Customer Reviews

The Lime Pit

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first entry in the Harry Stoner detective series is also the best. Harry tries to track down the whereabouts of a teenage hooker who has gotten herself involved with a ring of snuff film makers. The case takes Stoner through the underworld of his native Cincinnati, and never have the streets of the Queen city seemed so ominous. The climax is befittingly brutal and bloody. This book is for lovers of down and dirty detective fiction.

I love the way Amazon.com creates lists of titles that you might enjoy based on how you rate other books. It's like finding someone who loves all the same books as you and keeps finding new ones for you to dig into. I found this book amidst the recommendations Amazon provided and snatched it up from a used book dealer. It was an excellent, hard-boiled detective story in the Robert B. Parker tradition. The plot was fairly simple and ordinary but the main character and the stark and brutal violence were enough to engage me and hook me into reading this book in a single sitting. Check it out...you won't be disappointed.

Here is is, July of 2004 and I am reading this, the first of quite a few Harry Stoner books that take place in and around Cincinnati. I was first exposed to JV/HS through a friend who read through the series about 15 years ago. Recently while on a trip to Hilton Head, I wanted some beach reading and I thought of this author, looked him up on Amazon and was disappointed to find that they were OOP. A quick search at a used book store and I picked up all but 2 on the series and am working my way through them. The writing is a modernized "hard-boiled" style and takes place in a Noir Cincinnati which hides itself under an otherwise stolid, Conservative, Republican city. For those who know the city and those that do not, this is a great book. Some of the landmarks are gone, and the references dated, but the story still holds up. A great modern hard boiled detective mystery read...especially good for the beach. I;m sad I didn't read these sooner. These are a must read for those that are from Cincinnati, went to Cincinnati for school, especially those who are familar with Clifton Gaslight.

This is the first in a dark, but great series. I first read them all years ago and when I went back to reread The Lime Pit, it held up fabulously. Stoner is kind of a stereotype--rough tough PI who will do whatever it takes, but it works. All the books are intriguing, interesting and very well done and Stoner is a compelling character.

I read a Stephen King intro to a Matthew Scudder novel in which King said that Scudder and Stoner were his two favorite PI's. King should be ashamed of himself.

The Lime Pit is a not particularly well told hard-boiled detective story. There are no surprises. There are no likable characters. The telling is very formulaic. The writing is at best mediocre. Robert Parker, Loren Estleman, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake write interesting, lively, original characters. Jonathan Valin's Harry Stoner is dull, plodding and predictable.

I may try another Harry Stoner novel some day, but only when I have run out of other things to read.