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The murderer vine (1970)

door Shepard Rifkin

Andere auteurs: Zie de sectie andere auteurs.

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1322205,257 (3.86)6
BECAUSE OLD TIMES THERE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN On their summer off from college, three boys went to Mississippi to work for civil rights. They were never seen again. So the father of one of the boys hired New York private eye Joe Dunne. His assignment: Find the men responsible, and don't come home until they're dead...… (meer)
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Toon 2 van 2
The Murderer Vine is an absolutely terrific book and an enjoyable read at that. The cover features top-notch artwork by Ken Laager of a compelling blonde in high heels and a bed sheet with her feet wrapped in a vine. Although this precise scene is not in the book, it gives some of the atmosphere of the book and the woman is obviously none other than Kirby. In a brief foreword to the book, Rifkin explains that that, in the Amazon, a vine grows that climbs higher every year and has tentacles that reach out, and block the sunlight and the tree that it grew on eventually dies. He explains that, in South America, it is called La Liana Matador or the Murderer Vine.

The book is definitely hardboiled and definitely noir. It is a combination of a hardboiled detective novel with the subject matter being the famous slaying of the civil rights workers in Mississippi. The route that Rifkin takes to this subject, however, is unique. He doesn't focus on the moral or ethical aspects of that shocking event. In his fictionalized account, a father of one of the three young men who were brutally murdered hires a private eye (Dunne) to go down to Mississippi and find out who did this, get proof of who did it, and execute those responsible. The bounty offered is $100,000 per murderer and that half a million is more than this poor private eye could hope to make in a lifetime. The story is brilliantly told and, although there are a few meanderings in the beginning, it all worked for me.

The story begins in Puerto Lagarto (Porto Lizard) somewhere south of the Yucatan. It is a "dump" that is hot, sweaty, and has no paved streets and only one place with ice. Dunne explains that the refrigerator in the cantina is packed full of beer every morning and "I sit in the Bitterness and drink my way from the front to the back of the refrigerator and look at the bay." He hasn't seen any outsider in two years, but is now offering a sort of confession to a priest who has happened along. He explains: "If someone came here by mistake, he wouldn't like the food or the damp heat or the hammocks or the people. I don't like them either. But there's one big advantage living here. They don't extradite." Let that one sink in for a while.

The tale he tells goes back in time and he describes how he was once worked a job in Haskell (wherever that is) and a pusher had moved into the area, selling to the high school kids and the soccer moms. What happened, he explains, is that "one of the mothers walks in one evening into her fifteen-year-old daughter's room to find the kid mainlining horse into her thigh. Horse, that's heroin." He explains that the police wouldn't do anything and he wanted Dunne to do something, anything.
Well, after doing that job apparently his reputation for getting a tough job done, no questions asked, got out and Parrish walks into his office. "Parrish looked like a rich guy with a problem." The narrator "had him figured for a banker with a nice Bahama tan and a wandering wife who may have been necking with the mate of his chartered fishing boat."

Instead, Parrish leans in and tells him that he wants him to kill five people.

Part of the story (and a major part at that) is the burgeoning romance between Dunne and his secretary, Kirby, who had originally been from the South and had been taking diction lessons trying to lose her upper-class Southern accent. "She had put her legs up on the desk. For the first time I noticed how long they were. She was holding the book above eye level, and her head was tilted backward. Her long yellow hair was swinging free. She was smiling at the book and tugging at her earlobe. I suppose that was the first time I noticed her."

And notices her, he does. "Her eyelids were painted a pale blue. I watched as she ran an index finger over the left one and her thumb over the other. They were the color of an early morning sky in summer."

Kirby volunteers to accompany the detective deep into the South as he will stick out like a sore thumb as a northerner and she can smooth the way with her down-home ways. Of course, once they pose as husband and wife, you know the fireworks are starting.

A lot of first half involves the preparations for going undercover, including creating an identity as a Canadian professor researching accents. The real action takes place as they head into the small town in the South and Dunne has to find ways to make time with the redneck sheriff and his cronies and figure out where the bodies are buried.

The writing is superb and the build-up to the climax is fantastic. This is another selection worthy of being in the Hard Case lineup. Rifkin does a great job of capturing the look and feel of the rural south in the early sixties and the racism embedded in southern society. He makes the reader feel as if they are back in the backwoods country, drinking moonshine with the rednecks who are quick with guns and tire chains and don't tolerate outsiders poking into local affairs.

This is one of those books that, as a reader, you don't want to put down until you finish. It's that good. ( )
  DaveWilde | Sep 22, 2017 |
Adequate, but not wildly impressive story of revenge, murder, and the deep South during the sixties. Another reviewer commented having trouble getting into this book, and I agree! Every time I put the book down for the first 40 pages or so, I had to reread the last page to recall the storyline. Not a promising start, although I did eventually finish the book. And the cover has diddley to do with the story. ( )
  Prop2gether | Oct 18, 2009 |
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» Andere auteurs toevoegen (1 mogelijk)

AuteursnaamRolType auteurWerk?Status
Shepard Rifkinprimaire auteuralle editiesberekend
Laager, KenArtiest omslagafbeeldingSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd

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BECAUSE OLD TIMES THERE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN On their summer off from college, three boys went to Mississippi to work for civil rights. They were never seen again. So the father of one of the boys hired New York private eye Joe Dunne. His assignment: Find the men responsible, and don't come home until they're dead...

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