When I first read Lawrence Block’s ‘Grifter’s Game,’ I had no idea what I was in for.  The setup plays straight enough, but the ending – still, reading it through a second time – is one of the darkest things I’ve read, and that initial time through the book it was quite a leap from where it started.  I loved it, but it was bleak stuff.  On my second trip through, some years later, the themes are a lot clearer in the story, and the plummet not so steep, but it’s still a devastating read…

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