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    The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes
    The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes
    The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes

    Written by Lawrence Block

    Narrated by Mike Dennis

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    IN THE DEPTHS OF HER BLUE EYES, HE GLIMPSED - MURDER BRAND NEW LAWRENCE BLOCK BOOK! FIRST PUBLICATION EVER! Florida private eye Doak Miller agreed to help the local cops by posing as a hit man to catch a woman looking to get rid of her husband. But then he met the wife -- and fell, hard. Now he's plotting with her to commit a murder that could net them millions of dollars and the chance to be together. But to pull it off under the watchful eyes of the police, It'll have to be the perfect crime...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateSep 22, 2015
    ISBN9781490673974
    Author

    Lawrence Block

    Lawrence Block has been writing award-winning mystery and suspense fiction for half a century. His newest book, pitched by his Hollywood agent as “James M. Cain on Viagra,” is The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes. His other recent novels include The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons, featuring Bernie Rhodenbarr; Hit Me, featuring philatelist and assassin Keller; and A Drop Of The Hard Stuff, featuring Matthew Scudder, brilliantly embodied by Liam Neeson in the new film, A Walk Among The Tombstones.  Several of his other books have also been filmed, although not terribly well.  He's well known for his books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies For Fun & Profit and Write For Your Life, and has just published a collection of his writings about the mystery genre and its practitioners, The Crime Of Our Lives.  In addition to prose works, he has written episodic television (Tilt!) And the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.  He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.

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    Reviews for The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes

    3.5/5

    41 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 3/5
      Don’t read unless you like audio porn. I’ve read a lot of Lawrence Block’s work, the Keller series, some of the Scudder series, plus this and that. I know his work to be more old-school when it comes to sex scenes, leaving more to the imagination. I downloaded The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes for a 12 hour road trip with my wife. To my surprise, within a few minutes comes the most graphic sex scene I’ve ever heard described outside of a Penthouse Forum letter. Thanks to the author for the “so you listen to hardcore porn to and from work each day?” I had to hear from the wife. However, she actually liked the story so we did finish it! It is a fun, seedy story but not without a cringe-worthy dose of aggressive and sometimes perverse (like fantasizing about choking someone to death while having sex kind of perverse) sexual scene injected on a regular basis.

      Can’t explain Block’s departure into this genre…maybe his publisher told him, “make it a little more RACY, Larry…” and he thought, “…you want racy, I’LL GIVE YOU RACY…” and let it rip.
    • 3/5
      The Girl With The Deep Blue Eyes (2015) by Lawrence Block. In this noir thriller you have two books in one. First there is the pulp fiction noir straight out of the 40’s of 50’s. There is a troubled leading character in the form of Doak Miller. Retired from the NYPD before getting the boot, and having received that self-same boot from his now ex-wife, Doak has set up shop as a P.I, down in Florida. Mostly he does the things he wants and every so often does a real job.When the police ask his help in setting up a sting operation, he knows it never hurts to be on the right side of that equation. It was when he meets the woman who is trying to have her husband killed that he falls into the trap of the “Hot Dame” with fire in her eyes and a lust in her heart that equals his own.Thus starts a series of events that brings him closer to the dark and the doom.The other book is a sex thriller that would have captured my attention completely when I was a youth. Now it feels as if Mr. Block doesn’t entirely trust his new character to carry the plot by himself. In a way it is great reading a book where the author is certain of what he is creating, yet sad in that he puts the crutch of sex in to carry much of the load.Still, it is a Lawrence Block novel and they can hardly be beat. Although you probably know the tracks this train is running on, the ride is always fun.
    • 4/5
      Retired NYPD detective “Doak” Miller left his job for sunny small-town Florida, supplementing his pension as a part-time PI, performing background checks, routine insurance inquiries, and every so often, undercover work for the local Sheriff’s office, which is where the story begins. It is a fast read, and I read it in a little over four hours.

      The wife of a wealthy businessman is looking to have her husband killed. The Sheriff wants Doak to play the part of hitman, get it on tape when she hires him to kill her husband, and accept a $1,000 earnest payment. Doak agrees until he sees the woman, and calls everything off. Her deep blue eyes do him in.

      The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is short, written with a stark flair, and remarkably complicated. It is Doak Miller’s story, intimately told. The girl’s backstory is told as narrative cleverly disguised as dialogue, and it works.

      Doak is devious, criminal, selfish, and, as the novel develops, his amoral character is expertly revealed. He is clearly a man already fallen. His destruction is self-inflicted, and the blue-eyed woman is the tool he chooses to use to destroy himself. In an homage to Jonathan Cain, it is a skewed version Double Indemnity, but here, the man is predator and the woman his willing accomplice. The book admirably plays off the old black and white film noir without losing its own identity and interest. Its plotting is disturbing because nothing is out of place or unresolved. There is an extremely heavy dose of erotica (at a level I was not expecting – this is pulp noir after all) and not a single likable character.

      I really like and enjoy these books from the Hard Case Crime imprint, reprinting many of the out-of-publication classics, and interspersing them with new works by authors like Block, Stephen King, and many others. This one fits in perfectly amongst the classics: it’s sassy and dirty like you would expect.
    • 5/5
      Block's Girl With the Deep us on a very different kind of journey, a journey that has us crawling into the sewer holes that form a psychotic killer's mind. That's why this isn't the straight-ahead pulp novel we were expecting.

      Doak might be a retired New York City policeman settling down in a small town to do some fishing, but there's more to him than meets the eye, including a more questionable past than we originally think. There are things he's gotten away with in his past and, although he may justify his crimes, you gotta wonder how truthful he's being. Oh, he's a charmer alright and it doesn't take long before women strip off their wedding rings and pretty much everything else for him. But even adultery isn't quite enough for him. The sex has to eventually become deviant and violent. And, half the time you wonder how much of his encounters are real and how much are the fantasies he has concocted.
      Of course, Doak and Lisa have their meet-cute story about how she was going to hire him as a hitman and how he was going to get her on tape for the sheriff. But even that gets twisted and Doak being who he is changed the play. Is she the femme fatale out to finish off her husband or is it really Doak pushing her?

      This book is a lightning fast read and can be finished in just a few hours. It's not filled with action in the sense of a guy in the run or shootouts in the street. It's not a bank robbery story. It's a lot slower to develop and there's a kind of psychotic madness that Block teases out of this work. It may be quite titillating with vivid couplings, but there's a lot more beneath the surface. Really enjoyed this one, but it's not at all what I was expecting.
    • 4/5
      One of the mission statements of Hard Case Crime, I believe, is to produce modern noir. I say “believe” because the only Hard Case books I’m aware of are from writers I already read. But if my assumption is correct, The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes hits the mark. Block takes James M. Cain’s specialty, desperate people stuck in desolate lives, and transports them from California in the 1930s to 21st century Florida.Block acknowledges his inspirations, though not directly. His viewpoint character, Doak Miller, recently retired from the NYPD and in his late forties, is not much of a reader. “Luckily,” Turner Classic Movies is running a week of films with an appropriate theme: Double Indemnity and both versions of The Postman Always Rings Twice (based on Cain’s work), along with D.O.A. and In a Lonely Place. They help reinforce the noir atmosphere while crediting the novel’s influence.Doak, thanks to his past experience and a working friendship with the local sheriff, is asked to pose as a hit man when a local woman begins to discreetly inquire about having her husband killed. Lisa Otterbein turns out to be the embodiment of Doak’s lifelong fantasy. And that’s just from viewing her picture. Once he meets her, those deep blue eyes cinch it. Instantly his life has become a noir movie.Is she a femme fatale? Does her husband deserve the only fate that will free her from his grip? And if he continues down this road, can Doak get away with a small town murder? The sheriff knows of her original wishes, and of his initial involvement.Doak is nobody’s hero. This is a story without a rooting interest. And when I describe it as modern noir, the emphasis is on “modern.” There are some sexually graphic images in this book, some of which that could be considered deviant. It is not for everybody.The novel’s only other drawback is that by invoking a certain style and atmosphere--where familiar tropes are arranged in the expected order--it brings with it the expectation of an ending appropriate to what preceded it. This is not forthcoming. But if you can appreciate the skill it took to update a classic form of the genre and enjoy the ride as such, it will be worth the trip.
    • 4/5
      The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes by Lawrence Block is noire without the concern of censorship. This is the story Raymond Chandler would have told alone in a quiet room, knowing, that not a single one of his publishers would have had the guts to circulate it. The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is dark and gritty and sexy and dirty and downright filthy. Yeah I absolutely loved it!"...Sheriff,' he said. 'How may I serve the good people if Gallatin County?''Now that's what I ask myself every hour of every day. You'll never believe the answer came back to me first thing this morning.''Try me.''Hire a hit man.''So you thought of me..."Doak Miller was a private eye in a laid back little town in Florida. He cashed out of the NYPD after giving then 24 years and moved away. Now he does odd jobs for Insurance companies and the odd bit of work for the local police. Like wearing a wire and posing as a hit man.Lisa Otterbein is the young wife of a much older wealthy man and she is ready to leave her husband. The problem is that iron clad pre-nuptial agreement he had her sign. Lisa has been poor before, very poor and she doesn't want to go back to that again. Not after everything she has gone through, so there seems to be only one answer. One night she asks a man if knows a man who could have kill someone for her.So the plan was simple. Pose as the hit man and get her to say something incriminating on tape. Simple. But nothing is ever simple for Doak and when he sees Lisa he falls hard, submerged into her deep blue eyes. Now he is plotting and working to get her free from her husband, safe from the cops and finding a way to put millions of dollars into her hands. But at what price to him and others and can he really trust the girl with the deep blue eyes?I know this is a "...Hard Case Crime.." novel and Block has begun his career writing soft core porn but nothing really prepared me for this tale of desire and inner demons. "...Here's what you have to know. I liked it.''You liked-''I liked the feeling. I liked pulling the trigger, I liked watching the man die. It was like coming.''Honestly?''I don't know if I can describe it properly. It was like an orgasm..."Reading this book was like watching Kathleen Turner in Body Heat for the first time but only shot full access. It was porn and it was a crime novel. It was uninhibited. A dark and sexy ride through the psyche of a good cop gone terribly bad. Doak's desires don't just get the best of him. They decimate him. All that was once darkness within him comes pouring out and all that matters, all he cares about is the girl with the deep blue eyes and making her his. He doesn't even want the money. He just wants her.Block absolutely nails it with this one. Some people may get unsettled but I say sometimes you need to leave your sensibilities aside and just get you hands dirty.A dark, dirty and nasty ride. Just plain fun!
    • 1/5
      Too much sex and porn. Dissappointed.
    • 4/5
      Lawrence Block’s newest standalone thriller is both familiar and different. The racy cover, noir plot and seedy setting put it solidly in the category of the prurient paperback pulps of the fifties. Don’t be deceived, though, the story takes place in the 21st century, complete with cell phones, Nancy Grace, and gun shows at Georgia high schools. One major difference is the sex. Where most of the fifties pulps merely suggest steamy sex, Block delivers it in a way that his predecessors wouldn’t have dared. To be blunt, if I had received a copy of this book when I was an adolescent, I would have thought I was in Heaven. Until now, the only Lawrence Bock books that I have read have been part of the Matt Scudder series, which I have really enjoyed. ‘When the Sacred Ginmill Closes’ is one of my favorite hard-boiled PI books. I usually found Scudder to be a self-aware individual with a keen sense of his own humanity. In ‘The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes’, Doak Miller is a horse of a different color. With his marriage and NYPD career circling the drain, he heads south to settle in Florida, living an emotionally desolate life, following the dictates of his smaller head above all others. When asked to participate in a sting operation posing as a hitman, Doak falls hard and betrays the authorities, beginning a torrid affair with a woman who is trying to order a hit on her husband. This plot is about as noir as noir can get, reminiscent of several noir classics. In one scene, Doak gets totally wrapped up watching Double Indemnity, enjoying Barbara Stanwick and Fred MacMurray’s performances but then muses that “The subject matter, of course, may have had something to do with it.” *Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review book was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.Bottom line: The plot is proof positive that noir is not dead. The characters may lack any vestige of softness and will never be considered warm and fuzzy Even so, the story is intriguing and indicative of Bock's skill as a writer. I personally wish he had toned down the sex but that is a matter of taste. WARNING: If you have never watched either version of The Postman Always Rings Twice and don't want to read any spoilers, avoid the second half of chapter 27.FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:•5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.•4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.•3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.•2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending. •1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.
    • 3/5
      Florida private investigator Doak Miller, a retired New York detective, is, at the request of the local sheriff, posing as a hit man. But when he meets the woman who wants to hire him to do away with her husband, he recognizes her as the girl of his dreams and concocts a twisted plan to knock off the husband and claim the girl for himself.This dark and perverse novel, while paying homage to pulp and film noir, is a complex character study of a man lacking any sense of morality, a devious man who is self-centered, selfish, and who ultimately proves himself capable of the unthinkable. Think “Double Indemnity” or “The Postman Always Rings Twice” with more than enough gratuitous erotica thrown in to set fire to the pages. The book, though populated with a slew of thoroughly unlikeable characters, offers a convoluted plot, psychological tension, and plenty of complications on the way to its twisted climax. And while the writing itself is absolutely first-rate, the multitudinous, explicit sex scenes are likely to be off-putting for many readers.