The First Deadly Sin (The Edward X. Delaney Series)

This book was Lawrence Sanders second and came out when he was in his 50s. I believe later his books may have been airport novels written by other people, which may have tarnished his image somewhat. In The First Deadly Sin, the master is firing on all cylinders.

A truly outstanding novel I first read in the 70s and recently downloaded on Kindle wondering if it would still hold up after all this time. I needn't have worried.

Lawrence Sanders' The First Deadly Sin --- Not without some merit. The author has an impressive vocabulary and a great command of English (a wordsmith). However Deadly Sin is, long, tedious and overly descriptive. I mean, when you describe a character, one does not benefit from pages upon pages of unnecessary details, describing them and everyone they have ever known.. But, I could have suffered that, had it not been for the VERY DISAPPOINTING ENDING. Save your time and money for a novel by: Robert Parker, Michael Connelly, or Lee Child.
6/6/2019 Addendum: I know, sex sells; But the author's fixation on Aberrant sex and homosexuality is a turnoff.... At least for me it was.

For some reason, I persisted to the end of this overblown novel, maybe because I thought nothing published could possibly be this bad and surely it would get better. The novel is at least twice as long as it should have been. But even had it been a reasonable length, it would still have been awful in every respect. The sex is gratuitous and salacious; the descriptions are mind-numbingly tedious; the detective, supposedly a veteran of the police officer, conducts the investigation like an amateur, seemingly making it up as he goes along; the characterizations are inconsistent and implausible; the ending is absurd; the subplot of the dying wife in the hospital is a pointless distraction. What a waste of time and money.

I bought this book about ten years ago, and got through about a third of it before I had to put it down. I just couldn't find any hooks to make me want to keep reading it. I gave it away to charity.
I recently decided to give it another shot, and purchased the Kindle version. This time, I forced myself to read it cover to cover. Keyword: Forced.
The best part of this book is Sanders incredible talent for describing people and scenes. His dialogue is well above par. His character development is excellent, and I did find Delany and some of the others quite interesting.
The problem I had with this book is the way he drags it out with needless detail about things that don't move the story forward. There were very few hooks, no surprises, no reason to stay up all night turning pages.

I read the book before I saw the movie -- but, over the course of time, lost the book (I probably donated it to a library).
After finally getting a letterboxed version of the film (a DVD-R), and reading the sole surviving Sanders book in my collection (The Passion of Molly T.), I decided to get this one again. I hope to continue with the series, given enough time.
This is the story of Edward X Delaney, who faces off against his own bureaucratic (in the worst possible sense) bosses and a killer who strikes without warning. Meanwhile, his wife's medical conditioning is worsening, destroying his personal life.
If you have seen the movie -- do not assume that you know the story in the book. A lot of changes were made.
Indeed, they are so different (despite both pursuing the two-line summary above) that they really can't be compared.

This is an unemotional telling of the story of Edward Delaney, a New York police captain, whose wife is slowly dying from an infection that can't be cured with antibiotics. He wants to retire to focus on his wife but there's a gruesome murder and in the midst of city politics, Delaney choose to look into murder (and those that follow), using amateur contacts he has collected over the years to work through the backbreaking paperwork and narrow the suspects.

The beginning -- in which we are introduced and get to know the mindset of the murderer -- is a bit slow and long but once the first murder happens, the action picks up perceptively, only slowing down toward the end. Interesting writing by going back and forth between what Delaney thinks and does, and then a chapter on what the murder is thinking and doing.

The most tedious book.I have read in years. It takes more than 100 pages to get to the story. I will wait for the next book to be made into a movie.

I first read this book back in the 70s, and fell in love with the style of author Lawrence Sanders. I saved that old paperback for many years and re-read it periodically. I was so happy to see Sanders's books have been converted to Kindle. After reading it again in e-book format, it's still as good as I remember.

The influence of the 1970s is really apparent in the descriptions of hair/clothing/jewelery and dialog. Captain Edward X. Delaney is the throwback, a WWII vet and dinosaur lumbering along, proving old investigative techniques still work when catching the bad guys.

Two things struck me reading this book again - it was written at the end of an era when men still wore hats; not baseball hats, but real hats...If Delaney wasn't in uniform, he wouldn't go out in public without a suit and his homburg. Second, this book was written before the world of DNA and sophisticated forensics. Blood might be typed between human and animal, blood type might be determined, but matching it to someone was not possible. It's a great reminder how police work has changed.

The plot and characters make this read worthwhile!

Lawrence Sanders has been a favorite of mine. The majority of his work has been of a serious nature, the "Deadly Sin" series particularly. Sanders has an ability to create characters over a series who will work their way into your imagination...at leas...if not your heart.

In addition to this series, he has penned the Commandment series, and the somewha humorous and lighthearted Archey McNally books.

In my experience, it's a good idea to start reading a Sanders novel when you have a couple of days free; they are.all hard to put doen.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit I didn’t finish the book. Quit after fourth chapter of Part 3 (the 28% point on the Kindle meter). I couldn’t “get into it” as they say. Found the characters uninteresting, the action slow, the development repetitious, and the writing flat. (Spoiler Alert) In Part 1 we meet the soon-to-be bad guy drawn to evil ways by a mysterious seductress who opens his consciousness to the freedom to experience all. I guess her mysterious disappearances are supposed to add mystery. I found I couldn’t care less about either of them. In Part 2, we meet Captain Edward X. Delaney, super-cop with issues. Constant repetition of his circumstances in the department and with his ailing wife reduced my interest in him to almost nil. In Part 3 when the two story lines merged, I hoped the pace would quicken, but alas it was not to be. More repetition rendered in plodding prose caused me to give up on the book.
In fairness, there are some interesting, well researched passages such as those describing rock climbing the chimney of Devil’s Needle and the fracture toughness of the human skull. But, for me, these bright spots were too few and far between to overcome the constant repetition and glacial plot development.