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Read Deadly Honeymoon (2003)

Deadly Honeymoon (2003)

Online Book

Rating
3.36 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0743445597 (ISBN13: 9780743445597)
Language
English
Publisher
ibooks

Deadly Honeymoon (2003) - Plot & Excerpts

In essence, this is a simple, relentless revenge tale. Dave and Jill are young newlyweds on their honeymoon, bright-eyed and eager for the future, until they witness a murder and become victims themselves—the bad guys beat Dave senseless, and, almost on a whim, brutally rape Jill. Thankfully, Block doesn’t go into detail on this (after all, who wants to read a rape scene?) but in his clinical, almost detached vagueness, Block succeeds in horrifying you. It’s the sudden shift that does it, the juxtaposition of a young couple so happy and naïve just pages earlier, confronted with a sort of violence they never could have conceived of.Instead of going to the police, Dave and Jill decide to take matters into their own hands. Something has been taken away from them, they feel; something that can only be paid for in blood.The two of them go to New York on the trail of the enemy, and over the course of tracking them down discover how deep the darkness in their own hearts goes. They still love each other, still want each other, but their desire for vengeance tests everything they think they know about themselves. DEADLY HONEYMOON is an immensely satisfying novel, moving along at a breakneck pace, lingering only briefly on their fumbling and bittersweet attempts to hold onto each other. A lot of the anxiety in reading it comes from your fear that, after all this, will they ever be able to return to any sort of normalcy. And Lawrence Block keeps you on edge about that until the final pages.An absolutely top-notch, brilliant novel.

Dave and Jill are just beginning their honeymoon when they witness a murder. The killers give Dave a savage beating and rape Jill while Dave can only listen helplessly. But they made one mistake. They let them live...Deadly Honeymoon is a fairly standard revenge plot, masterfully paced by the esteemed Lawrence Block. I picked this up after reading about it in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, Block's spectacular writing book. It's a good example of building suspense.Dave and Jill aren't hugely detailed characters. Block's done a lot better but this was really early in his career. The couple's tracking down of their enemies was believable and well done. The story felt a little dated at times but was still an enjoyable read. It was almost orgasmic when the hitmen finally got what was coming to them.

What do You think about Deadly Honeymoon (2003)?

I often wondered why many famous authors make it difficult for readers to sample their very early work. After reading Deadly Honeymoon I think I might have the answer. Up front I have to say that Lawrence Block is one of my favourite authors and Matt Scudder one of my favourite characters in the crime fiction world. So when Mr Block started e-publishing and promoting some of his very early work I thought I would have a look.Deadly Honeymoon is a straight out and out revenge tale. A young couple on their honeymoon witness a gangland murder and then the two hitmen decide to beat the husband and rape the wife. The reason they don't kill them is because one of the goons decides "I don't like killing nobody without I get paid for it". Then in less than half a page of dialogue the couple decide they will head to New York, track the two men down, and kill them.What follows is a very,very linear story with more detail given to street directions than fleshing out the characters. Interestingly Block says in the afterword that Gold Medal (who had published some of his other earlier stories) turned this book down.Full kudos to Lawrence Block for making his earlier work available to readers. If you are a Block fan this may be of interest to you. If you want to sample his earlier work I would suggest those books published by Hard Case Crime which are much stronger than this. If you are new to Block don't start here!
—Nick

This 1967 mystery by "potboiler" author Lawrence Block was recommended in the _Murder Is Binding_ mystery I just read. It's a good one, a quick read, about a couple who get involved with murder on their wedding night.* * * * *I thoroughly enjoyed the story, which was originally the idea of Block's good friend, Donald Westlake. It makes me want to read Westlake's "Parker" stories and other 1960s mystery and detective stories, on which I cut my reading "teeth," and a genre I haven't read in years. It was so funny to read about New York City in the 1960s: people were located when only their first names were known, a hotel room was $5.50, boarding houses had shared bathrooms and men always shaved and wore suits and ties. Diners abounded in the city and folks routinely smoked in them. Tee hee.
—C-shaw

Now sometimes it happens that I buy a book because its cover makes it look exciting and interesting and I get it home and begin to read and the cover shows itself to have been desperately misleading. At other times I find titles fascinating or intriguing, their very weirdness or beauty can entice and draw me in and you have to congratulate the imagination of the writer but in this case it was an ebook so the cover is nothing and the story does exactly what is 'says on the tin'. Jill and Dave Wade drive from their Wedding ceremony to their honeymoon in a small lodge by the side of a Lake. Here they witness a brutal murder and the hitmen beat up the young husband and then proceed to rape Jill who had remained a virgin so as to enable her husband to be the first.The story is of their revenge on the two perpetrators. They follow them to New York and during the course of the first week of their married life they proceed(view spoiler)[ to kill a musclebound bodyguard,Carl; beat up Carl's employer so as to discover the identity of their attackers and then coldly and clinically kill the two rapists. (hide spoiler)]
—Mark

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