This novel develops, with subtle allusions to _Double
Indemnity_ and
_Postman,_ a powerful picture of evil. The narrator, Marlin,
meets his dream girl/nemesis Mona (epynomous title of the
original, and a far better one than the recent paperback's).
Joe "has to have her." The reason why is the noir mystery the
book unravels. Block seems to be telling a fast-paced crime
caper, but hides in the story a weird example of the American
dream girl's power.
Joe is a coldly calculating grifter who loves cars,
classy clothing, top shelf hotels with all the benefits in
expensive food, babes for sale, and gambling. SPOILER He and
Mona plot the murder of her husband; they do it skillfully,
after which Mona leaves Joe with a hefty fee and nothing
more. But Joe has to have her, and finds a way to make her
dependent on him forever. I won't reveal the ending, which is
worthy of Jim Thompson's _Getaway_, and also of Cain in that
Joe ties Mona to him in a death spiral similar to that of
Phyllis and Walter at the end of
_Double Indemnity._ Why this act of complete
control--physical and psychological--of another human being?
It's evil personified, being also self-destructive, and
ultimately as sado-masochistic as the specifics of how Joe
kidnaps Mona in her Tahoe hotel room.
It seems to me that Mona is to Joe the sexy embodiment
of money itself, which to him is transcendent. Romantic love
equates the woman with the Divine; Joe equates her with the
Good Life--security, "class," swank, Trump gold, Bandar Bush
oil. Mona is his Daisy, who with her voice like money was a
similar golden girl for Jay Gatesby. It's amazing that Block
can do this so subtly while telling a fast-moving yarn for a
paperback publisher who wanted a 25 cent throwaway with a lot
of sex and violence
(I think this was the period when Block was also writing soft
core porn).
I wonder if anyone knows another powerful Lawrence Block
portrait of evil and American-style materialism. I've only
read a few of his noirs.
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