Mitch Tobin is a hard-nosed, disgraced ex-cop who spends his days building a wall around his back yard - until Ernie Rembeck walks into his life. Rembeck is a suave, educated mobster whose mistress has vanished along with the money he had stashed in her apartment. Now Mitch is looking for Rembeck's missing possessions and the persons responsible for their disappearance, and he is in for a wild ride. This take on the classic private eye novel is the first in a series by Westlake, heralded by "New York Times" critic Anthony Boucher as the rightful heir to Dashiell Hammett.
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Book Description
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Amazon.com Review
Penzler Pick, November 2000: Donald E. Westlake alone in a room is practically an entire writers' conference. Under his own name he's known mainly for his twisty--some would say twisted--comic thrillers that have a wisecracking flavor all their own. As Westlake, too, he is the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Grifters, a take-no-prisoners masterpiece of film noir and the man responsible for the best-selling, blackly satiric novel The Ax. But at other moments in his career, he has been Richard Stark, Timothy J. Culver, Tucker Coe, and Curt Clark (this last a short- lived pseudonym used for a single science fiction title).
The "Coe" face of Westlake--his coe-conspirator, one might say--has finally been reissued, and Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death, the first Tucker Coe book, will please those fans eager to make the acquaintance of a favorite writer's older work. Originally published in 1966, Kinds of Love introduces Mitch Tobin, a former New York cop whose selfishness has helped cause the death of his partner and his own subsequent departure in disgrace from the force. Now at home in Queens, unemployed and unable to forgive himself, he remains determined to keep on turning that psycho-spiritual knife upon which he's impaled himself.
In a new introduction, Westlake explains how the self-tormenting character of Tobin came to be: "Since I was never content to just ride the road already traveled, but always wanted to twist the concept or embellish it or alter it somehow, this time the idea was that the detective was reluctant to be a detective, because he had serious problems of his own that consumed all his attention." Even given the reality of his despair, the traumatized Mitch continues to regard himself as "an honest man and a responsible citizen." Take it or leave it, he tells the syndicate crime boss who's hoping to hire him, convinced that this dishonored but still savvy one-time cop can discover who in his organization has brutally murdered his mistress. Accepting $5,000 for the job but refusing to keep the fact of his employment a secret from anyone who might think to ask, Mitch thus begins his new life as a private operative.
There are five Mitch Tobin novels in all; "Tucker Coe" stopped writing in 1972. Yet the books he created were both spare and unsparing, in the best 21st century tradition, and so mystery readers can be grateful to have them available once again. --Otto Penzler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Coe . . . comes out triumphant on all counts in this happy blend of the gutsy 'tough' novel and the intellectual puzzle." -- New York Times Book Review
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great story and writing by Donald Westlake (Tucker Coe),
By A Customer
This review is from: Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death (Paperback)
A character I haven't enjoyed before, a real good guy that operates differently. Very much like Matthew Scudder by Lawrence Block. If you have read all of the Scudder stories, try this character, you will be pleasantly rewarded. Ex-cop and all the same background. Enjoy.
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