Customer Reviews

Deadly Honeymoon

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

One of Block's early, non-series novels, DEADLY HONEYMOON tells the story of a newlywed couple assaulted on its wedding night by a pair of Mob assassins. After the brutal attack, the couple tracks the killers back to New York City and meticulously plots and executes a plan of revenge. As usual for Block's novels, the prose is lean and the plot compelling. The event that sets the story in motion invites skepticism -- would professional hitmen pause at the scene of a murder to rape an eyewitness, and if so, would they then leave the witness and her husband alive? -- but thereafter the storytelling is flawless, right through the shattering and cinematic gun battle with which the book closes. Fans of Block's work will note that this novel was the author's first to be written in the third person; his first to feature a scene in New York's Grammercy Park (which reappears memorably in THE BURGLAR IN THE CLOSET); and his first to become a movie ("Nightmare Honeymoon," 1973). Fans of this novel should try the same author's MONA and THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART or Cornell Woolrich's THE BRIDE WORE BLACK.

I read this book years ago when it first came out. It's as good as I remember. Revenge was never more satisfying. This isn't THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO but it's a tale that fits our time. I will tell nothing about the story except that it's a honeymoon turned into horror story with a very satisfying ending. Read it if you liked DEATH WISH. It's the same moral but a very different story

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!

A quick read and totally predictable. Not worth the time or money unless it is free. Thank God it was under a buck.

One of the happiest events in publishing this last year was the flood of re-releases on e-book of Lawrence Block titles. His fans finally got to grab up inexpensive editions of some of the Master's earliest work, and see an entirely different aspect of his vast talents.

One of the earliest of these new e-book releases was DEADLY HONEYMOON, a novel Block wrote in 1967 and which has been in and out of print over the years ever since. I was particularly excited about this one, since I'd been buying and reading the Hard Case Crime reprints and enjoying the hell out of them. According to Block's essay at the back of the book, DEADLY HONEYMOON was inspired by his friend Donald Westlake, and was his very first hardcover release.

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.

This book does not develop a single character, is wooden and so unbelievable one has to sit back and say "shall I read one more page or hang it up now?" The writing is equivalent to what one would expect to find in a junior high school creative writing class. I regret the time I put into finishing it and if I can discourage anyone else from reading this book, it might be worth what I paid for it.

I am so grateful that i didn't pay a lot of money for this book. I really thought it would be a great read after i read the description, but i've never read such wooden, boring writing before or since.
I actually considered not finishing it, but i did. Needless to say, i will avoid this writer in the future.

This is a blunt simple basic story of revenge. There is very little development of the characters or the potentially complex story line. A couple witnesses a murder. The woman gets raped on her wedding night by the murderers. She was a virgin waiting for her wedding night to give herself to her only love.

It was hard to assign a number of stars. It is excellent for what it is. Furthermore, I am not sure we need to know anything about how this crime effected the couple, the brutality speaks for itself.

I loved the book, and it is deeply satisfying on every level. It was written by a master story teller.

So why only 3 stars? It is outstanding for what it is.
Yet ultimately I feel 4 & 5 stars must be for true pieces of literature.
This is not great literature. It would be an outstanding 2 hour TV movie.
It is a dead ahead no frills no insights no emotional discussions well written story of loss and satisfying revenge.

Melvin Morse

Even with the word "Honeymoon" in the title, if you know Lawrence Block, you don't expect satin sheets and rose petals, do you? Good. Because you aren't going to get them in this book. This is one of Mr. Block's early works, yet it lacks absolutely nothing in the art of storytelling.

When something DEADLY occurs on a fresh young couple's HONEYMOON, they take matters into their own hands, scouring the streets of an unknown New York City to find the people on whom they will exact their revenge. While I was reading Dave's dogged pursuit of clue after clue to run down his prey, I wondered whether I was witnessing the birth of Matthew Scudder. Could be.

Do not - DO NOT - stop hitting "next" until the progress bar at the bottom of your Kindle is all the way to 100 per cent. There are some treasures at the end that you don't want to miss.

It's a wild ride. Enjoy it.

This story was captivating from the first page. I didn't realize at first that this story was written decades ago. It is still fresh and interesting. I could not put the book down.