Customer Reviews

The Triumph of Evil

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Scary and thought-provoking. I first read this over thirty years ago and have never been able to forget it. I just read it again, after finding out it was really written by Lawrence Block (author of the "Burglar" series), and it's even better than I remembered it. The main character is much more interesting than the one in Block's later "Hit Man" stories. Fascists hire this assassin to manipulate the Presidential election with a series of killings. The plan seemed quite plausible at the time. A very spooky note: one they want to kill is a racist Southern demagogue similar to George Wallace. But the assassin just arranges for him to be crippled and politically and literally emasculated. One year later, the real George Wallace was shot and left in a wheelchair. Coincidence?

Now that this book is now out of print, I want to assert that this is by far and wide not a poor book by accomplished crime author Lawrence Block. Originally published under the pseudonym Paul Kavanagh, just like the first Kavanagh SUCH MEN ARE DANGEROUS, Block exceeds the reader's expectations in the unique creation of a taut, tense and memorable novel about a hired political assassin who falls in love with a girl who proves that his actions are very very wrong. The plan is to overthrow the current US government through careful manipulation of the general public through murder after murder of high-profile political figures representing all causes and extremes. Dorn's cruel calculating violence is a marvel to behold, and so are counter-reactions in the public and political spheres. A tragic figure in tragic times. A very powerful novel. If it isn't in print - find it!

I've been a fan of Lawrence Block for many years, having first discovered him in the 80s. I believe "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" was the novel which first brought him to my attention, and that is a shining example of well-written crime fiction. I've read virtually everything he's written since, and a great deal of his work from earlier years - having ferreted out some of those pseudonyms which are now common knowledge - searching used bookstores in those bad old days before the advent of the world-wide web. I'd never found "The Triumph of Evil" until the release of the Kindle edition, although I'd read the other Kavanagh novels.

After finishing this novel, I find myself wondering why political thrillers did not become Block's principal meat. Ignore the comparisons to his later creation of Keller, and ignore the fact that another reviewer misunderstood the nature of the title (a title which is entirely appropriate). This is a novel not about a hit man, nor about evil triumphing, but of political chaos, polarization, and of one man's attempt to change the course of events and the course of a nation, and world. It's a novel which compares not with the works of McBain or Westlake, but with those of Le Carré, Greene, and (in his earlier works) Follett.

This novel is a prediction of things which could have come to pass (and some of which did). Who knows what course the history of the US would have taken had not first Agnew then Nixon not been taken down by scandal. Those scandals became the main preoccupation of a nation which was formerly at war with itself. Perhaps they served much the same purpose as the actions of Miles Dorn are expected to serve in the context of the novel. If so, then Mr. Block and his novel were truly prescient.

Prescient or not, the novel is a masterpiece of characterization, plot, and storytelling. It makes me wonder why Mr. Block did not take on the challenge of many more political thrillers. What might he have done with Watergate? With the breakup of the Soviet bloc and the Soviet Union? With terrorism and the "war" thereon? "Triumph" shows Mr. Block's deep understanding of human psyche on both the individual as well as the sociological level. Miles Dorn is as deep a character as Mr. Block has ever created: Better drawn in many respects than almost all of the subjects of his serial novels, with the possible exception of the epochal Matt Scudder.

"Triumph" is as good a political thriller as anything the aforementioned cold-war spymaster novelists ever turned out, and as good as virtually anything that's been done since. And though its set in 1971, its relevance to today's political landscape should not be ignored - we have tremendously increased polarization in the US - the right is further right and the left further left than at any time in our history since the Vietnam era. Mr. Block need not have implied any apologies in his new Afterword in the Kindle Edition.

I'm very pleased that Mr. Block has taken pains to make this and other of his earlier works available in electronic format. I've yet to read one which I found to be unworthy of republication, although I'll admit to having skipped a few I'd read some time ago, and that some of this older work is not quite up to the standards he later imposed upon himself. But there's not doubt whatsoever that "The Triumph of Evil" is one brilliant example of the master at the top of his game.

This is an interestng, but in my opinion, poorly written tale by Lawrence Block. In this novel, Block is too obsessed with dialogue. That is the only way the story is told. Instead of the rich extra thinkings of the hero that we usually get from Block, this character is only seen through his speech, giving us an unclear view of what could be a great, tragic figure. Otherwise, the story is interesting. All in all, if I could have known him better, maybe Miles Dorn would have deserved the title evil.