Hard Case Crime specializes in tracking down lost or forgotten works from the golden age of pulp fiction. Decades before he collected nearly two dozen Shamus and Edgar Awards, Lawrence Block wrote erotica (under pseudonyms) for pulpy magazines and publishing imprints. Sinner Man was written in 1959 and was Block's first crime novel. Because he was writing for so many publishers under so many different names, he never knew what happened to this novel. A fan finally found it for him: it had been published in 1968 as Savage Lover by Sheldon Lord. With some edits and minor rewriting, Sinner Man resurfaces as a nearly 50-year-old buried treasure for Block fans, showcasing a writer finding his genre.
Sinner Man starts with a bang: the narrator stands over his wife's dead body. His slap sent her reeling and her head hits the stone fireplace. "The killing wasn't manslaughter and it wasn't second-degree murder--it had ceased to be either the minute I stuffed Ellen's corpse in her closet and decided to leave her to heaven," writes the remorseless narrator, who may remind readers of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley. Instead of panicking, he calmly obtains a fake I.D. to change his name, subtly alters his appearance, moves to a new state and starts working for a gangster.
Block's terse, hardboiled and sardonic prose complements his fast-paced story. He cleverly makes readers root for his unsympathetic narrator. Sinner Man is grade-A, retro pulp fiction that will not disappoint fans of Block, Dorothy B. Hughes or Mickey Spillane. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant