Lawrence Block originally published "Death Pulls A Double Cross" in 1961 and later re-published it as "Coward's Kiss." You wish you had a brother-in-law like Ed London, someone who you can call when times are tough and there's no one else to turn to. Everyone needs a brother-in-law who you can call in the middle of the night when you show up at your mistress's apartment and find her lying in the middle of the living room with a hole in her head and you don't know what to do. London, without even setting a fee, calmly goes and wraps the blonde woman's body up in an oriental rug, and disposes of the damning evidence. He can't find any of her clothes, but the apartment has been ripped apart. Interfering with a police investigation, perhaps playing accessory to a murder, well what pipe-smoking, cognac- drinking private eye wouldn't do the same - particularly for a well-set- up brother-in-law that just spent months making a fool out of your sister.

This story has murder, gunfire, mobsters, and, believe it or not, Joel Cairo. It has many aspects of The Maltese Falcon in it, but instead of Sam Spade, you have the not-so-tough London who takes a beating from hoods who think he has the goods and is caught in the middle between seemingly warring factions all searching for a holy grail that the dead woman may or may not have had, but that everyone seems to think London now has.

The book has some flaws such as the fact that one of the characters you feel as if you met in a movie you know very well and the detective is not as tough or as hardboiled as perhaps you would like. London is simply not Mike Hammer, not by a long shot. But, and the key is this, Block, even early Block in the early sixties, was a great writer and he makes this piece work the way a story is supposed to. In the end, warts and all, it is an enjoyable piece of fiction for anyone who likes hardboiled private eye stories. ( )

Early, pulpy Block, but still readable. ( )

This was quite a twisty tale with a fairly typical Block hero, but I didn't care for it too much. It was a bit too twisty & clever, so never seemed real. If I wanted to point to a text book example of the genre, this would be it - text book, no humanity or realism, not fully engaging. ( )

Another Lawrence Block winner (are there any losers?) Called to get rid of a body by his friend Jack Enright (who happens to be married to his sister,) P.I. Ed London retrieves the body from Jack’s love-nest and dumps it in the park. Soon he begins a search for a briefcase loaded ostensibly with stolen diamonds, is attacked by several goons, and manages to sort out multiple double-crosses.

A sample: “I felt only halfway ridiculous holding the gun in one hand while I opened the door. I felt completely ridiculous when the big one knocked it out of my hand. There were two of them—a big one and a small one. The big one was very big, a little taller than I am and a hell of a lot wider. He had a boxer's flattened nose and a cretin idiot's fixed stare. His jacket was stretched tight across huge shoulders. His eyes were small and beady and his forehead was wide and dull. The small one wasn't really that small—he looked small because he was standing next to a human mountain. He wore a hat and a suit and a tie. He had his hands in his pants pockets and he was smiling. "Inside," he said. "Move." I didn't move.”

Please note this was originally published as Coward’s Kiss.. Early Block, but already the signs of his genius are apparent. ( )

An early Block mystery (originally published with the name "Death Pulls a Doublecross"), this is tightly-written and engaging. ( )