When I was approved to read this, I was ecstatic because the synopsis caught my attention and I just had to read it! In the beginning, I really got into the story, but come almost halfway, I couldn't stay interested in the story and couldn't bring myself to finish despite trying.

A man wakes up on a bench in Central Park. He can’t remember anything, not even his name, not even who he is. He spends the next 24 hours on a somewhat mad-cap dash about New York trying to discover someone who might know him, someone who might help him rediscover his identity. Are these people actually from his past? Do they have a connection with him? He certainly strikes lucky with some of the women he meets, of that we are told rather too graphically. Gradually some of his missing past does seem to come into focus but it takes a long time to do so and by then I had rather lost interest. It’s a great premise but a tighter narrative would have had more impact. It certainly takes a little while to work out what’s going on, and even then some of the encounters are too far-fetched. Essentially the problem for me was that I couldn’t engage with Buddwing himself and lost interest in whether he regained his memory or not. Worth reading, though, if only for the period detail about life in New York in the late 1940s.

I am sorry. I did not finish this read. Just want for me.

This rather frustrating book really tried my patience. It was a dizzy and confusing read at time. Don't get me wrong, Evan Hunter (Ed McBain) writes wonderfully but the story of Sam Buddwing was just...eh to me.

Maybe that's the whole point. To be just as confused as Sam was. To feel the frustration of Sam.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

his is a weird tale about a handsome man in his thirties who wakes up in Central Park with amnesia and meets a succession of strange women. He starts to think that he has escaped from the mental hospital and he becomes increasingly haunted by his memories which leave him on the verge of discovering his real identity. There are a lot of holes in this frenzied story but it kept me reading, and I will certainly read some of Hunter's other books, although there was one scene which was a bit shocking.

What I liked best about this book were the luminous descriptions of New York. It was almost like a love letter to the city as Buddwing travels though it during the course of one day.

I received this free ebook from Net Galley in return for an honest review.

This is a perplexing and frenzied book that explores the day of one self-baptised Sam Buddwing, a man who wakes up on a Central Park bench and doesn’t know his name, age, address or place in the world. At first the book follows the theme well as Sam strives to figure out whom he is, knowing instinctively that he belongs to New York City as a native, but not sure where he belongs. In the last third of the book things get really chaotic as we are taken down a pathway of memories and real life like an ice and fruit smoothie in a blender, all mixed up and melded into one another.

The basic premise of the book is a great one. Imagine waking up one day and not having a clue who you are or what you are doing here. Strangely the main character isn’t frightened by the event in so much as he is sure that he can work it out himself if he can just find the right clues. So we travel for the day with this unknown man as he makes contact with strangers around the city and watching his interactions with them. Each step of the way the expectation is that Sam will find someone who recognises him and will be able to fill in the gaps of his knowledge of himself.

This was undoubtedly a racy book of it time, originally published in December of 1964, as several times over the course of the day Sam Buddwing finds himself in extremely intimate situations with strangers. There is even a group sex scene that takes place during the day, although it isn’t as crudely vulgar or lewd as a similar sex scene of today would be written.

There are red herrings thrown in about Sam’s possible identity throughout the book, but it isn’t until the dying moments of the book that the truth of the situation is revealed, although it isn’t clearly delineated and seems to be lost in the chaos of the story, although that may possibly be what the author was striving to achieve.

Confusing. Disordered. Unnerving. Disjointed. Disturbing. If you like novels that are a little bit left of centre, this book is going to be right up your alley. Just don’t expect any happy endings.

This book was constantly toying with my patience and trust that the main character Sam Buddwing would find sooner than later some tangible clues as per his identity. I was really drawn into this book from the very beginning, only to be repeatedly disappointed by the style of writing, by the author refusing to give in a few pertinent clues in the first quarter of the book.

Don't get me wrong, Evan Hunter has a marvelous writing style. In this book, however, th plot is thus constructed as if to baffle and frustrate the reader. At least this is how I felt for a whole week, while refusing to read anything else but this book, only to become (let's put it bluntly) bored out of my wits, which does not happen .. if ever. My mood might have had a lot to do with it too.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book, in exchange for an honest review. I will give another chance to Evan Hunter though and read one more book by him.

As I have indicated to Greta Shull, I do not plan to read or review this title. Thank you, however, for the invitation.