Rach's Reading Club 2024

The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes

For my first book, I read The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes by Lawrence Block published in 2015.

This is an entertaining caper story. The main character is a retired police officer now working as a private investigator named Doak. The action begins when it comes to the attention of the police that a woman is looking for a hitman to kill her husband. The local sheriff asks Doak to help out by posing as a hitman to gather this evidence against the woman.

Doak meets the woman, but ends up falling in love with her and decides to help her kill her husband for real.

After that, the story takes off and it's mostly plotting and looking for a chance to kill the husband. You could make the case that the plot is a little bit thin and might even be boring if not for the wit that Block brings to the story. He is fond of scenes in which characters spend a great deal of time talking about silly topics that don't really have much to do with the plot.

Actually, another thing that makes this an interesting read is the sex. Doak has sex a lot of sex, both with the woman and a few other characters that I won't explain here. These scenes are borederline pornography but they are entertaining as well.

The ending of the book is not a huge surprise, at least not plotwise. But the last line does contain a minor twist. Let's just say that it's a twist on the cliche that real life is not like the movies.