Finished: LB's Girl With The Long Green Heart

She was every man’s dream - and one man’s nightmare.

The Girl With the Long Green Heart is one of Lawrence Block's novels in the Hard Case Crime imprint. I like these crime noir things with the Mickey Spilane vocabulary.

I'm guessing it's set in the 1960s and one of the scenes that jumped out at me was when the main character flew on an airplane with a pistol in his pocket. He wasn't too concerned about it because there were no metal detectors and his only worry was the slight chance that since it was an international flight (Canada-to-U.S.) that it might get spotted by Customs. Times have changed.

This was a good one. It took a little time to set up the "grift" but it was necessarily tedious as you needed to know that stuff for the ending to make sense.

It was short, interesting, unexpectedly action-packed in areas with a good twist. I gave it a 7- on the Haugenometer. Goodreads grades it about the same at 3.7 of 5.

Block is also an avid Facebooker and goes above and beyond other authors I see there and really gives you a little more personal look at his life and daily doings. He also has an email newsletter I enjoy. Just send a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with "Newsletter" in the subject line and he'll get ya on it.