Book Review: Step to the Graveyard Easy

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Step to the Graveyard Easy     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Bill Pronzini
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Walker, June 2002, $22.95, 180 pp.

All his life Matthew Cape has been considered a good person, a kind and honest man whom works hard and is faithful to his wife. In the middle of a day, his world is turned upside down when Anna walks into her bedroom and sees Matt with another woman. After Anna confronts him and leaves Matt packs up and leaves home for parts unknown.

He travels all over the country seeing new places and enjoying the wild side of life. In San Francisco, con artists Tanya and Boone Judson take him in but Matt manages to turn the tables on them and regains his money. Though something Judsons let slip and through photographs, Matt travels to Lake Tahoe where he comes in contact with true evil and takes a stand that will either mean his salvation or his damnation.

This novel is neither pretty nor neat but it is an honest reflection of the human condition. Bill Pronzini, author of the famous Nameless Detective series, lays bare the soul of his protagonist in such a way that readers will come to accept his choices he made. STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY is literary noir that is dark, brooding and very haunting, a book that the audience will long remember.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner