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Evan Tanner #7
Me Tanner, You Jane
It's a jungle out there.Literally. At least for Evan Tanner, eternally sleepless sometime superspy, who finds himself in Africa on the trail of the AWOL ruler of tiny Modonoland. It seems the petty despot's gone missing, and he's taken the state treasury along with him.No stranger to impossible missions and international peril, Tanner's been in over his head before. This time, however, he's in imminent danger of being buried alive. And it all has to do with the CIA, white supremacists, moderate revolutionaries . . . and a blond jungle bombshell named ( no joke! ) Sheena. Tanner's always been a sucker for a pretty face and a curvaceous body, especially one that's wrapped in leopard skin. But this red hot renegade daughter of a local missionary is a maneater.Which means this time Tanner's goose is well and truly cooked.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
38 people are currently reading
231 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Block
768 books2,993 followersLawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published in excess (oh, wretched excess!) of 100 books, and no end of short stories.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
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October 5, 2017This copy is signed by Lawrence Block.
December 4, 2024
Me Tanner, You Jane sports a title lampooning Tarzan and Jane, which is fitting because the bulk of this novel takes place in equatorial Africa, where Tanner, the spy who never sleeps because of shrapnel from the Korean War, lodged in his brain, actually takes on a mission he was dutifully assigned: find the missing agent and persuade him to come home.
The opening scene is movie-worthy slapstick comedy as Tanner attends his own funeral in his own coffin and is buried alive with a hunk of cheese and a hunk of ham, but when his allies are supposed to rescue him, he finds that they have all fallen into drunken stupors and he has to claw his way out of a coffin into literally a coven of devil worshippers who are unnerved when he climbs out of his grave alive and ready to do whatever.
Block uses Tanner to poke fun of the unending sea of revolutions and counter-revolutions hitting post-colonial Africa around 1970 and sends him to Modonoland to rescue the missing agent Samuel Lonestar Bowman, a former burglar who beame a Black Muslim in jail, shot a policeman possibly in self-defense, and had to get out of the States, and who now absconded into the jungle with the deposed dictator Ndoro and a small fortune to boot. The agency had wanted to preserve Ndoro and the country's treasury for use in case needed whether in Modonoland or elsewhere. They are at latest report off with a group of bandits, guerillas, what have you, but generally a band of Black religious fanatics led by a blonde jungle goddess of some sort, who Tanner jokingly refers to as Sheena, the Queen of the Jungle. Block also uses Tanner to poke fun at affirmative action when the Chief explains to Tanner that they want Bowman back because he is the agency's only Black operative.
What follows, beginning with the scene of Tanner climbing out of his own grave, is a wild adventure that sets Tanner, mostly alone, but also in the company of a fifteen-year-old girl Plum who seduces Tanner in a bit of an odd off-putting scene.
Back to the jungle goddess, Jane or Sheena, as far as the eyes were concerned, we are told was a Playboy centerfold miraculously brought to life, but if "she looked like a wet dream, she sounded like Cotton Mather on an acid trip. She ran down the gospel according to St. Sheena with the precise cadence of a New England preacher." Sam Bowman explains to Tanner that Jane doesn't speak the native tongue and her followers don't speak English, but they have an intuitive understanding, "a very down scene. She doesn't tell them what to do so much as she does things, she gets into a set, and they act in concert with her." Sheena or Jane turns out to be a literally madwoman and a cannibal to boot.
The whole thing is outrageous and one spoof on top of the next showing perhaps how outrageous all the CIA plots to put one dictator or another in charge of which third world country turned out to be.
The opening scene is movie-worthy slapstick comedy as Tanner attends his own funeral in his own coffin and is buried alive with a hunk of cheese and a hunk of ham, but when his allies are supposed to rescue him, he finds that they have all fallen into drunken stupors and he has to claw his way out of a coffin into literally a coven of devil worshippers who are unnerved when he climbs out of his grave alive and ready to do whatever.
Block uses Tanner to poke fun of the unending sea of revolutions and counter-revolutions hitting post-colonial Africa around 1970 and sends him to Modonoland to rescue the missing agent Samuel Lonestar Bowman, a former burglar who beame a Black Muslim in jail, shot a policeman possibly in self-defense, and had to get out of the States, and who now absconded into the jungle with the deposed dictator Ndoro and a small fortune to boot. The agency had wanted to preserve Ndoro and the country's treasury for use in case needed whether in Modonoland or elsewhere. They are at latest report off with a group of bandits, guerillas, what have you, but generally a band of Black religious fanatics led by a blonde jungle goddess of some sort, who Tanner jokingly refers to as Sheena, the Queen of the Jungle. Block also uses Tanner to poke fun at affirmative action when the Chief explains to Tanner that they want Bowman back because he is the agency's only Black operative.
What follows, beginning with the scene of Tanner climbing out of his own grave, is a wild adventure that sets Tanner, mostly alone, but also in the company of a fifteen-year-old girl Plum who seduces Tanner in a bit of an odd off-putting scene.
Back to the jungle goddess, Jane or Sheena, as far as the eyes were concerned, we are told was a Playboy centerfold miraculously brought to life, but if "she looked like a wet dream, she sounded like Cotton Mather on an acid trip. She ran down the gospel according to St. Sheena with the precise cadence of a New England preacher." Sam Bowman explains to Tanner that Jane doesn't speak the native tongue and her followers don't speak English, but they have an intuitive understanding, "a very down scene. She doesn't tell them what to do so much as she does things, she gets into a set, and they act in concert with her." Sheena or Jane turns out to be a literally madwoman and a cannibal to boot.
The whole thing is outrageous and one spoof on top of the next showing perhaps how outrageous all the CIA plots to put one dictator or another in charge of which third world country turned out to be.
October 14, 2018
In the penultimate book in the Evan Tanner series, Block's international operator pursues his latest adventure in Africa. The usual tongue in cheek style, just all a bit of fun, but our 38 year old sleeping with a 14 year old Welsh-African girl not as acceptable as it may have been when published in 1986
January 11, 2021
Meh! Not one of Tanner's (or Block's) best efforts.
July 16, 2017
This penultimate entry in the Evan Tanner series boasts perhaps the best opening chapter of the lot. Every book opens with Evan already in a tight spot, sometimes facing certain death, and usually the second chapter flashes back to explain the bizarre circumstances of how he got there. Me Tanner, You Jane opens with Tanner buried alive in Africa with his plans of rescue dashed.
The tale of how he got there is also unique. Way back in the final scenes of The Scoreless Thai, there was a throwaway joke about how Evan inadvertently got the government of Moldonoland overthrown so white colonialists could plant opium fields to undercut China’s heroin trade. Well, now that situation has led to another coup in the unstable nation. Evan has been sent to rescue the deposed dictator he put into power and also retrieve the state treasury that has been stolen.
It is a solid setup for a comedic, politically-driven novel, and the author seems to have a lot of fun putting his antihero in uncomfortable situations. Evan has to deal with another spy, who is also a militant member of the Black Panthers; a psychologically damaged missionary’s daughter who styles herself Sheena, Queen of the Jungle; an uncomfortable relationship with a teenage girl who is old enough to marry in her culture, but not in Tanner’s; and of course cannibalism.
The plot becomes too far-fetched, even for a Tanner novel, and eventually it wears thin. Because the Movement for Moderation in Moldonoland is not a real political cause (How could it be? The nation itself is fictional), this story lacks the same resonance with real-world beliefs and politics that sustained so many of the other adventures.
Lawrence Block admits in his afterward that he had begun to feel the series was too repetitive, and he tried to overcompensate by making each plot twist outrageous in hopes of keeping reader attention. The end result is a book that is still entertaining and funny, but just not the best of the series
The tale of how he got there is also unique. Way back in the final scenes of The Scoreless Thai, there was a throwaway joke about how Evan inadvertently got the government of Moldonoland overthrown so white colonialists could plant opium fields to undercut China’s heroin trade. Well, now that situation has led to another coup in the unstable nation. Evan has been sent to rescue the deposed dictator he put into power and also retrieve the state treasury that has been stolen.
It is a solid setup for a comedic, politically-driven novel, and the author seems to have a lot of fun putting his antihero in uncomfortable situations. Evan has to deal with another spy, who is also a militant member of the Black Panthers; a psychologically damaged missionary’s daughter who styles herself Sheena, Queen of the Jungle; an uncomfortable relationship with a teenage girl who is old enough to marry in her culture, but not in Tanner’s; and of course cannibalism.
The plot becomes too far-fetched, even for a Tanner novel, and eventually it wears thin. Because the Movement for Moderation in Moldonoland is not a real political cause (How could it be? The nation itself is fictional), this story lacks the same resonance with real-world beliefs and politics that sustained so many of the other adventures.
Lawrence Block admits in his afterward that he had begun to feel the series was too repetitive, and he tried to overcompensate by making each plot twist outrageous in hopes of keeping reader attention. The end result is a book that is still entertaining and funny, but just not the best of the series
November 10, 2019
Most enjoyable, and different from the other Tanner stories. Different setting, for one.
Gripping, funny, entertaining and, yes, a little instructive as well.
Gripping, funny, entertaining and, yes, a little instructive as well.
July 23, 2020
Entertaining read
April 5, 2021
Tanner series is just wonderful,but this one fell a little short in Humour and mystery.
I would say it's still a fun read,but nothing compared to other tanner books.
I would say it's still a fun read,but nothing compared to other tanner books.
Read
September 20, 2022Audiobook. The reader is robotic and there are definitely some problematic plot points but I love the Evan Tanner series anyway.
July 14, 2014
Well, I've now read all of the Tanner series. Sadly they did not continue to as entertaining as the first few.
This one is tied with the Scoreless Thai as the worst. Not for any reasons that many people might site - like sex with minors, making terrorism a sort of good guy thing. Because like all things of that nature - it really is a subjective race to hell.
Not even for the unrealistic elements - like Tanner's insomnia or his last frozen time traveling thing. After all, I didn't pick them up for gritty realism, I picked them up for escapist fun.
No my problem with them was they got boring and drafty. I pick up a book like this not because I want great literature. I pick it up for the same reason I watch Action Flicks - to lose myself in something that has no relationship with my life. I can't do that if it's boring.
And when its boring, I start to pick up on the annoying stupid stuff. Like Block apparently thinks only blondes are worthy of being Tanner's sex partner. All of them, whether they are caucasian or not - blond. Its a bit more than weird, but not really a reason to hate it.
I like things to move along and not get bogged down in exposition of all the possible angles of thought, or opinions that go on for a page and a half or long lists of things that one sees around one. So the last few novels had several parts that were skimmed rather than read.
And then he lost the humor somewhere. I mean I guess it was attempted but I didn't notice it like I did in The Cancelled Czchek or The thief who couldn't sleep.
I enjoyed the trips for the most part. I read them all, and I'm apt to put down a book if it bores me too much. But they definitely lost the bloom for both him and I about half way through the series.
This one is tied with the Scoreless Thai as the worst. Not for any reasons that many people might site - like sex with minors, making terrorism a sort of good guy thing. Because like all things of that nature - it really is a subjective race to hell.
Not even for the unrealistic elements - like Tanner's insomnia or his last frozen time traveling thing. After all, I didn't pick them up for gritty realism, I picked them up for escapist fun.
No my problem with them was they got boring and drafty. I pick up a book like this not because I want great literature. I pick it up for the same reason I watch Action Flicks - to lose myself in something that has no relationship with my life. I can't do that if it's boring.
And when its boring, I start to pick up on the annoying stupid stuff. Like Block apparently thinks only blondes are worthy of being Tanner's sex partner. All of them, whether they are caucasian or not - blond. Its a bit more than weird, but not really a reason to hate it.
I like things to move along and not get bogged down in exposition of all the possible angles of thought, or opinions that go on for a page and a half or long lists of things that one sees around one. So the last few novels had several parts that were skimmed rather than read.
And then he lost the humor somewhere. I mean I guess it was attempted but I didn't notice it like I did in The Cancelled Czchek or The thief who couldn't sleep.
I enjoyed the trips for the most part. I read them all, and I'm apt to put down a book if it bores me too much. But they definitely lost the bloom for both him and I about half way through the series.
January 26, 2014
This installment of Even Tanner's adventures was absurdly outrageous. I loved it for the light read that it was.
It takes place in an invented African country mentioned in previous books, which made it the perfect setting for a hopelessly unrealistic storyline that somehow made sense in the fantasyland of Monoland. Naturally, the requisite and light nymphomania one expects in a Tanner story - explicitly stated and perfectly unarticulated in the details - was present, this time in the form of an unlikely missionary's daughter turned blood crazy warrior of the jungle. She called herself Sheena, and that in itself should give you a clue to the story's ironic tone. Add in a deposed African leader, crazy tribal rituals, a trip through the jungle in search of a missing agent, a smattering of opium used for good purposes, hidden government riches, some temporarily adopted misfits, and enough plot twists to keep your interest - all peppered with irony should you be open to it - and you have the gist of the story.
Oh, and one small point of interest: the whole thing starts off with Even Tanner in a coffin six feet under ground breathing through a metal tube.
In short, this story didn't keep me up at night pondering the mysteries of the Universe, but it did offer up a fun well written farce and a tongue in cheek peek at humanity.
It takes place in an invented African country mentioned in previous books, which made it the perfect setting for a hopelessly unrealistic storyline that somehow made sense in the fantasyland of Monoland. Naturally, the requisite and light nymphomania one expects in a Tanner story - explicitly stated and perfectly unarticulated in the details - was present, this time in the form of an unlikely missionary's daughter turned blood crazy warrior of the jungle. She called herself Sheena, and that in itself should give you a clue to the story's ironic tone. Add in a deposed African leader, crazy tribal rituals, a trip through the jungle in search of a missing agent, a smattering of opium used for good purposes, hidden government riches, some temporarily adopted misfits, and enough plot twists to keep your interest - all peppered with irony should you be open to it - and you have the gist of the story.
Oh, and one small point of interest: the whole thing starts off with Even Tanner in a coffin six feet under ground breathing through a metal tube.
In short, this story didn't keep me up at night pondering the mysteries of the Universe, but it did offer up a fun well written farce and a tongue in cheek peek at humanity.
May 27, 2016
#7 in the Evan Tanner series.
Spy Evan Tanner series - It's a jungle out there. Literally. At least for Evan Tanner, eternally sleepless sometime superspy, who finds himself in Africa on the trail of the AWOL ruler of tiny Modonoland. It seems the petty despot's gone missing, and he's taken the state treasury along with him. No stranger to impossible missions and international peril, Tanner's been in over his head before. This time, however, he's in imminent danger of being buried alive. And it all has to do with the CIA, white supremacists, moderate revolutionaries . . . and a blond jungle bombshell named (no joke!) Sheena. Tanner's always been a sucker for a pretty face and a curvaceous body, especially one that's wrapped in leopard skin. But this red hot renegade daughter of a local missionary is a man-eater.
Spy Evan Tanner series - It's a jungle out there. Literally. At least for Evan Tanner, eternally sleepless sometime superspy, who finds himself in Africa on the trail of the AWOL ruler of tiny Modonoland. It seems the petty despot's gone missing, and he's taken the state treasury along with him. No stranger to impossible missions and international peril, Tanner's been in over his head before. This time, however, he's in imminent danger of being buried alive. And it all has to do with the CIA, white supremacists, moderate revolutionaries . . . and a blond jungle bombshell named (no joke!) Sheena. Tanner's always been a sucker for a pretty face and a curvaceous body, especially one that's wrapped in leopard skin. But this red hot renegade daughter of a local missionary is a man-eater.
July 10, 2016
I have read a few Evan Tanner books about the spy who could not sleep and I thought they were a good read. This was back in the 1980's. I read a few reviews before starting my review and he seemed to get a few five stars..No one commented on the fact that Tanner was sleeping with a fourteen year old girl. It is just fiction they will answer...This book was a sad state of affairs....
September 16, 2013
This may be my first Tanner book. I've read many, many of Lawrence Block's books and he never disappoints me. Neither did this one about the sleepless spy, Evan Tanner.
Good, fast read, nice way to spend an afternoon.
Good, fast read, nice way to spend an afternoon.
Want to read
September 28, 2009AKA: Sheldon Lord, Jill Emerson, Paul Kavanaugh, Chip Harrison, Lawrence Block
December 8, 2009
Suggested by someone at the library, as the best crime writer. I didn't like the full length novel (Everybody Dies), but think I'll enjoy these shorter ones very much.
October 5, 2017
The writer loses control of his plot early on. It's sad that the series has to end with such a low end.
February 26, 2019
This one was definitely out there a little, but a good read
August 18, 2013
One of the worst Lawrence Blocks I have ever read.
I like the series and I like the lead character but this was racist, sexist, pedophilic and ultimately not that interesting to read.
I like the series and I like the lead character but this was racist, sexist, pedophilic and ultimately not that interesting to read.
Read
April 7, 2014A hit man who has a therapist and who ends up as hero/protagonist? You got it!
January 29, 2016
Another tale of hilarious transcontinental mayhem... though the adventure itself passes over quite soon...
February 5, 2017
Tanner bangs a 14-year-old and participates in a cannibal feast....just yuck.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews