Early effort by
Block (late fifties). Well crafted and very hard edged. The violence
is graphic, the sex graphic and, for the time, taboo pushing. Like
Westlake and Ellison, Block had been paying the bills writing porn
and if the ratio of sex to plot were a bit higher, I might assume
that was the original market. From a Twentieth Century perspective,
the most interesting plot thread is probably the account of a young
divorcee discovering her pan-sexuality in a border town bordello.
Block scholars will want to take a look at the well-developed
character of the serial killer who, in a true sign of the times,
initially tried to satisfy his murderous appetites through a diet of
horror comics.
