The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian by Lawrence Block
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I do like these Lawrence Block novels and I am willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt, and put my trust in him, even when I think maybe he’s phoning it in. Like how all these Bernie novels have a scene where he gathers everyone in a room and does the big reveal, right?
So I’ll let that go. But not random sex with a chance encounter when Bernie’s burglaring an apartment. Even putting aside the gratuitous side of things, it’s just not believable. At all. And even if you find a way to twist things to fit some kind of scenario where it wasn’t a “chance” encounter, still: Bernie shouldn’t be so stupid.
Otherwise this is just pandering, this is just fantasizing, and I don’t have any patience for it.
That’s my only complaint. The book is what I expected it to be on every other page. Bernie burgles, stumbles on a corpse, then another, the cops think he did, but let him prove he didn’t, he paints some fake pictures, and we get an intriguing title.
Take out the other unbelievable nonsense, and the book would be fine.