone was worth have to deal with this giant book. If you want all of your Block in one spot, then this is the book for you. I gave it 3 stars only because of the amount of reprints. The stories are great, I had just read a lot of them already.