Customer Reviews

The Topless Tulip Caper

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"The Topless Tulip Caper," by Lawrence Block is the fourth and final book (as of this date) in a series of novels about Chip Harrison, the teen-age assistant to Leon Haig, who billed himself the world famous detective in "Five Little Rich Girls." (Which was also republished under the title, "Make Out With Murder." Now Haig agrees author's Rex Stout's famous detective, Nero Wolfe is the world's greatest detective. The novel is short, under 200 pages. In this story Tulip Willing is a topless dancer, hence the title. She's a tropical fish fancier and a biologist who call upon Haig in his capacity as a detective because he too is a tropical fish expert. Tulip's fish are poisoned and this leads to the murder of her roommate, Cherry Bounce on the stage of the Treasure Chest. Chip is sent out to investigate for his boss Haig. This Chip Harrison novels has the same brand of wit as the others and similar to Block's "The Burglar Who...." Series featuring Bernie Rhodenbarr. Both series light reading but certainly not as deep as the Matt Scudder mystery novels. Block is a very good writer. I have read most of series books, with the exception of the Evan Turner books which are on my to find and read list.

I'm a Lawrence Block/Matt Scudder fan. Can't get enough of that Matt Scudder.

So, I thought Block's other stuff might be just as good: not so. Hit man was a dissapointment and so was this.

Lame jokes: boring story. Too many characters who are alike -- how many men can we stand? Blatantly crude gratuitous "sex" scene. Sad

I have read Lawrence Block novels before so I had an idea on what to expect. Imagine my surprise when I tried to read this one! It was totally predictable and it failed to keep my attention for long. I would not recommend this book to anyone unless they had trouble sleeping at night.

Laurence Block has become a recent obsession of mine. I love all of his books I have read, and in the week and a half I have been working on them, I have read somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 books. This was another great Chip. Everyone should read this.