KIRKUS REVIEW

Sign in with Facebook Other Sign in options. Death Will Have Your Eyes A small town's doctor takes matters into his own hands after a series of gruesome and bizarre rape crimes perplex the clueless authorities. A couple of blackmailers abduct a child from a married couple as a means of coercing the banker husband into funneling a huge sum of cash in their direction.

A beautiful young woman sets her sights on an aging millionaire. She seduces him, and moves into his mansion with him. She soon tires of him, though, and after she gets rid of him, she goes after his son. A wealthy landowner haunted by the spectre of his dead mother has a fling with a beautiful fugitive who bears a striking resemblance to his missing wife, who may have been murdered. Louisa is a young and attractive woman who wants to make a living for herself in Rome, but soon falls prey to some very shady characters that force her into prostitution.

This is a very obscure Italian giallo that I'd previous only heard of via the trailer in "42nd Street Forever" a trailer that made it look like a police action film as I recall! This is actually an old-fashioned giallo. Marisa Mell is a young woman who comes to Rome and soon drifts into de facto prostitution in order to survive. She meets a misanthropic doctor and would-be poet Farley Granger , but soon falls in love with another man.

Famous Poems

Murder ensues and she soon finds herself being blackmailed, sexually and financially, by her husband's shady driver, who saw something he shouldn't have. This movie has a rather unusual narrative structure time-wise that jumps back and forth through time often without much warning , which might confuse some viewers, but for me it made this rather pedestrian story much more interesting.

The movie also has a truly tragic tone to it and a social commentary both the wife and the blackmailing driver bring about their own downfall in an effort to become privileged bourgeosie not usually found giallo thrillers. The ending is a little weak, but up until then it's a good movie. Marisa Mell is considered a top-tier Eurobabe today although she died penniless in the early 80's. And Helga Line, another ubiquitous "sexy" actress of the era, has a supporting role as her best female friend and confidante and there are nude scenes all around, of course.

The English-language title "Death Will Have Your Eyes" after one of the husband's cheerful efforts at poetry is actually much better than the Italian title for a change. If you are the type who likes wedding cakes because aesthetics are more important than taste, you will like this wordsmith.

It is only after you are done reading the book that you realize how honest the reviews on the back are - the writing is what you come for when reading this book; the story is just there to give it a place to shine. The story is of a retired spy almost getting back into the game, and then realizing that he is too old to actually do things that you might find in a good thriller. And the story reads as such. Actions scenes are sparse, with more content being devoted to drinking in bars and picking up women than dodging bullets and breaking necks.

There were 2 car action scenes and 4 fight scenes. Most of the action must be inferred through these representative samples - if you are impressed with what he can pull off now, you can only imagine him to have been an absolute legend in his prime, which is actually mentioned throughout the story by others. His antagonists are often likened by him and his colleagues as being amateurs and small fry by way of skill comparison.

As such, enemies are usually very quickly disposed of. His main spy contact acts like a deus ex machina - he only has to call his contact and his current problems are literally solved within the hour. He talks a lot about his thoughts and feelings and whether his life has been a waste and if it's possible to remove himself from his past The story was difficult to follow, amidst all of the existential meanderings.

While said meanderings added little content, it helped develop the character and really "put yourself in his shoes". However, having a good character with no story makes for a boring book for me. The ending was surprising and unexpected, but a bit anticlimactic.

Death Will Come With Your Eyes - Poem by Cesare Pavese

However, if you made it that far in the book, the anticlimax should not be disappointing, or at the very least, not unexpected compared to everything else that's happened in the story. If you liked "Slaughterhouse Five", you might like this book. However, I wholly enjoyed neither. May 08, Karen Ramazani rated it did not like it.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I started but could not finish this book. I could not make much sense of it. It seemed as if a retired tough guy beat up 2 guys who tried to rob him. This caused him to mysteriously know he had to go back to work. So, he starts traveling all over the place, meets other tough guys, and they, for no apparent reason, provide him clues to find other tough guys. So then I returned the book. Aug 31, Brian rated it it was amazing Shelves: As always - a master writing wonderfully crafted prose.

Sallis writes crime stories, in this case a spy story, to subtly and skilfully examine the human condition. You will not be disappointed by any of his books. Jul 14, Liam Green rated it really liked it. A masterpiece of existential espionage noir, in outstanding language without a single word wasted. Auch wenn ich mir von Sallis keinen klassischen Agententhriller erwartet hatte, hinkt seine Darstellung des Protagonisten. Ich mutmasse, dass Pavese und existenzialistische Betrachtungen in Geheimdienstkreisen wohl weit weniger Platz einnehmen, als Sallis in seinem Roman dem Protagonisten andichtet.

What to say about this book???? It's a spy novel, sort of. It's an existentialist musing, sort of. It's pretty much brilliant, actually. This may not be your cuppa but Sallis is a writer like that. Griffin is even more troubled than Robicheaux and a deeper character. But the protagonist here is left unnamed. Here Sallis presents the reader with a plot, sort of, a resolution, so What to say about this book???? Here Sallis presents the reader with a plot, sort of, a resolution, sort of, and in between a brilliant rumination on the complexity that is our lives.

That complexity is buried in most lives but here the skin is stripped back to the bone. Both are short overall, with short chapters but I find myself breathless and overwhelmed after just a few pages of each. This was a weird one. I would like to preface my review with the fact that I am no a spy or trained assassin. But the plot to this book was weird. I you are out looking for another spy, view spoiler [driving aimlessly around the U.

Annihilator - Death In Your Eyes (HD/1080p)

I liked a lot of the stories from this book but it seems like they were just stories arranged together to make a spy novel. Also it was strange This was a weird one. Also it was strange that he loved his girlfriend so much but had no qualms hooking up with waitresses and lounge singers. Supposedly he told her all of his quest when they reunited but it didn't faze her. Those who LOVE great books!

Death Will Have Your Eyes () - IMDb

This short, masterful work is not really about spies. Sallis uses of the spy genre lay bare the fluidity of personal identity. He left the field to make a life for himself, eventually, as an artist and fell truly in love for the first time. Nine years later the when the Agency is in desperate need of his talents they come calling.

Sallis sees more deeply into the human soul and its mix of dark and This short, masterful work is not really about spies. Jun 04, Paul rated it did not like it. This book says it is about spies but I read it waiting for some spying to happen. Instead it is about a former spy who comes out of the cold to find who is going after him.

Unfortunately the story does not give you much of the characters previous history which would help in reading the story. The book is about his current life but everything is happening because of his previous spying history. The author does not explain much about the past, just assumes what is written here will make sense. Jun 25, tomwrote rated it it was amazing Shelves: Elegant and philosophical prose drape over a spare spy plot.

All the elements of a conventional action thriller are in place; the highly trained killer dragged back into the life he had left behind, vicious outbursts of violence, mysterious phone calls and fights and so on. But Sallis is barely interested in them. This is a book musing on ageing, on the possibility of change, above all on the transcendency of love in a lonely world. Apr 25, AH added it Shelves: This is a DNF did not finish review.


  1. MORE BY JAMES SALLIS.
  2. Cesare Pavese.
  3. El Duende (Spanish Edition);

I stopped reading at approximately page While I am a fan of spy novels, I found that this book was not for me. I wasn't really sure what the main character was doing other than driving from city to city and other than that, nothing really happens. Thank you to NetGalley and Mulholland Books for a review copy of this book.

Oct 26, Marc added it. Dit boek, net als de andere boeken van deze schrijver, zijn waarschijnlijk niet vertaald in het Nederlands. Vergeet Raymond Chandler niet.

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En het is een spionagethriller.