Grifter's Game (Lawrence Block, 1961)

At first, I thought this one would be memorable for the main hero's simply incredible naiveness bordering sheer stupidity. It takes 146 pages and an old Hitchcock movie for our poor sucker Joe to realise that  things are not exactly what they appear to be:

Later, lying in bed and trying to sleep, I realized something. I tried to imagine a movie in which the hero steals two pieces of luggage, one of which is loaded with a fortune in raw heroin. Then the same hero happens to pick up or get picked up by a girl who subsequently turns out to be the wife of the guy who owns the luggage and the heroin.
Coincidental?
More than that. Almost incredible. 

However, I'm glad to say that, instead, it will stay in my memory for its excellent ending, which I didn't see coming at all. Needless to say, Joe gets screwed over by the girl, but his payback is really something. Without giving away too much, let's just say that there's a reason why Mr Block brought that (initially a bit nonsensical) heroin stuff into the story. Original conclusion, indeed. Nasty, grim, disturbing and fatalistic. The way I like them.

All in all, it is a nice take on the ever-inspiring theme of "old rich husband, young unsatisfied/greedy wife".

3.5/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Joe Marlin, a con man. However, he comes across more like a gigolo who specialises in skipping luxury hotels without paying the bills.

Location:
Philadelphia, New York, Atlantic City, Miami, Tahoe, Las Vegas

Body count: 

1

The object of desire: 
The usual: girl for the boy and money for the girl.

Dames: 
She told me her name was Mona and I told her my name was Lennie. She was a lot of fun, besides being a sex symbol.

Title: 
A bit misleading. Like I said, Joe is more like a gigolo; he's certainly nothing like the Paul Newman/Robert Redford kind of grifter, and his "game" is simply killing some old dude from a point-blank distance. But I guess "Grifter's Game" sounds much better than "Gigolo's Assassination".

Edition:  
Hard Case Crime #1. Yes, the first HCC edition!

Cover: 
A nice illustration by Chuck Pyle. It's pretty accurate, too, as it depicts the killing of Mona's husband in a drive-by shooting. I like the way her eyes seemed to oversee the whole scene from the background.

Cool lines: 
“You’re sweet,” she said. “Very sweet.”
“Isn’t your husband sweet?”
“Forget him.”
“How can I? He’s married to the most beautiful girl in the world.”
Another smile.
“Well?”
“He’s not sweet. He’s old and he’s fat and he’s ugly. Also stupid. Also revolting.”
It was quite a list.
“So why did you marry him?”
“He’s also rich,” she said. “Very rich. Very very very rich.”

Kiss Her Goodbye (Allan Guthrie, 2005)

"Framed man on the run proving his innocence" type of story. And this time (thankfully!), our hero is not some clueless doctor or school teacher. Joe Hope is a badass muscle man working for his best friend, who also happens to be a nasty loan shark. Nice touch. It scores a point for originality.

And it starts very promisingly. There are a couple of bodies, a bit of family drama, decent character development, a great pace, and some action... A real page-turner with tension building nicely, and just enough hints are thrown in for us to suspect our hero's best friend might be... well, you know - not such a good friend after all.

But then it simply stops. Nothing happens whatsoever, except that the good guys are becoming increasingly convinced that the bad guy is indeed guilty. There's no investigation, no new clues, no additional characters, no sub-plots (btw what the fuck was that crap between Adam and Dotty?), no nothing. And as this progresses, we, too, get a pretty good idea of where all this boredom will eventually lead. So, no mystery or tension, and I really struggled to finish it.

The Grand finale is a bit weird. Since our team of good guys (still) has no proof or single solid piece of evidence, they come up with some ridiculously elaborate plan to get a confession from the suspect (ah, fuck it - by now, we all know he's guilty as hell) by simply torturing him. And not just him; Joe even threatens to kill his baby. Huh? Is this supposed to be hard-boiled? Not really. I would say it's pretty pathetic.

Mediocre and forgettable. Skip it unless you're trying (like I do) to complete your Hard Case Crime collection.

2/5

Facts:

Hero: 
Joe Hope - enforcer of the local mobster/loan shark. Even though he's in a shitty line of work, he seems to be a nice guy. He got lots of my sympathy right away on the very first page when he rants about overpriced LCD TVs.

Location: 
Edinburgh and briefly a remote island of Orkney, where Allan Guthrie was born.

Body count:  

2

Object of desire: 
Clearing his name and getting revenge 

Dames: 
Tina - a stereotypical hooker with a golden heart.

Blackouts: 
I think there actually is one, although it's not explicitly specified. Judge it for yourself:

Joe crumpled to the floor at Adam's feet, tried to get up and sank to the floor again.
After a minute or two Joe rolled onto his side, head throbbing. He'd have a fucking lump the size of an old man's bollock tomorrow.
 

Title: 
Cool sounding but not accurate. Joe Hope's way of saying goodbye to his loved ones is not to kiss them. He prefers to torture and kill the guilty guy and his offspring.

Edition: 

Hard Case Crime #008

Cover: 
Except for the horrific yellow background, it's a nice, old-school illustration by Chuck Pyle (probably not the country singer dude). It depicts a scene in which Tina beats the shit out of some schmuck with a baseball bat. She's okay and pretty sexy, but I liked Joe more. Tough guy, leaning on the car in the background with a mildly amusing facial expression, more or less saying he doesn't give a shit.

Notable cover blurbs: 
Usual nonsense like "memorable, stunning, pitch-perfect, hard-edged, fast-paced, noir, hard-boiled." Both Ed Gorman and Jason Starr probably read just a few of the opening chapters.

Cool lines: 
None really, which was really disappointing. Hoped for some of that insane Scottish street slang, but all we get in this one is an occasional "wee".