Customer Reviews

Lennie & Vance & Benji (Toby Crime)

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I enjoyed this book by Keith Botsford tremendously. It's, well, a bit *twisted*, but that suits my tastes. And I must say (if I may say without sounding presumptuous): Botsford really can write. I find I'm getting more and more turned off by the contemporary unctuous artistes who write fine sentences but wouldn't know a story if it bit their privates; I find myself rolling my eyes at faux-Faulknerists who revel in "stopping time" and never letting it get started again; in short, I'm sick to damn death of stories where *nothing happens*. L&V&B is a terrific *story*...it moves, it chills, it frankly freaks me out at times...and of course it's also lovely in spots: "Towards the back in those days you would have seen Benji slight and dancing like Lennie, but shorter, an assiduous listener like Vance, blond too, sweeping up the hair that gathered in hassocks like lumps of prairie grass, supplying the towels that lay across the customers' shoulders or taking them out to the laundry bin." It's no-nonsense, but lyrical, stuff. This book is not for the faint of heart, but it's a tough and crunchy read.