Small Town (Mass Market Paperback)

by Lawrence Block (Author) "BY the time Jerry Pankow was ready for breakfast, he'd already been to three bars and a whorehouse..." (more)
Key Phrases: turquoise rabbit, blue rabbit, New York, Marilyn Fairchild, Boat Basin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
A solid craftsman with five bestselling series under his belt as well as numerous standalone mysteries and short-story collections to his credit, Lawrence Block breaks new ground with a resonant, compelling thriller about one man's response to the Twin Towers tragedy--an insane yet totally comprehensible, seemingly unconnected string of serial murders, or, as the killer calls them, "sacrifices" to the city he believes will be reborn out of the ashes of destruction. Block, a New Yorker born and bred, has penned a paean to the Manhattan he knows and loves, and created a cast of fascinating characters whose lives are touched by the killings. Among the most interesting are a woman whose sexual obsessions ensnare a former police commissioner who's being groomed for higher political office, a crime novelist uncertain about his own culpability in the so-called Carpenter Killings, and a gay housecleaner whose clients keep ending up dead. This may be Block's best novel to date--it's certainly his most erotic and astonishing one, and it will keep you going until the last extraordinary page. A mesmerizing take on New York after 9/11, this solidly paced, brilliantly executed thriller deserves all the attention it will surely receive. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
This is a rare standalone from the Edgar Award-winning creator of Matt Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, hit man Keller and others, and takes a number of risks unusual for its author. For a start, it is very deliberately a post-9/11 thriller, in which a man bereaved by the loss of his wife and children in the Twin Towers sets out to wreak what he thinks of as a sacrificial vengeance on the city by becoming a serial terrorist himself. For another, Block, who wrote some pornography early in his career, has created a female character whose kinky sex antics will definitely ruffle some of his mainstream readers. And while an intimate knowledge of New York and its folkways, and of urban character and conversation, has always been one of Block's great strengths, and is on plentiful show again here, his rather improbable action climax seems carelessly tacked on to the meticulous rest of the book. The novel offers a very crowded canvas whose central characters are the sad figure of the terrorist himself; a former police commissioner who eventually sets out to bring him down; a midlist writer who suddenly gets to be a hot property when he's accused of a murder (the publishing scenes will be delightful for insiders); the aforementioned kinky lady, an art dealer when not playing pierced dominatrix; a gay recovering alcoholic who unwittingly leads the villain to the scenes of his crimes; and, of course, the city itself, which, as the title suggests, is a place where everyone is somehow connected to everyone else's business. It's a bold and flashy effort, but its deliberately disturbing elements may somewhat limit its appeal.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (October 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060011912
• ISBN-13: 978-0060011918
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #944,389 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Still shaking my head, May 5, 2003

By	Emily H Zelkin (Wilmington, VT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Town: A Novel (Block, Lawrence) (Hardcover)

I read this book start to finish and kept waiting for the sex scenes to matter. Please,if this is the first Lawrence Block book for you, PLEASE put it back and start with the Matthew Scudder series, from the first to the last, then go on to the other series, and ONLY when you are a diehard Lawrence Block fan, as am I, consider trying this book. I must agree with the reviewer who said Block waited for his mother to die to write these icky and irrelevent sex scenes. I am not a goody-goody, I just didn't see the point (so to speak). Reading this book before you are a Block lover could cause you to miss some excellent, compelling writing by a true NYC lover.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling Read -- But It's Not For Everyone!, May 31, 2003

By	bobbewig (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Town: A Novel (Block, Lawrence) (Hardcover)

Overall, I enjoyed Small Town a lot. It's a very compelling, interesting and somewhat challenging read. In Block's Small Town, New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 is really a small town filled with men and women from all walks of life whose aspirations fears, disappointments and triumphs are all interconnected by bonds as unspeakable as they are unseen. The plot involves a series of apparently unconnected serial killings, which in the warped viewpoint of the Carpenter are intended as "sacrifices" in order to help the city and its dwellers to be reborn out of the chaos and destruction caused by 9/11. Block is at the top of his game in terms of plot development and character development; however, Small Town represents a big departure from what fans of his books have become used to. Small Town is not, as is obvious if you've read the very mixed reviews by other Amazon readers, a book for everyone. Many criticize it for its very graphic and erotic sexual passages as well as for the ending leaving too many threads untied. While I understand how the book could be criticized for these reasons, I, personally, didn't share these opinions. In fact, I think the sexual relationships, while very graphic, were integral to the main story line. And while it's true that some sub-story lines are not as closed as readers expect in a novel, in real life not all stories have a clear, precise ending. As I said, earlier, Small Town is a somewhat challenging read in that you have to really pay attention to some of the small clues Block provides. If you don't, you might find, as I did, that you'll have to go back and reread some areas to understand its connection to the outcome. I hope this review is helpful to you in deciding whether Small Town is a book for you -- because it's not for everyone.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A little bit twisted, but a good page-turner, August 11, 2005

By	B. McEwan "yellokat" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I suspect that the reason this novel hasn't received a higher overall rating on Amazon is because of the character, Susan Pomerance, who is -- to put it politely -- sexually kinky in the extreme, and whose exploits doubtless were a turn off to many Lawrence Block fans, who don't expect this kind of soft porn in his books.

I didn't much like Susan either. At first I thought Block had made a major error in giving her a prominent role in the novel, and even after finishing Small Town with a considerable degree of satisfaction I still think it would have been a more comfortable book without Susan. That said, I have also come to realize that Block included Susan for the express purpose of making his readers uncomfortable. After all, Small Town is a book about the aftermath of 9/11, a time during which no New Yorker I know was anywhere near comfortable. Those of us who survived the attack -- whether or not we had family and friends who perished -- were all affected. Ultimately, life went on, just as it does for the characters in Small Town, but life was surely different, and probably always will be.

I think Block's view is that 9/11 literally unhinged many New Yorkers. The blasts at the Towers shattered our assumptions and expectations every bit as much as they shattered steel, glass and human lives, with the result that some of us, including Block's characters, dramatically changed our life views and, consequently, our behaviors. Seen in this light, Susan's behavior becomes more understandable, if not acceptable.

And Susan aside, the others characters, particularly the Carpenter, are very well drawn. They operate in what is essentially a new world, which changed within the space of a couple of hours and which forces them to confront their fears and privledges in a way they never have. And the plot offers all of the suspense and credible detail we have come to expect from Block. It kept me turning pages into the night, which is, for me, the acid test of a good book.

So, if you enjoy a good story and don't mind being challenged by an unexpected anti-heroine like Susan, read Small Town, whose main character is, in the end, New York City itself.