Tanner's Virgin

By: Lawrence Block

Narrated by: Theo Holland

Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

Presenting Evan Tanner - the first series character created by Lawrence Block, best-selling author of A Walk Among the Tombstones.

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 theses for students with more money than knowledge. And, most important, time to do his dreaming while he's wide awake. 

Phaedra Harrow, nee Deborah Horowitz, is an occasional companion of Tanner's, albeit a determined virgin. She goes off on a bargain-priced world tour - and Tanner later learns that the tour's a bargain for a reason: the London-based wanker-in-chief accepts only unattached female travelers, takes them halfway around the world to Afghanistan, and cheerfully sells them into white slavery. Next thing you know Tanner's on his way to pre-Taliban Kabul, where, you won't be surprised to learn, many interesting things happen. And that's just the beginning... 

Tanner's Virgin was originally published as Here Comes a Hero, the title supplied by some ninny at Fawcett. What were they thinking? Anyway, here it is, back again in all its glory...

©1968, 2016 Lawrence Block (P)2018 Lawrence Block

The legend builds

Block continues building on the Tanner legend of creating wildly implausible scenarios and then making them somehow plausible. This latest story of white slavery, coup d’état and find gentlemanly manners is the best so far. Punctuated by Theo Holland’s phenomenal reading, you couldn’t want for a better afternoon’s entertainment.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Tanner to the rescue again

Well....here Tanner goes again. Off to rescue another woman who got kidnapped and is in trouble. Block really knows how to write a wild and crazy story. This one didn't have as many characters as some of his other Tanner books but it was still interesting and he's always finding a way to make all the mistakes and mishaps work out in his favor. I find this series fun to listen to and always look forward to the chief at the end explaining how this all worked out. This one he actually messed up pretty bad but yet .... low and behold....it still worked out anyway. I do hope he stops jumping from woman to woman for a while and will get back to more of the adventure itself. I can't tell you how many women Tanner has been with during this entire series...I should have kept count because now I'm curious. Holland does a great job as always. He does the women and men's voices and never disappoints. I love listening to his work. Block and Holland make a great duo. To sum it up....I enjoyed the book. It wasn't my favorite of the series but it didn't disappoint. Definitely worth a listen.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Stilted dialogue made worse by narrator

Lawrence Block's prose is written in a witty way, but this narrator has turned the sharpness into a stilted trial by audio. It is as if the narrator does not know how to read.

This is a bit of a weak effort in the Tanner cannon too.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Unexpected Tanner behavior.

Another fun Tanner adventure, superbly narrated by Theo Holland. I was surprised by certain Tanner behavior--- I didn't think he had it in him, but it makes him a more interesting character.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful