|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Matthew Cape was tired of his life and his marriage and wanted to get away from it all. He made sure his wife of twelve years found him in bed with another woman and when she demanded a divorce he readily agreed. Cape left his house, his wife, called his bible thumping sister, best friend, and father to say good bye, went to his family church for the last time, and then bought a Corvette and took off to find his freedom. He traveled west across the states, made some money by gambling, and even captured a thief who stole an old woman's purse. This was not the Matthew Cape, the bored salesman from his previous life. This Matthew Cape didn't want anything to tie him down; this Matthew Cape acted as if he had nothing left to lose. In San Francisco, Matthew met Boone and Tanya Judson. Boone invited Matthew into a poker game with some other salesmen who were in the city for a convention. During the game, Matthew noticed that Boone was cheating with marked cards. When the game ended, Matthew went to Tanya and Boone's room and, even though threatened with a gun, he took the satchel of money that Boone won from the rigged poker game. Along with the money, inside the satchel, Cape also found pictures of a two men and a woman from Lake Tahoe. Matthew figured that the Judson's next stop would be Tahoe to possibly cheat these people in another gambling scheme. After returning the money to the cheated card players, he decided to warn whoever the people were in the pictures about Judson's plans for them. Once in Lake Tahoe Matthew gets involved in a friendly poker game with two of the men in the pictures. The card game goes all wrong when a man comes in and murders one of the players. The police are sure that Cape is a part of it and now Matthew has to prove himself innocent. Bill Pronzini is a talented writer and fills this short book with wonderful, seedy characters. My only problem with STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY, which is only 165 pages long, is that I think it would have been much better as a short story. The whole first part of the book with his wife wasn't really necessary and with some careful editing all of the information we learned could have been told in a paragraph or two. I also thought the revelation of real reason why Cape left his friends and family in the final pages of the book was a little cheap. If this was supposed to be a surprise ending, the only thing that surprised me was that Pronzini even thought of the idea, let alone used it. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of Bill Pronzini and will not stop reading his books but I think this novel could be a good start to a series of short stories about the traveling adventures of Matthew Cape. STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY is filled with wonderful characters and lots of tension and atmosphere and definitely worth reading. Anything by Bill Pronzini is worth reading.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, August 2002
This book has more than one review. Click here to show all.
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
