THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES by Lawrence Block

Jay Walker “Doak” Miller is a retired NYPD detective. He left the job for sunny small town Florida supplementing his pension as a part-time private investigator; performing background checks, routine insurance inquiries, and every so often undercover work for the local Sheriff’s office, which is where the story begins.

The wife of a wealthy businessman, looking to hire her husband killed, was fingered by a small time crook. The Sheriff wants Doak to revive his Jersey accent and play the part of hitman; get it on tape, and accept a $1,000 down payment. Doak readily agrees until he sees the woman, and calls everything off. The problem, he doesn’t tell the Sheriff, and he coaches the woman exactly what to say for the tape.

The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is challenging. It is short, written with Mr. Block’s usual literate, stark flair, and remarkably complicated. It is third person from Doak’s perspective, but has the feel of first. It is Doak Miller’s story, and intimately told. There is some cheating—the girl’s (the one with the deep blue eyes) backstory is told in narrative disguised as dialogue, but it works.

The challenge is the novel’s lack of morality, or more precisely, Doak’s lack of morality. He is devious, criminal, selfish, and, as the novel develops and Doak’s character is revealed, it is clear he is a man fallen, rather than falling. His destruction is self-inflicted, and the woman is the tool he chooses to use. It is a cock-eyed version of the film Double Indemnity; here the man is predator and the woman his willing playmate.

The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes admirably plays off the old black and white film noir without losing its own identity and interest. Its plotting is disturbingly good. Nothing is out of place or unresolved. There is a heavy dose of erotica, and not a single likable character. It is both familiar, and new—

“‘That’s the movies,’ she said. ‘This is life.’”



This review was written for Ed Gorman’s blog and went live on September 15, 2015. I have a few projects going right now, which have been keeping me away from the blog more than I like, but I hope to have some original material soon.

KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block

HCC Edition, 2009

A few months ago I purchased a large lot of original mass market Hard Case Crime novels online.  The lot included a bunch of titles I missed when they were issued and I have been slowly making my way down the stack.  I recently read Killing Castro by Lawrence Block, and while it wasn’t what I expected, it certainly wasn’t a disappointment.

The story centers around five American men who are hired to kill Fidel Castro.  The plan is to split the men up to take multiple attempts on Castro’s life.  The novel opens in Ybor City, Florida—Tampa’s Latin district—where the men are brought together for a briefing; each is promised $20,000 if Fidel Castro is killed. 

The novel spends time in the perspective of each of the men, including back stories, and motivating factors.  The men range from outright criminals to anti-Castro zealots to adventure seekers.  The story is told in a nonlinear fashion, and there is much less action than expected.  Instead it builds more as a character piece (in a very genre manner), focusing on each of the assassins and their reasons for taking the job.  One is a dying bank clerk, another is running from the law, and another is avenging the murder of his brother. 

The novel is divided into 11 chapters, and every other one is devoted to Castro’s rise to power.  The segments documenting Castro’s political ascendency are seemingly accurate, and Mr Block takes some effort to explain the psychology of political dissidence, revolution and power.  The novel has an atmosphere of weariness.  A weariness of this is how the world has always worked, and this is how it always will work.  Castro could be exchanged for a thousand different tyrants and nothing would change.

Killing Castro is a dark story, but it doesn’t fit very well into a specific category.  The opening line of the novel is both misleading, and indicative, of the novel:

“The taxi, one headlight out and one fender crimped, cut through downtown Tampa and headed into Ybor City.”

It is a precursor for the atmosphere and tone of the novel, but it is misleading because it sets the stage for a very straight forward 1960s suspense novel, which it isn’t, exactly.  What it is, is a very good, and very entertaining story, with just enough action and suspense to keep it interesting, and a bevy of detail about Cuba in the middle Twentieth Century.

Killing Castro was published in 1961 with the title Fidel Castro Assassinated as by Lee Duncan.  A nom de plume Mr Block used only once.           

A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block

I have been critical of HCC and a few of its reprints--I want new stuff. A few of the reprinted titles just don't have the zing of the original titles. Think The Confession, Kiss Her Goodbye, and Dutch Uncle. Those were hardass, cool as hell titles that not only entertained, but made me feel something. A few of the older titles--say Donald Hamilton's Night Walker--felt dated and limp.

Where is all this going? Well, HCC just announced they are going to reprint an old Lawrence Block title. Oy! But really I don't mind this reprint at all. In fact, I'm nothing but happy HCC is releasing A Diet of Treacle. The other Block titles released by HCC have been nothing but great. And if the cover art is anything to judge it by, A Diet of Treacle will be awesome.

But if Charles Ardai, or anyone else with a little pull over at Hard Case Crime is reading this--publish more original titles! We deserve them.

A Diet of Treacle will be released January, 2008. A long wait, but very likely worth it.