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Read After The First Death (2002)

After the First Death (2002)

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3.45 of 5 Votes: 3
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ISBN
0743445074 (ISBN13: 9780743445078)
Language
English
Publisher
ibooks

After The First Death (2002) - Plot & Excerpts

Alex Penn has had better starts to the day. After waking up following a night of heavy drinking he can, at first, barely face the day. Once he’s persuaded his eyes to open it gets worse – his clothes are covered in blood and what’s that on the floor? It’s a naked and very dead woman. To rub salt in the wound it’s the second time he’s experienced the self same scenario. It surely can’t be just bad luck…This book was written in 1969 and it’s interesting to see how this simplifies a tale like this. Murderers don’t live in fear of DNA evidence pointing a definitive finger in their direction; mobile phone records can’t be used to track their movements, whereabouts or actions. On the other hand, simple things we take for granted today were impossible so, for example, there were no cash dispensing machines to allow easy access to money on a Sunday, which created a problem for Alex.It’s is a pretty simple plot, albeit with a few twists along the way. The story telling is fluid – well it is from the hand of Lawrence Block – and the characters are reasonably well drawn. On the downside, the simplicity of the tale does make it a little ‘samey’ throughout and I started to find it a little tedious towards the end. There is an excellent ‘afterward’ by LB in which he explains that a good deal of the story (though not the killings!) was inspired by actual events in his life. He’d experienced the late night heavy drinking and subsequent blackouts and had frequently inhabited the seedy areas surrounding Times Square at that time.A small complaint: in the Kindle version I read there were quite a few grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. I’d have hoped these could have been ironed out before it went on sale.

A man wakes up in a cheap hotel after a night of excess drinking. There is the bloody body of a hooker on the floor. Her throat is cut and there is blood all over the man's clothes. All he can think is "Not again!". He has no memory of what happened last night. No memory at all but he had killed a prostitute in a hotel in the past and had no memory of that as well. A great beginning to this noir detective novel in which he evades the police and frantically searches for clues to find the killer, if it is not him and keep out of jail.

What do You think about After The First Death (2002)?

Interesting with a wham! ending. Beginning to think author must have nightmares and writes 'em down. :) Reader: Peter Burkhart did a good job. Have read author before and will again. ©1969 text/ 2014 audio
—Cindy

The copyright on the CD set I had was 2011 so I didn't realize that the story takes place in the 1960's or '70's. It was gritty and not my thing. Although there was not much sexual description it was more that I tolerate. I might check it out again from the library to finish, but I really don't care.
—Rachel

Alex Penn is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. He wakes up painfully hungover, coming out of a blackout drunk. When he finally gets out of bed, he discovers his clothes are all messed up, covered in blood it would seem and, just when he thinks things might have been looking up ( not having a nosebleed counts as a win in these circumstances), he turns his head. In what I assume is an homage to the words of Julius Caesar: "I looked, I saw, I vomited." Sorry Alexander, Penn's got you trumped now, because you, my ginger little friend, did not wake up with a bloodied, dead hooker.* (See clarification re. terminology below). Oh, and did I mention Alex Penn was fresh out of prison on a Supreme Court ruling technicality? Also, he was in prison in the first place for (you guessed it!) killing a hooker.More bad news for Mr. Penn, the fact that you have no memory of the crime in either case courtesy of voluntary intoxication doesn't get you off in the mens rea department (especially since we're in 1940s New York, and there's not much case law for you to run with). So what’s a fella’ to do?This wasn't Scudder-level Block for me. I tend not to be big on reading about junkies (though Alex is not one himself) - too much talk of needle marks and being "on the nod" makes my stomach lurch. But, as always, Lawrence Block is a master of the grimy noir ambiance that gets richer in his later work._______________________________________* Terminology clarification and life wisdom courtesy of one Sterling Archer:
—Mara

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