The Canceled Czech

An Evan Tanner Novel

By: Lawrence Block

Narrated by: Alan H. Sklar

Ever since a shred of shrapnel did a number on his brain's sleep center, Even Tanner has been awake 24/7. This gives him more time than your average underachiever. Time to learn the world's languages (he's fluent in Basque, but has trouble with Chinese). Time to embrace the world's lost causes and irredentist movements (The Flat Earth Society, the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia, the Society of the Left Hand). Time to write term papers for students with more money than knowledge. And, most important, time to do his dreaming while he's wide awake.

The Cancelled Czech is Tanner's second adventure. A key figure in the Nazi puppet regime of Slovakia is in jail in Prague's Hradcany Castle, and the mysterious US spymaster who thinks Tanner works for him sends our lad to rescue the man. Not surprisingly, the Slovak has an obnoxious personality; he also suffers from catalepsy. Tanner, using his contacts and working his magic, does what he's asked to do - but with a poetic twist that only Evan Tanner could think up.

©1966 Lawrence Block (P)2016 Lawrence Block

Needs editing

The reader of this book needs to take some editing lessons, I’m noticing several errors where the reader stumbles, backs up a sentence and tries again, and they left it in. It is quite distracting. I’m sad by this, as I love this book, but the reading takes me out of the story

a darker turn for Evan Tanner...

Asked to rescue an obnoxious Nazi from a Czech castle, Tanner has to find a way to satisfy his mysterious employer in the US intelligence community, get the intel for America, and execute some delayed justice on one horrible excuse for a human being. As always, there's a great sense of time and place, and the various border crossings remind you of all the different countries that were, then weren't, now they're back again...

I like the narrator's voice but a couple of spots remain where he stumbles and repeats a line and forgot to edit out the stumble. Otherwise, he did a great job with all the different voices and accents.

Looking forward to the next!

I received a review copy but a review was not compensated or required.

Dust off your passport again...

Lawrence Block's second installment of Evan Tanner is just as enjoyable as the first, The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep. I started listening to the first title late one night, and finished it as the sun came up the next day...so I was eager to go for another adventure with Tanner. I wasn't disappointed.

I've read Mr. Block's email newsletter for years, and just recently finished listening to his autobiographical work Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir, so I know that he has traveled the world quite extensively. His love and knowledge of travel shows in the Evan Tanner novels. The story is similar to the first in that Tanner spends a lot of time country-hopping, and loving travel myself, I find that to be part of it's charm. When I read the paper books many years ago, I felt the same way.

This time, Tanner is off to abduct a former Nazi officer. This dates the material a bit, but certainly doesn't detract from the story. That the story was written and set in a different time just adds to the ambiance. I feel like I'm there in Prague with Tanner, there are no cell phones or laptops to be found, and the characters are conspiring with me over early 20th century political ideologies. I read to escape from real life, and that's what Block delivers.

I've become accustomed to listening to Theo Holland narrate Lawrence Block's books, but Alan Sklar delivers a solid performance with this one. It's a little jolting at first, coming fresh from the first book, but he settles into the character nicely in short order.

I'm looking forward to re-experiencing Tanner's Twelve Swingers next. More fun times ahead!

poorest reading I have ever heard on Audible

I cannot bear to continue to listen to this recording. Repeated stops and re-starting after misreading. Totally ruins the fine story line of Lawrence Block.

Ruined by a boring reader and no editor.

The story is ok but I couldn't stay awake because of the soporific reader. He reads painnnnfuuulllyyy slllooooowwwwllyy all the way through. In the first couple of chapters he reads the same phrase multiple times, Apparently there was no editor or producer. Or perhaps they fell asleep.

At the end he goes from the narrative directly into some kind of advertising for software, all in the same monotone.