Mystery writer Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder mystery series is a notable achievement (with When the Sacred Ginmill Closes being one of my favorite mysteries of all time), but back in Block's peanut-butter days he penned this potboiler with P.I. Ed London. London is a somewhat highbrow detective who, in the end, isn't above helping his brother-in-law ditch a dead mistress. Naturally this becomes more complicated, and London gets drawn into the dead woman's web.
Coward's Kiss is a muscular, fast-moving detective novel, but to date London has unfortunately never returned in a follow-up case.
My wife spotted this one in a bookstore in San Diego, in a collection of "Five Great Novels by Lawrence Block" at the good-bye price of five dollars. I am starting on the next one right away on this sunny vacation.
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