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Lawrence Block, After the First Death

Als mir das Buch zum Schnäppchenpreis angeboten wurde, konnte ich nicht widerstehen, und bereute es auch nicht. Natürlich ist es kein Matthew Scudder, aber man kann hier schon sehr schön sehen, wie Block die Figur und das Ambiente allmählich entwickelt hat.
Und die Abschlußsätze sind wieder ein Zitat wert. Irgendwann muss ich doch mal eine neue Sparte dafür einrichten ...

Understand this, it is not all roses. We are not sure that we will make it. Nothing is ever certain. We do not know quite where we are going. But where you are going is less important, I think, than where you are. And still less important is where you have been.

Lawrence Block, After the First Death, 1969)

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Lawrence Block, The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes

Kein Matthew Scudder, leider, und auch ein Krimi von ziemlich anderem Kaliber - mit einem Ex-Cop und seinen Sex/Gewalt-Phantasien und was für Konsequenzen es hat, wenn er mit der Frau seiner Träume zusammentrifft. Faszinierend und ein wenig verstörend, vor allem am Schluß.

Hier, weil sie so gut sind, die letzten Sätze, und vielleicht sollte ich die letzten Sätze auch einmal extra sammeln:

He was silent, thinking it through. At length he said, "You know, in the movies I've been watching, things never work out. In the end, something always goes wrong."
"That's the movies," she said. "This is life."

(Lawrence Block, The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes, 2015)

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Agatha Christie, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

Diese witzig-sentimentale bezaubernde Weihnachtsgeschichte ist einfach perfekt als Weihnachtsmorgenlektüre, und so konnte ich einfach nicht widerstehen, zumal ich mit 'Sethra Lavode' auch endlich langsam durch bin, und schob sie dazwischen. Und bin einmal mehr höchst angetan. Beinahe soviel wie M. Poirot am Schluß.

Poirot looked after her, nodding his head in satisfaction.
'Ah,' he said to himself. 'And now - I go. There is nothing more to be done here.'
A pair of arms slipped round his shoulders unexpectedly.
'If you will stand just under the mistletoe-' said Bridget.
Hercule Poirot enjoyed it. He enjoyed it very much. He said to himself that he had had a very good Christmas.

(Aus: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, Agatha Christie, 1960)

".. If you wanted to apply for officer's training, I'd support your application." He chuckled encouragingly. "After what you did today, half of Parliament would support your application."
"Officer's training?" Torin lifted her combat vest off the chair where the medic had placed it.
"That's right."
"Thank you, sir, but no." One by one, she slid the cylinders out of her vest and indicated that the general should hold out his hands. "There's two very good reasons that I'd make a lousy officer." She dropped the (ashes of the) thirteen Marines who'd paid for his place in history into his cupped palms. "First of all, I work for a living."
Stepping back, she gestured at his face. "You should have a doctor see to that, sir." The gesture snapped into a perfect salute, that he was unable to return, there were too many cylinders for him to hold with only one hand. Then she turned on her heel and walked toward the hatch.
"Staff Sergeant Kerr."
One hand on the hatch release, she paused.
"You said there were two reasons. What was the second?"
"The second reason, sir?"
"Yes."
"My parents were married."

(Tanya Huff, "Valor's Choice", 2000)

Ich liebe einfach Bücher mit einer Pointe am Schluß, und mag sie auch noch so bitter und/oder sarkastisch sein. Falls einer die Pointe hier nicht gleich versteht: ich hab auch ein bißchen gebraucht ...