Publishers Weekly
07/27/2020
This unnerving narrative from MWA Grand Master Block (The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes) opens in 1968 at a honky-tonk bar in Bakersfield, Calif., where Roger Edward Borden, a gas station attendant in his mid-20s, charms a drunken woman into accompanying him home. He later murders the woman, defiles the corpse, and dumps the body. Borden then flees the state, assumes a new identity, and settles in Lima, Ohio. Haunted by his past, and in perpetual fear of arrest, the sociopath works determinedly to establish himself as a successful businessman, family man, and pillar of society, all the while fighting to suppress his dark impulses and atone for his sins. The thin plot, which takes the form of journal entries, includes tepid familial scenes in which Borden’s wife and son appear untroubled by his revelations. This distasteful tale necessarily has limited appeal, but fans of dark noir will appreciate Block’s hard-hitting prose and his character’s despicable, emotively perverse meditations. (Self-published)
From the Publisher
"It's been a long time since I read anything this hard-hitting and thought-provoking. DEAD GIRL BLUES is daringly original, both shocking and brilliantly told. At a time when many crime novels blend together, Grandmaster Lawrence Block again shows he's a one-of-a-kind author. "
~ David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder As a Fine Art
"Dark and cold as the far side of the moon, but with prose as lean as a starving model, DEAD GIRL BLUES is like the dead body you can't help but look at. Sharp writing, characterization that comes right out of the reptilian brain, creepy crawly identification with the narrator that makes you squirm. I couldn't quit reading, and damn sure didn't want to. An honest look at the mind of someone of a cheerfully anti-social mindset, who just might frighteningly remind us of humanity's flip-side and our universal connection to it. A grim masterpiece of storytelling."
~ Joe R. Lansdale
"DEAD GIRL BLUES still claws at me. It's a time-release dread capsule that locked me in someone's shoes and made my gut twist all along the ride. Those of us who enjoy his work have seen him pull that off and marvel at how he manages it with seeming effortlessness. But this one. Maybe his best book, and that's saying something."
~Tom Straw
"DEAD GIRL BLUES will surely offend some readers, but I loved it. It's wonderfully written and the voice is pitch-perfect, comfortable and unsettling at the same time. The book reminded me, in a very good way, of Charles Willeford's early work (and, in particular, of his unpublished MIAMI BLUES sequel GRIMHAVEN). If you are into dark noir, this book is for you."
~Lee Goldberg
"Not so much a crime novel as a ballsy and important novel about the very nature of crime, Dead Girl Blues prods troubling questions about justice and mercy and morality and family, the worth of a life, and the whole existential soup. Put this up on your shelf, right next to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I think it belongs there." ~Kevin Burton Smith, Favorite Crime Fiction of 2020
