The Stalker, by Bill Pronzini

Retrieved from: LPLY
0394462912, 1971
Suggested by: The Author List
My Ratings: 5 Merit, 6 Interest, 6 Fun

This was interesting in a time-travel kind of way. I kept picturing 60s series as the settings for the houses. In fact, most of the settings, in my mind, are black & white a la "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched." However, it is always interesting to see an accomplished author's first published work.

The plot revolves around a group of men who held up an armored car over 10 years ago. Suddenly, several of them, scattered across the country, have had fatal "accidents." The remaining three are forced into trying to figure out who might have been able to track them down where the police haven't had any luck.

My biggest problem is that all the women are pretty awful in this book, with one exception. The men aren't anything fabulous either. I had a hard time liking, or even being interested in, any of the characters, even in the heat of the battle. And the bad guy? Completely unexpected in all the bad ways.

The up side is that Pronzini has developed into a really great writer, which only means that good writers don't necessarily start out fantastic.