2015 Book 17: The Crime of Our Lives
2015 Book 17: The Crime of Our Lives by Lawrence Block; isbn 9781507036075; Lawrence Block (self-pubbed); 221; $4.99 (ebook)
The Premise: An MWA Grand Master and a multiple winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon awards, Lawrence Block’s reflections and observations come from over a half century as a writer of bestselling crime fiction. . Several of his novels have been filmed, most recently A Walk Among the Tombstones, starring Liam Neeson. While he’s best known for his novels and short fiction, along with his books on the craft of writing, that's not all he’s written. THE CRIME OF OUR LIVES collects his observations and personal reminiscences of the crime fiction field and some of its leading practitioners. He has a lot to say, and he says it here in convincing and entertaining fashion.
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Thoughts:
Right. Time to write a review of the latest Lawrence Block non-fiction collection. Because the man was nice enough to send me a review copy, and who am I to say "no" in the face of such graciousness? ("You're no-one, regardless of getting a free copy," the insecure writer at the back of my brain says. Let's ignore him for the moment, shall we?)
Look, here's the thing.
If you're already a Larry Block fan, you don't need some hack like me telling you to read this collection of introductions and essays and columns. You know the man's got some insight into the crime field gleaned from a nice long career. You already know, I'm sure, that he prefers only to write retrospectives about friends who have already died, that he's honest (sometimes brutally) about what he likes and doesn't like, that he's fond of variations of the phrase "he never wrote a bad sentence, a klunky phrase, a weak book" in regards to certain favorite authors. You already know if you appreciate his self-effacing way of writing introductions like he's got nothing new to say about the stuff he's introducing. You already know if you enjoy or get annoyed by the way he re-tells certain stories every chance he gets. (On that last, I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing how Block came to work for the Scott Meredith Agency, or how he met Donald Westlake; each telling has a slightly different flavor without ever changing the actual facts.)
In fact, if you're already a Larry Block fan, you've already figured out what I'm doing with this review. Good on ya for that.
And if you're not already a Larry Block fan, well ... I'm not going to tell you to start with this collection, because really, you should be out there reading his fiction: the cozy crime capers of Bernie Rhodenbarr, the noir darkness of Matthew Scudder, the plethora of short stories. Personally, I'd make sure to check out Killing Castro, reissued a few years back by Hard Case Crime, a great thriller that is also a bit of alternate history, which technically also makes Block a science fiction writer... but I digress. Read some of Block's fiction first, then come back to this collection of non-fiction about his friends and influences.
It's a great batch of stuff, really: reminiscences about his friendships and professional relationships with Donald Westlake, Evan Hunter, and others. Several columns worth of "what it was like to learn how not to write bad stuff while working for Scott Meredith." Some funny pieces about (not) winning an Edgar. Tributes to Poe, Chandler, Hammett, Spillane, and some less-obvious and long-out-of-print pulp and paperback original authors. (My "scour used bookstores for these authors" list got a bit longer while reading this collection...)
But, like I said: if you're a Block fan, you don't need me to tell you this. And if you're not, I've rambled on long enough. Go buy the book already. Block self-published it in affordable ebook format just for that purpose. So why would you want to let him down by not reading it?
The Premise: An MWA Grand Master and a multiple winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon awards, Lawrence Block’s reflections and observations come from over a half century as a writer of bestselling crime fiction. . Several of his novels have been filmed, most recently A Walk Among the Tombstones, starring Liam Neeson. While he’s best known for his novels and short fiction, along with his books on the craft of writing, that's not all he’s written. THE CRIME OF OUR LIVES collects his observations and personal reminiscences of the crime fiction field and some of its leading practitioners. He has a lot to say, and he says it here in convincing and entertaining fashion.
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Thoughts:
Right. Time to write a review of the latest Lawrence Block non-fiction collection. Because the man was nice enough to send me a review copy, and who am I to say "no" in the face of such graciousness? ("You're no-one, regardless of getting a free copy," the insecure writer at the back of my brain says. Let's ignore him for the moment, shall we?)
Look, here's the thing.
If you're already a Larry Block fan, you don't need some hack like me telling you to read this collection of introductions and essays and columns. You know the man's got some insight into the crime field gleaned from a nice long career. You already know, I'm sure, that he prefers only to write retrospectives about friends who have already died, that he's honest (sometimes brutally) about what he likes and doesn't like, that he's fond of variations of the phrase "he never wrote a bad sentence, a klunky phrase, a weak book" in regards to certain favorite authors. You already know if you appreciate his self-effacing way of writing introductions like he's got nothing new to say about the stuff he's introducing. You already know if you enjoy or get annoyed by the way he re-tells certain stories every chance he gets. (On that last, I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing how Block came to work for the Scott Meredith Agency, or how he met Donald Westlake; each telling has a slightly different flavor without ever changing the actual facts.)
In fact, if you're already a Larry Block fan, you've already figured out what I'm doing with this review. Good on ya for that.
And if you're not already a Larry Block fan, well ... I'm not going to tell you to start with this collection, because really, you should be out there reading his fiction: the cozy crime capers of Bernie Rhodenbarr, the noir darkness of Matthew Scudder, the plethora of short stories. Personally, I'd make sure to check out Killing Castro, reissued a few years back by Hard Case Crime, a great thriller that is also a bit of alternate history, which technically also makes Block a science fiction writer... but I digress. Read some of Block's fiction first, then come back to this collection of non-fiction about his friends and influences.
It's a great batch of stuff, really: reminiscences about his friendships and professional relationships with Donald Westlake, Evan Hunter, and others. Several columns worth of "what it was like to learn how not to write bad stuff while working for Scott Meredith." Some funny pieces about (not) winning an Edgar. Tributes to Poe, Chandler, Hammett, Spillane, and some less-obvious and long-out-of-print pulp and paperback original authors. (My "scour used bookstores for these authors" list got a bit longer while reading this collection...)
But, like I said: if you're a Block fan, you don't need me to tell you this. And if you're not, I've rambled on long enough. Go buy the book already. Block self-published it in affordable ebook format just for that purpose. So why would you want to let him down by not reading it?