So close yet so far.

I bought this book based on an article in a newspaper. The article was discussing authors who truly "owned" the cities that they write about. Lawrence Block was the suggested writer for lovers of New York.

Block certainly fulfills this, he captures the almost bi-polar nature of New York in a way that few authors do and George Guidall's performance is excellent.

That, sadly, is where the positives run out. The story is bitty and jumps around without enough connection. The title and the premise suggest that all these stories will be interconnected and, in a way, they are but they don't join up to make one full story.

It lacks the impact that its subject matter should allow it to have. Maybe I'll try another Block novel one day, perhaps this is just one of his lesser works. I don't think it will be any time soon however.

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3 people found this helpful

Very poor

As a fan of Block’s other work, I was excited to listen to this book. The performance was excellent, which is just as well because the story and the characters are really badly written. Cliches everywhere, but worst of all is Susan, a woman embarking on a path of sexual discovery. The sex in this book is not only graphic, but it’s graphic as viewed very much with the ‘male gaze’ which is essentially a man’s view of what a woman would experience in such a sexual awakening. It’s like a lifelong teetotaller trying to explain what it feels like to be drunk. I found it all a bit uncomfortable and at the same time eye-rollingly stupid.
The story is formed of a number of intertwined threads in the lives of the characters and the idea is sound enough. The idea of a city as vast as New York being a small town was interesting. The problem is that it never draws together in a satisfactory way. The end is just flat.
Overall, it’s not a great example of the work of a great author.

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