Maybe some spoilers.
THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART -- Lawrence Block
God, that's a great cover. One of the many great things about
Hard Case is the return of good cover art.
As for the book itself, I'm not a huge Block fan but was
surprised to find a mild satisfaction in this. If you like
Block adjust your sights accordingly. A con-game story, which
is first cousin to the heist story. Book suffers a bit from
the fact that the big reveal is obvious as all get-out: this
is most notable around the 3/4 mark, where if you've read any
of these things you'll likely be screaming at the protagonist
to get a clue.
On the other hand, the con game being run is generally
interesting, and there's all sorts of busy little facts about
how to do it (or how to do it back in those days) which sound
plausible to me, anyway. Also Block does his best with the
obviousness of the reveal, making it an aspect of the
protagonist's character. Which helps the book in the final
analysis.
Sort of a better stab at the kind of thing GRIFTER'S GAME
(IMO, not a very good book) was trying for.
THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE -- Ed McBain
I was surprised that I really liked this, too. I'm fine with
McBain, but generally have not liked his early 87th Precinct
books, which have always struck me as clunky beyond belief. I
had this notion that his early books weren't
interesting.
Well, this came out in 1958 and is much better than I
expected.. Cannon was once a PI, now is a drunk, and is sort
of strong-armed to do a "favor for a friend" that lands him
in the usual hot water. (I wonder if Block knew about the
Cannon books when he conceived of Scudder?) The book goes
through some predictable turns, but McBain rarely gets
overly-sentimental about it and that helps a lot. Plus, some
obvious turns aren't taken, which is pretty neat. Cannon is
not redeemed at all, for instance. GUTTER reads incredibly
fast and while I can't say the whodunit aspect is an
incredible surprise, McBain handles it extremely well.
Highly recommended, one of the best Hard Case reprints.
doug
Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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