The Girl With the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime, 14)

The Girl With the Long Green Heart by Lawrence BlockJohn Hayden and Doug Rance are ready to pull off a big con. To scam a big time real estate man Wallace Gunderman. But they need help on the inside, their best bet Evelyn Stone. Gunderman's Secretary and lover. But she is a woman scorned and wants revenge.The story moves at a steady pace with engaging dialog and intense moments. The two men have the job well planned out, until things go sour. Soon they are at a cross roads as the story takes a turn, heading to a slow burn. Overall I found The Girl with the Long Green Heart enjoyable and recommend to those who enjoy hard case crimes.

It does not take long for the fan of American crime fiction (and of THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL in general) to find themselves compelled and intrigued by this by now classic release, first published in 1956. A long time ago, in what feels like a galaxy far, far away, back before technology once more transformed forever the world we had all grown to love.The opening chapter introduces the reader to the book’s principal character (John Hayden) and, one assumes, the book’s first victim (Wallace Gunderman). We also meet the secretary of the book’s first victim, and she is so gorgeously portrayed by Mr Block that male fans may well find themselves checking the back of their kindles for a trap door that will provide direct and three-dimensional access to the story for them, too.Chapter two gives essential insight into the back ground of Hayden, and also introduces us to another brilliant character, former associate Doug Rance. By chapter’s end, this ex-con and full time grifter manages to tempt Hayden back into a life of crime, high risk and potentially everlasting damnation (not to mention another stretch behind bars) by convincing him to contemplate another short cut to success.And by then of course, the reader is hooked.The book’s writing (of course) is world class. By the start of the third chapter, you either love Hayden or you take him for a complete and utter fool. Questions begin to arise for the alert fan, ranging from, ’Will he get the girl?’ to ’Is the girl in on the act with Rance?’ and ’Is Hayden actually the book’s major victim?' The latter may well appeal only to paranoid fans of Mr Block, as there is a sense of remorse, or melancholy, to the writing which seems to underpin the plot.But I may be wrong about that.The book’s first half is an intricate master class on how to set up a grift. It is a fascinating expose on the procedure, with a slight mix of love won, enjoyed and love (potentially) lost, with a small dose of friendship, betrayal, excitement, terror and suspense. I wont be telling anyone how it all pans out. You will have to track down a copy of this jewel yourself. But the effort will be worth it. Only Mr Block could make such a topic so compelling, intriguing, entertaining, sexy, and scary.What else do you want from a classic work crafted by one of the greatest literary minds the world has ever seen?Hugely recommended.

"The Girl with the Long Green Heart" was originally published in 1965 and later reissued by Hard Case Crime in 2005. The book tells of a long con attempt by John Hayden, a small-time con man who has just served a prison sentence. He meets up with one of his former partners, Doug Rance, who has a proposition - one big con before John retires. Although he's hesitant, John decides to go along as he has big dreams of buying a rundown bar outside Boulder, Colorado, and making a success of it. The long con involves a Canadian land scheme and a New York businessman named Wallace Gunderman. Of course, there's also a beautiful woman involved - Gunderman's secretary, Evie Stone - who is the titular girl with the long green heart.I enjoy stories of long cons and Block knows this genre so well. The book is rife with realistic details, although these details may bore some readers. The plot was a bit easy to figure out early on, but Block's writing always makes the trip fun, even if the destination is a bit predictable. I particularly appreciate Block talent for descriptions. Evie, for example, smells "as clean and alive as a newly mown lawn." Later, John gets a meal in a cheap diner, where the "food was greasy and so were most of the customers."Note: This review is for the Kindle version, which was published by Open Road in 2010 rather than Hard Case Crime (I also have the paperback HCC version). The electronic version is excellent; I did not find any noticeable errors or formatting problems. It includes a table of contents with linked chapters as well as a brief autobiography of Block with 10 photos taken from various points in his life.

This is a reissue of a paperback original. This 1965 novel is classic Lawrence Block at his best. The biggest flaw is that the kindle version has a plain Jane cover instead of the racy one found on the paperback version.Think Redford and Newman in The Sting and you'll have a handle on this book. Although in an afterword, Block points out that his book was published half a dozen years before the movie came out.John Hayden is eight months out of San Quentin after doing a seven year stretch and working in a Colorado bowling alley when Doug Rance looks him up. Hayden was a guy who ran long cons and usually was successful at it.The best two handed con, the narrator explains, is when one guy has the charm and the other the sincerity. Hayden was the guy people trusted and Rance was the charmer.Hayden and Rance offer to buy from William Gunderman Canadian property he bought years before at the behest of a sharp salesman. Gunderson is fighting mad about having been suckered on that deal. His secretary, Evelyn Stone, is something worth looking at.In fact, Evvie is in on the con cause she's tired of waiting on Gunderman to marry her.The hook is baited and they are going to reel in the big fish this time.The amazing thing about this book is how absolutely engrossing it is without much real action for most of it. Just some dialogue and some narrative. First class writing deserving of nothing less than the highest rating. I enjoyed it from beginning to end..

This was both my first book from Hard Case Crime and my first Lawrence Block novel (first of many in each instance); the sensuous, characteristically elongated cover illustration by the great Robert McGinnis is a fitting image to draw one into this classic by Block; a relatively quick read – you'll rip through it in a day – this is Block at his best, with a clever grift in the plot, sharply drawn characters, a femme fatale and the inevitable twists of a well-realised crime pulp novel.If one is new to Block (or this genre of crime fiction) this is a good place to start.

First published in 1965, this is another pulp classic from Lawrence Block, now resurrected by the folks at Hard Case Crime. The main protagonist, Johnny Hayden, is fresh out of the slammer and determined to never go back. He's toiling away at a job in a bowling alley, making peanuts but attempting to save what he can in the hope of one day owning his own restaurant. All he needs is thirty grand or so, and at the rate he's going, it should only take him about thirty years to save that much.But then along comes an old pal named Doug Rance who has a plan to work a sure-fire long con on a real estate investor named Wallace Gunderman. Gunderman is one of those self-confident guys who's so full of himself it's amazing that he can stand up straight. Some time back, Gunderman got suckered into buying some virtually worthless Canadian land, and he's been steaming about it ever since.Rance proposes a plan to play off Gunderson's anger and his inflated sense of his own intelligence by offering to buy the land that Gunderson was suckered into purchasing. Gunderson will naturally wonder why anyone would want the land and will suspect that maybe the land is more valuable than he thought. Perhaps he should buy even more!Rance wants his old pal Johnny to be the "roper" who will lure Gunderman into the deal. He insists that it's a can't-miss proposition and the best part is that it will net Johnny the thirty grand he needs to buy his restaurant. Rance has also enlisted in the scheme Gunderman's lover and personal secretary, the very sexy Evelyn Stone, and once Johnny meets her, there's no turning back.It's really fun to watch this scheme play out; the con itself is pretty ingenious and the characters are very well done. Gunderman is a complete jerk, and you find yourself inevitably rooting for the con artists to pick him dry. A great way to waste away an evening.

'The Girl With The Long Green Heart' is a fast-moving thriller about two con-men, Johnny and Doug, who team up with Evie, the beautiful mistress of a rich businessman. Together they plan an intricate 'long con' to rob him of $100,000. It's clever, and everyone plays their roles brilliantly, so nothing can go wrong - can it?I'd not come across the work of Lawrence Block before, and was interested to discover that he has a substantial back-catalogue and something of a cult following. There's no question that he knows how to put together a clever plot, good dialogue and a very exciting read. It's great fun , and I am looking forward to enjoying more of his thrillers.

Love the long con ?Love grifters ???then U'll love this tale of Love and the long conbasically 2 grifters are at work on a long con and get conned !!both fall in Love with the same Woman the mark has fallen for ...the Girl with the Long Green Hearta sack artist...a con artistfast paced and gripping. easy enough to read at one sittingbit far fetched at the end but few readers will feel connedtrust me !

I've read a few Lawrence Block books now and really like his style of writing. You really get inside the character of Johnny Hayden and feel for him as the 'perfect con' goes wrong. There's a lot of detail here and its all very clever but I wondered if there was not an issue with the plot in regard to Evelyn Stone - the girl on the inside of the con. I won't say more as I don't want to ruin anyone else's enjoyment and like all the other Block's I've read this is a damned good read and comes thoroughly recommended.