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A review by usbsticky
The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block
3.0
As with most Lawrence Block's books I like the characters and the setting. In this series, I don't like the plot formula that Block uses and repeats.
Spoilers ahead:
This is the plot formula:
1) The set up. Bernie steals something. There is a dead body involved. He is framed for the murder.
2) Bernie investigates, puts something into motion. This part is hidden from the reader. We only know what he does to some degree but it's not explained.
3) The reveal where Bernie gathers everyone and then explains how everything goes together.
Sometimes the reasoning isn't very credible but mostly it's not entertaining. Block goes through some hoops to make the events complex. But readers are not really interested in manufactured complex plots. They are interested in the characters and how they react to events in the book. There is also often a lot of stretched dialog where two people talk about something which should only take 1-2 sentences but Block stretches it to a page or two, or even more. I've learned to fast read though them. This is like my 6-7th book in the series. I'm not sure how many more I can suffer through.
Plot, seriously don't read this unless you want it spoiled: Bernie's landlord wants to raise his rent 11x. The rest of the plot is about a set of stolen baseball cards (hence the title) and a dead body. The plot is so contrived that I'm not going to describe because it was so uninteresting. The book ends up with Bernie owning his own building. We're not told how he gets the money though or how much it was. At this point I'm continuing the series through inertia.
Spoilers ahead:
This is the plot formula:
1) The set up. Bernie steals something. There is a dead body involved. He is framed for the murder.
2) Bernie investigates, puts something into motion. This part is hidden from the reader. We only know what he does to some degree but it's not explained.
3) The reveal where Bernie gathers everyone and then explains how everything goes together.
Sometimes the reasoning isn't very credible but mostly it's not entertaining. Block goes through some hoops to make the events complex. But readers are not really interested in manufactured complex plots. They are interested in the characters and how they react to events in the book. There is also often a lot of stretched dialog where two people talk about something which should only take 1-2 sentences but Block stretches it to a page or two, or even more. I've learned to fast read though them. This is like my 6-7th book in the series. I'm not sure how many more I can suffer through.
Plot, seriously don't read this unless you want it spoiled: Bernie's landlord wants to raise his rent 11x. The rest of the plot is about a set of stolen baseball cards (hence the title) and a dead body. The plot is so contrived that I'm not going to describe because it was so uninteresting. The book ends up with Bernie owning his own building. We're not told how he gets the money though or how much it was. At this point I'm continuing the series through inertia.