Customer Reviews

Past Due

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was surprised so few have reviewed this book and the four stars was equally confusing. The writing is superb. The dialogue is funny, genuine and snappy as all get out. The plot is fast-paced and the characters are colorful and interesting. Quite frankly, I couldn't put it down. Lashner scores with this one and adds a new fan to his readers base. I won't hesitate to pick up his next, in hardcover. Read it and enjoy!

This is Lashner's most ambitious work and is clearly a departure from his first three books, all of which I read and enjoyed. South Phildelphia lawyer Victor Carl is the narrator, but this has little to do with being a Grisham type novel. This is Mystic River moves to South Philly. It all starts with Joey Cheaps getting his throat slashed. Joey leaves the world the way he lived in it, owing everyone in sight, including Carl. Hours before his death Joey had met with Victor Carl and as Carl put it, "...Joey Cheaps had given me something. It was something I didn't want, something I had no use for, but he had given it to me all the same. He had given me a murder." As Carl recounts Joey's tale of a twenty year old murder he also reveals a part of himself and his loyalty to a client. That loyalty in Victor Carl's world means "in a world where every person has turned against him there is one person who will fight by his side as long as there is a battle to be fought. And the final battle, far as I could see, was just beginning." Truer words were never put to paper.

Carl's search for Joey's killer leads down many paths and to many interesting a bizarre characters. Halfway through the book he notes, "I had gotten in the middle of something, of which I didn't have the first clue." Right again.

The story unwinds like the peeling of an onion and glimpses of the answer show for a moment and then the story turns in another direction. However, no matter what direction it takes, the reader has signed on for the duration and the answer when it comes, is well worth the trip.

On a personal note, I came by this book through the generosity of a lady who has read my reviews and found them useful. Her husband had started the book, but found it not to his liking and declined to finish it. She offered to send it to me to see what I thought of it. Well, I am delighted she did and I would be more than happy to return it so that she might read it or her husband might give it a second chance. I found it fascinating and I hope you will also.

In Philadelphia, lawyer Victor Carl visits his dying father residing at the Temple University Hospital. His dad may be near death and seems to only tell melancholy tales from his youth, but has enough of his faculties to know that his son's cable is out and the Sixers are on TV.

Meanwhile pathetic insignificant wannabe thug Joey "Cheaps" Parma wants to retain Victor involving the murder of a lawyer Tommy Greeley twenty years ago. Only Victor would agree to assist Joey Cheaps, who not only never pays on time, is assumed guilty even by his attorney, and admits to his lawyer that he was one of the killers. However, not long afterward, the throat slashed corpse of Joey Cheaps is found near the waterfront. Though he knows he will not get paid and realizes he should mind his business, Victor feels a certain obligation to his dead client and begins making inquiries into what happened two decades ago and why suddenly did that homicide resurface into a new murder.

Though the conspiratorial ending and the lack of legalese makes the tale more a private investigator novel, fans will enjoy touring Philadelphia on Victor Carl's days off. The story line is fast-paced, punctuated by Victor's sarcasm, much of which is self-effacing. His relationship with his dad adds a humanizing sidebar even if the Iverson is the draw. Readers will enjoy trekking the town with Victor as he does what he believes is right even for a dead beat loser like Cheaps.

Harriet Klausner

This was my first Lashner novel, and I'm looking forward to tracking down the rest. His characters are like your neighbors, simple and complex if you start digging. The plot is engaging, twists you around and leaves you sitting mistaken in your own predictions but not feeling cheated. Everything makes sense, and most of it is surprising when revealed. It's a long discovery into a story and an old lifestyle, written in a noir style that flows extremely well.

In William Lashner's latest novel, pragmatic lawyer Victor Carl once again finds himself one step away from bankruptcy and one of his few clients - a two-bit crook known as Joey Cheaps - dead. Cheaps rarely paid his bills when he was alive, and as a dead man, all he leaves Carl is a murder mystery that offers little in the way or rewards and a good chance of killing the attorney himself.

Thus opens Past Due, and what ensues is an entertaining, fast-reading thriller. Carl, money-hungry but with enough personal integrity to seek Cheaps's killer despite the lack of financial incentives, finds himself entangled in an older murder mystery. Twenty years earlier, Cheaps assaulted a drug dealer as part of a shakedown, but what was supposed to be a beating turned into a murder. Two decades later, this crime has come back to haunt him and somehow lead to his death.

With few clues, Carl starts investigating, riling, among others, a major crime boss and a state Supreme Court justice. The judge has the ability to make Carl's life miserable, but the crime boss threatens to just end it. Nonetheless, with fatalistic perseverance, Carl pushes on to unearth the truth.

Plotwise, there is little to distinguish Past Due from a number of other mysteries (despite the lawyer protagonist, this is not a legal thriller as very little of the story takes place in a courtroom). What makes this book distinctive, however, is the strong narration of Carl, a likeable loser with a dry sense of humor. So if this looks superficially like just another crime novel, you should be pleasantly surprised by this book which stands out among similar fare.

This was my first Lashner novel, and unless popular opinion overwhelms me, it'll probably be my last. I'm a big fan of mystery novels and this one just left me a little unexcited. Although I felt I could root for the main character, the rest of the cast seemed unexciting and unmemorable. Lashner's writing style seemed at odds with the genre as well. It came across as too informal, too casual for the story. I followed this book with a Michael Connelly story and that eclipsed this in it's attention-keeping abilities.

Past Due was a lot of fun to read...the plot contained the important twists and turns, but did not feel as desperate as some of the other stories--indeed, Victor was more in control. It was fun to see McDeiss, Larry, Skink again. Where was Morris? I love Morris. I miss Morris. Anyway, the real strength of this story was the way Victor continued to come to terms with himself. And his past. Lashner is to praised for allowing Victor to mature and grow. A very special thing.

I picked up PAST DUE one night on a whim, knowing nothing about William Lashner or his reputation in the mystery genre. The cover caught my eye, and it looked thick, so being the type who prefers more of an epic story, I snatched it off the shelf and perused the first line.

I was hooked. And the book took off from there.

Lashner created a very funny anti-hero in Victor Carl, a sleazy Philadelphia lawyer intent on keeping his word to find a murdered client's killer. Carl's loyalty sees him encounter dangerous thugs of all types, from members of the Mafia to crooked politicians and judges, to drug dealers and their hangers-on. They all put Carl through the ringer, and do so in such smart and funny ways that many times I found myself laughing out loud at what transpired. The mystery is superb, keeping you guessing until the VERY end, and Carl's occasional visits to his dying father in the hospital are funny and touching all at once. All the characters are drawn to perfection, too, making you believe in them and accenting the story with that much more poignancy.

Lashner's chapter endings are among the best I've ever read. So good, in fact, that I absolutely hated when I had to put the book down. So my only qualm with PAST DUE really only concerns the ending. Lashner has a ton of expectation riding on the climax, dispensing with the humor and getting serious as the end approaches. But then, in one fell swoop, everything turns comical again when we find out who's behind it all and why. Needless to say, I felt let down, almost a bit cheated. Seems he wanted to lighten the mood a bit prematurely.

Nevertheless, I still heartily recommend PAST DUE for any mystery, suspense, or thriller enthusiast out there. The story's a funny, intriguing romp that takes you through the highest courts in Philly to the seediest parts of its underbelly. Truly epic in scope, pick up PAST DUE for a good laugh and a good mystery.

I was greatly disappointed with this book that is lacking the dynamic and intriguing characters of previous Victor Carl books (Specifically, Hostile Witness). Also, I remember the tension and integrety questions of the previous book I mentioned as Victor takes money to basically railroad an innocent man, bankrupts another man, and sleeps with a key witness in a murder tria. I really had to push myself to get through this one. It is also lacking the great interaction with his partner Beth who was prevelent in previous efforts.

I did not care about Joey "Cheaps" Parma and finding his killer nor did I find it the least bit interesting how Joey and his partner stole the suitcase.

I compare Lashner to David Rosenfelt who has been writing Andy Carpenter stories. His books seem to keep the flow of the characters from book to book and all his follow-ups to his brilliant first novel were good in their own right. I hope Mr. Lashner really plans out his next Victor Carl effort or he will lose this reader.

It doesn't take long with PAST DUE --- no it doesn't take long at all, just the first few sentences --- to realize that you're getting into something that transcends the normal reading experience. It's that opening paragraph, where author William Lashner begins comparing a crime scene to a nativity display that tips you off that this will be one of those rare experiences where the boundaries between reader and writer are going to be removed and cut down, and there will be --- dare I say it? --- an intimacy achieved that will be close to making love.

The image that kept recurring to me as I read PAST DUE is that of Lashner as one of those gourmet chefs who comes to your table and prepares this one-of-a-kind meal where everything is perfect. The vegetables are fresh, you can still see the morning dew on them; the meat drips red and is nicely marbled; the sauces and creams shimmer deeply; and the chef knows exactly what he is doing with his razor-sharp cutlery, not so much slicing and dicing as sculpting and carving, his preparation and presentation being as much a part of the meal as the ultimate consumption. Each course is presented in due time, with prescient knowledge of how long it takes to consume, enjoy and digest each presentation. And when the meal is completed, you're not stuffed or bloated, but it was so good that you feel as if you will never need or want to eat again. That was what reading PAST DUE is like.

PAST DUE is the fourth Victor Carl novel. Carl, is a lawyer in Philadelphia as opposed to the archetypal "Philadelphia lawyer." Lashner's presentation of Carl has grown progressively darker with each successive novel; in PAST DUE, he takes a tiny step back from the abyss toward which Carl had seemed to be inexorably headed.

The tale begins with the murder of one of Carl's clients, a multiple-time loser named Joseph Parma, better known as Joey Cheaps. Cheaps had earned his nickname as the result of owing everyone, including Carl, money. As Carl informs us, however, in one of the many brilliant soliloquies that are so bountifully sprinkled throughout this work, Cheaps was his client and thus entitled to his loyalty. Carl accordingly feels duty bound to begin shaking bushes and turning over rocks, doing whatever it takes to discover who murdered Cheaps.

And Carl has a lead, though it's tenuous. Shortly before Cheaps was murdered, he had told Carl a story about a holdup that had gone wrong some 20 years previously and that had resulted in an apparent murder and the loss of a suitcase stuffed with money, a remote event that was coming back to haunt Cheaps and that ultimately snuffed him out entirely. Carl picks up the thread, grudgingly aided by Philadelphia Homicide Detective McDeiss, who is not above trading information for an exquisite meal at a white linen restaurant. The trail leads back to a haunted Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice, a hedonistic drug dealer, and an enigmatic woman who was the subject, decades before, of a series of erotic photographs, all of whom are tied together in a tableau of passion, guilt and revenge that will have untoward consequences for them all.

Carl has other concerns as well. His father is gravely ill and, while awaiting surgery from which he may not recover, begins to tell Carl a story about a woman from his past, a tale that at first repulses, then fascinates, and ultimately becomes an obsession. Perhaps Lashner will at some future point revisit this father's tale, perhaps not. Certainly it creates a tantalizing starting point for a new novel. And yet PAST DUE is so complete, such a work of art, that one could easily understand if Lashner chose not to return to Carl's universe, at least for a while. What more could he say that is not said between the covers of PAST DUE?

It is of course at this juncture too early to say, but PAST DUE may well be the novel of the year. My sense is that, with this work, Lashner completes the task that Raymond Chandler left undone. If you read nothing else this year, you must read PAST DUE.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub