<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Some Things Are Better Frozen
Review: and Evan Tanner's one of them. Why, why, did he come back? And why, why did I try reading him again? Well, because Lawrence Block is so good I can never really believe he writes these. And this one is especially bad. Plot: Thawed agent sent to Burma by aging "control" to assasinate popular leader. Meets suspicious British fellow who tries to lure him to tea. No, Tanner has a mission. Finds the street where popular leader lives and (surprise!)soldiers are there telling him he can't visit. Oh well, let's leave that then and get to the guest house to discover alcoholic love interest. Find mysterious dead man in bed (who was he, anyway?) and suspiciously heavy pack. Ah ha! Arrested and thrown in jail. Guard leaves door open and he escapes, to meet love interest and walk across Burma. Get the picture? A real loser.
Rating: 
Summary: Tanner is back!
Review: Evan Tanner is back. "Tanner on Ice: is Lawrence Block's first Evan Tanner novel in twenty-five years. (There are seven others, all out of print.) Tanner is the spy who never sleeps. He was placed in cold storage, hence Tanner on ice; a quarter of a century before this latest adventure takes place. Tanner's reentry into the 1990s finds him catching up with all things modern such as computers, the Internet and E-Mail. He does some quick research to catch up on world events he has missed. Tanner goes to Burma and stirs up the county's regime. Here he meets a beautiful Russian/French/Vietnamese woman who travels with him. The story is an interesting quick read but the characters are not as sold as we meet in the Matt Scudder series or Block's books about Bernie Rhodenbarr. I enjoyed it and will search out the other books in the series.
Rating: 
Summary: Lightweight spy shenanigans
Review: Tanner on Ice sees Block resurrect the character of Evan Tanner-the subject of several lightweight sub-Bondian novels in the 70's.
Tanner does not sleep-the result of his sleep centre having been destroyed as the result of a wound incurred in Vietnam.This makes it ironic that he was placed in suspended animation in 1972
by an agent provocateur of the Swedish government only to awaken 25 years later ,having slept through Carter,Reagan and Bush senior(lucky sod!)
He needs to adjust to a whole new world-one of multifarious new nation states,the cyber world and the VCR.
He is aided by his ward ,Minna,who was 12 when he slipped into his frozen state but is now-of course- a fully mature woman,and is also a Lithuanian princess.
He soon finds himself employed at his old trade of espionage for his old-now indeed very old -boss.His mission is to enter Burma and destabilise its tyrannical government by assassinating its principal liberal critic and fixing the blame on the government.
In the process he is arrested,strikes up a relationship with the delectable and seductive Katya,who is part Burmese and part Romanoff princess and forced to disguise himself as a Buddhist monk all while busy fermenting a seperatist rebellion
The book is not to be taken seriously and it works-intermittently-on the divertissiment level only.I do not find the situation in Burma one that lends itself to humour and the book had me longing for the next Scudder or Rhodenbarr titles
Response to the book will depend very much on your sense of humour and I could contain my hilarity with ridiculous ease.I recommend it to lovers of say Westlake in humorous mode and this does not include me
Rating: 
Summary: A well crafted, enjoyable romp of a novel.
Review: The return of Lawrence Block's Evan Tanner, sleepless free-lance adventurer and defender of lost causes, is a welcome sight for fans of Block's more light hearted novels. Block's first challenge is to transport his Korean war veteran into the 90's after a hiatus of some twenty-five years. Rather than ignore the passage of time, Block maintains series continuity by an amusing contrivance. Not to spoil the fun, suffice it to say that the title suggests the reason for Tanner's absence all these years. Re-ensconced in his Manhattan apartment with his now fully grown ward, Minna, it isn't long before Tanner sets out on a new globe trotting adventure, this time to destabilize the illegitimate SLORC regime in Burma. Of course, nothing goes even remotely as planned, and as soon as Tanner sets foot in Rangoon he finds himself immersed in a cacaphony of intrigues. Along the way, he is chased, framed for murder and drug smuggling, arrested, allowed (?) to escape and abetted by an alcoholic young woman as they make their way on foot across the Burmese interior disguised as Buddist monks. Though a fan of Block's work for many years, I think his better known Matt Scudder series lost most of its quirky edge as its lead character sobered up and settled down over the years. (In fairness, a new, supposedly "dark" Scudder novel is due to be released this autumn. We'll see.) But all of Block's ligher works, both the Tanner books and the popular Bernie Rhodenbarr (Burglar) mysteries, continue to hit the mark. Like the previous Tanner novels (soon to be republished), Tanner On Ice is a romp. It requires a robust suspension of disbelief, but readers who enjoy the caper sub-genre will be well rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: A bit implausible
Review: This is the first of Block's books featuring Evan Tanner that I have read, probably because I hadn't discovered Block twenty-five years ago. Tanner is a very unusual protagonist although some of Block's other characters make strange heroes. Tanner has been frozen for twenty-five years when this story begins. He comes round in a hospital bed looking and feeling the same as he did when he was frozen by a foreign agent. So at sixty-three he has to catch up on a lot of history including the impeachment of Richard Nixon and the presidential terms of Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush senior, and Clinton. Evan spends some time catching up on the missed years, fortunately his adopted daughter Minna has kept his apartment and the only difference in it are due to new technology such as Video and DVD players, and a personal computer. It is some months later that Tanner receives a call from his former boss and an assignment is offered to, and accepted by, him. And a new adventure begins.
<< 1 >>
|
