THE BLOCK BUSTERS

by Lou amerson ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 17, 1964

Brooklyn residents will find a topical interest in this novel about race-and-rent conditions out at Myrtle & Wyckoff and environs. Other readers will have to settle for a steady narrative full of lurking violence and a fairly new kind of crime-by-intimidation which hasn't had much exposure before now. Ken Schneider, 24, a real estate broker, is persuaded by the Rent Control Board to join up with the notorious Duke Raven and get the goods on him as a ""block buster."" This term means that Raven moves Negroes into generally all-white districts, causes property values to fall, then buys up the property for a song and resells it to other Negroes and Puerto Ricans at an exorbitant profit. Even himself is in cahoots with a millionairess landlord with whose daughter Ken becomes involved. Mixed in with the story's racial twists are some JD rumbles and nternecine ""bopping"" (carrying broom handles and car aerials up one's sleeve). While the story avoids the violence usually associated with crime fiction, it gets bloody in a homely neighborhood way. The author's insistence upon unpredictable death as a way of life in Brooklyn seems justified but also distorted, as if one read only the Daily News and never the Times.

Pub Date: July 17, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: cKay

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1964

Categories: FICTION