Pre-Order THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES here (available on September 22)
(also reviewed)
Order THE SINS OF THE FATHERS here
Order IN THE MIDST OF DEATH here
Order TIME TO MURDER AND CREATE here
Order A STAB IN THE DARK here
Order EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE here
Order THE CRIMES OF OUR LIVES here
The fantasy: He meets this woman, and their eyes lock, and they connect in a way that neither of them has ever before with another human being.
And that's just it, because they walk out of their separate lives and into a life together. Not a work to anybody, not a waster moment to pack a bag or quit a job. They look at each other, and they connect, and they're in a car riding off together or on a bus or a train or an airplane, and it's crazy and they know it's crazy but they don't care.
Of course it never happened.
I would normally begin this review with some sort of allegory expressing my thoughts about the books and God knows I have just about a million fitting ones for THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES but it would be queasy for me to write as the principal theme of the novel is sexual desire. That's right, I was only vaguely aware of that fact, but Lawrence Block once wrote erotica under various pseudonyms and, ladies and gentlemen, he hasn't lost a step at the craft. THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES is not erotica per se, but it's an erotic thriller in the vein of BASIC INSTINCT that manages to keep you off-balanced for its duration.
Doak Miller is a retired New York city cop, bored out of his mind and playing PI in a small town of Florida. His attempt at being a model America has been a crippling failure, so now he lives for himself, on a day-to-day basis and passing time by working contract for the local D.A. His life changes when he is mandated to pose as a hit man and get a woman's plan of killing her husband on a wire. The rugged, emotion-less New York city cop then falls head over heels into the deep blue eyes of this woman, named Lisa Yarrow, and turns the tables on his employer. Doak becomes a proactive accomplice in a twisted conspiracy.
THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES was much different from what Lawrence Block got me used to, granted that I had only read his tormented PI Matthew Scudder before, This is more of a classic noir in the vein of James M. Cain, where the protagonist is the perpetrator of a crime. Usually because he couldn't say no to a woman. I wouldn't say THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES is a copycat, not even an homage, but it's influenced by Cain and most likely by Block's early erotica. There are some steamy scenes in that novel and a peculiar psychology to it: men are kind of cavemen and women are manipulative vixens. If you're not sure if this floats your boat morally, read the first chapter, it'll give you a good idea.
THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES was much different from what Lawrence Block got me used to, granted that I had only read his tormented PI Matthew Scudder before, This is more of a classic noir in the vein of James M. Cain, where the protagonist is the perpetrator of a crime. Usually because he couldn't say no to a woman. I wouldn't say THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES is a copycat, not even an homage, but it's influenced by Cain and most likely by Block's early erotica. There are some steamy scenes in that novel and a peculiar psychology to it: men are kind of cavemen and women are manipulative vixens. If you're not sure if this floats your boat morally, read the first chapter, it'll give you a good idea.
All that crap lovers spouted in the movies, finding one's other self, being two halves of the same person. It had never quite made sense to him, and he wasn't sure it did now, and those weren't the words he'd use if he found himself moved to talk about it. But he knew what they were getting at, the writers who put those lines in the characters' mouths.
I've said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating: Lawrence Block is really good at writing male loneliness. Although Doak Miller really is a criminal, he nonetheless charming and sympathetic to at least a male reader, because his life is so hopelessly unstructured and he's alone with his unhinged desires and northless moral compass to give him direction. Doak Miller is doing the best he can to find the happily ever after that eluded him in the American dream and there's no real moral argument against his quest. Lisa's husband George Otterbein is sympathetic on the surface, but he's in complete financial control of a loveless marriage and doesn't seem to understand he made the bed he's about to lie into.
I wouldn't say I had a perverse pleasure reading about Doak Miller's assassination plan, but I'd say though, that I would've probably done the same thing if put in his position. I might've not done as good. THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES was a pleasant departure from the Lawrence Block I know, a foray into the psyche of sex-obsessed men written with Block's trademark pinpoint psychological accuracy and lively dialogue. It hasn't been released yet, it'll be on the shelves on September 22, but you can pre-order your copy here. Long-time Lawrence Block fans, noir enthusiasts and people needing a master class on how to write sex scenes are going to love this novel. We live in oddly puritanical times, a book like THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES is going make things interesting this fall.
I wouldn't say I had a perverse pleasure reading about Doak Miller's assassination plan, but I'd say though, that I would've probably done the same thing if put in his position. I might've not done as good. THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES was a pleasant departure from the Lawrence Block I know, a foray into the psyche of sex-obsessed men written with Block's trademark pinpoint psychological accuracy and lively dialogue. It hasn't been released yet, it'll be on the shelves on September 22, but you can pre-order your copy here. Long-time Lawrence Block fans, noir enthusiasts and people needing a master class on how to write sex scenes are going to love this novel. We live in oddly puritanical times, a book like THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES is going make things interesting this fall.