One Night Stands and Lost Weekends

September 29, 2008
First published in two volumes by Crippen & Landru in 1999, this collection of early crime stories from bestseller Block (Hit and Run
) is a mixed bag. Part one consists of 25 unremarkable tales, including Block's sole foray into science fiction. Offering no defense of their quality in his frank introduction, the author admits that he hasn't reread these stories in decades. Even devoted fans will struggle not to lose patience at encountering yet another grim account of a brutal misogynist who ends up on the wrong end of a gun or a knife. By contrast, the three novellas featuring New York City PI Ed London, starting with “The Naked and the Deadly,” are taut classic hard-boiled noir, with the gumshoe tangling with treacherous women and lying clients. Closer to the MWA Grand Master's usual level, they blend suspense, a puzzle and an appropriately cynical first-person narrative voice, and will leave even newcomers hungry for more.

September 1, 2008
This combo volume mates Block's 2001 short story volume "One Night Stands" with 1999's "Lost Weekends" novelettes, which collect his earliest published works (written in a single night or over a weekend, respectively). Most of the 25 shorts quite frankly are amateurish, but considering Block was still an undergrad when writing them, you have to cut the guy a break. The novelettes trio featuring Manhattan private eye Ed London are better. It's interesting to observe his skills progressing and no doubt inspiring to would-be writers to see that a mystery deity's early stuff is as bad as their's. The stories, published in tawdry men's magazines during the late 1950s and early 1960s, are formulaicall feature a tough guy and a stacked blonde robobabe whose clothes can barely contain her centerfold goodies. There's gratuitous sex, violence, and often hilarious breast descriptions galore, along with booze, smokes, gunplay, and murder. This collection must be viewed as a thing of its politically incorrect time, but if your taste runs to cheap detectives, cheaper crooks, and D-cup damsels, "One Night Stands and Lost Weekends" is for you. Recommended.Mike Rogers, "LJXpress/Library Journal"

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2008
These short stories and novellas were originally published, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in magazines with names like Manhunt, Guilty, and Trapped. In his entertaining introduction, Block, a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, freely admits he hasnt read them sincehe is afraid to. Should you be? That depends. Even on training wheels, Block dropped hints at the writer he was to become. The cognac-drinking, pipe-smoking, Mozart-loving Ed London, Blocks first PI, becomes more interesting when considered as a prototype for the complex Matt Scudder. And its fun to read Nor Iron Bars a Cage (originally titled To Althea from Prison), Blocks first (and, thankfully, only) try at science fiction. But with the pulp-fiction revival going great guns, hard-boiled rarities are increasingly common, so this may be best suited for Block completistsalthough true collectors will have already hunted down the limited-edition hardcovers One Night Stands (1999) and The Lost Cases of Ed London (2001). Better Block abounds, but you could do far worse for bathroom reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)