Disclaimer

From Publishers Weekly

Block has been getting better and better in recent Matt Scudder novels, but as this first hardcover version of a 16-year-old paperback shows, he was pretty good from the start. King's admiring introduction is generous but by no means overstated. This tale, which introduced the then-hard-drinking ex-cop, is spare and lean and full of dark insights into lonesomeness and anguish. The father of murdered Wendy Hanniford comes to Scudder to try to find out more about his errant daughter--not to find her killer, who was apparently her living partner, a brittle young man who was found in the street raving and covered with her blood and who killed himself shortly after he was arrested. In his dour, methodical, oddly empathetic way, Scudder finds out a great deal, altering several lives in the process. As always in the Scudder books, New York City--its small-hours bars, its jokey, edgy encounters--is a major character; as in the later books, too, Block's style is admirable: free of gimmicks, plain but utterly telling in every line. This is a fine opportunity to get in on the start of what has become one of the most rewarding PI series currently in progress.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The 1976 paperback that introduced Block's melancholy, alcoholic shamus Matt Scudder finally gets a well-deserved hardcover edition--as well as a charming fan letter of an introduction from Stephen King. King pinpoints why the nine-book Scudder series (A Dance at the Slaughterhouse, 1991, etc.) is among mystery's most popular and finest: The absence of cats,'' i.e.,tricks.'' As King says, Scudder is a pure'' detective whois real because his milieu is real.'' The fascinating ordinariness of Scudder and the harsh realness of his New York City arrive full force here as the p.i. is hired by a distraught father to look into the recent stabbing murder of his estranged daughter. Not to solve it, because the apparent killer, the girl's gay male roommate, has already been arrested--and punished: he's hung himself in his jail cell; but to find out more about the girl and why anyone would want to kill her. Scudder accepts the job reluctantly, as is his dour way, and during the course of his brief digging exhibits the sort of brave yet flawed behavior that sets him apart from other literary p.i.s: doggedly following the victim's trail down unexpected alleys as he learns that she was a moderately happy hooker who in fact was loved like a sister by her alleged killer; as he tithes 10% of his earnings to random churches; casts a cynical yet kindly eye on his fellow citizens; seeks release from the evil he finds in some through booze, the hired love of call-girl Elaine, and stunning bursts of violence, particularly against a mugger whose fingers he carefully snaps one by one. And, of course, Scudder turns up the real killer. Not as richly textured as most of the later cases, but, still, as haunting and mournful as the baying of a hound at the moon--and a must for Block/Scudder fans. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

This is the third of Block's superb Matt Scudder series to appear (it was first issued by Dell in paperback back in 1977), and its return now in hardcover from Dark Harvest (which did the first, Sins of the Fathers , last year) is great news for admirers. The story is swift, complicated and elegant, and Kellerman gets it right when he says that the Scudder novels "are the best New York crime novels ever written." In this one Scudder, still in his drinking days, is paid by "Spinner" Jablon, a small-time hood, to hold an envelope for him, with instructions to open it only when he dies, and then do what's necessary. What's necessary turns out to be determining which of Jablon's three eminent blackmail victims did the little man in. One is a wealthy businessman who's been covering up for his teenage daughter, whose car killed a child; there's a society wife with a past in porn movies and prostitution; another is a candidate for governor with a taste for hurting small boys in sadistic sex. How Scudder finds out who had Jablon killed, and the sometimes tragic consequences of his investigation, provide the meat of this outstanding thriller, which moves effortlessly through sleazy bars, skyscraper suites and luxury hotels. The dialogue is, as always, dead on and rivetingly entertaining, and the atmosphere--Kellerman has it right again--is "wonderfully morose." Not to be missed.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Named after a line from Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock , this 1976 novel features Block's popular detective Matt Scudder. The plot finds Scudder investigating the death of a small-time hood who, knowing he was marked for death, paid Scudder in advance to solve his murder. All libraries where Block is popular will want to have this first hardcover edition, which also contains an introduction by fellow mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

A Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, Lawrence Block is a four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. The author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, he is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.

From AudioFile

Though Roberts is an expressive, earnest narrator, fans of Block's endlessly satisfying Matthew Scudder mysteries will find the tone of this reading somehow off. Block's writing is understated and restrained, reflecting his hero's resigned acceptance of humankind's darker nature. Scudder is not surprised by the failings of people, including himself. Roberts's reading is showy, infused with an incredulity that is simply not in keeping with Scudder's informed fatalism. Still, this is a Scudder mystery, and listeners will enjoy his relentless investigation into the brutal nine-year-old murder of a pregnant woman. The novel is early in the Scudder series, by the way, and an important stepping-stone on his way to sobriety. M.O. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Description

Nobody knows better than Matthew Scudder how far down a person can sink in this city. A young prostitute named Kim knew it also—and she wanted out. Maybe Kim didn't deserve the life fate had dealt her. She surely didn't deserve her death. The alcoholic ex-cop turned p.i. was supposed to protect her, but someone slashed her to ribbons on a crumbling New York City waterfront pier. Now finding Kim's killer will be Scudder's penance. But there are lethal secrets hiding in the slain hooker's past that are far dirtier than her trade. And there are many ways of dying in this cruel and dangerous town—some quick and brutal ... and some agonizingly slow.

About the Author

Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific, Edgar Awardwinning Block has written many mysteries, most in assorted series with colorful protagonists. Featured here is Matt Scudder in his follow-up appearance to Eight Million Ways to Die. Scudder is a former New York cop, now an unlicensed private detective who does favors for friends. Divorced from his wife, who lives with their sons on Long Island, Scudder rooms in a West Side hotel. His real home, however, is any one of three or four local bars, and his family are their owners, staff and habitues. In the summer of 1975, Matt is busy with assorted favors. Tommie Tillary, an investment salesman in flashy clothes, whose wife has been murdered in Bay Ridge, needs to be cleared of suspicion. The real booksas opposed to those shown to the IRSstolen from Skip Devoe's bar must be ransomed, and the masked gunmen who robbed the Morrisey brothers' after-hours place have to be identified. Drinking steadily all summer, Scudder accomplishes all of the above, his intuition, doggedness and respect for a higher law sputtering through the alcoholic haze. Block is an accomplished storyteller, and Matt Scudder is a fine example of hero as human being. Mystery Guild selection.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Ambitious and intense...A compelling and memorable novel." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Chilling" -- Washington Post

This is a city that seduces dreamers . . . then eats their dreams.

Matthew Scudder understands the futility of his search for a longtime missing Midwestern innocent who wanted to be an actress in the vast meat-grinder called New York City. But her frantic father heard that Schudder is the best—and now the ex-cop-turned-p.i. is scouring the hell called Hell's Kitchen looking for anything that might resemble a lead. And in this neighborhood of the lost, he's finding love—and death—in the worst possible places.

Annotation

Reissued to coincide with Block's bestselling A Ticket to the Boneyard. Ex-cop, ex-alcoholic, and ex-innocent Matthew Scudder travels into the heart of New York City's Hell's Kitchen to investigate a young girl's disappearance--and discovers that searching through gritty, crack-infested tenements can be hazardous to one's health.

From Publishers Weekly

Despite their dark titles (the words Slaughterhouse and Boneyard figured in the previous two), Block's splendid, award-winning Matt Scudder novels are by no means unrelievedly bleak. His latest-as well as offering the customary skillful plotting, adroit pacing and sure sense of New York character-features a wry humor all its own, along with a particularly ingratiating and convincing pair of computer hackers. The premise is grim, certainly: a pair of men who prey murderously on women progress to kidnapping the womenfolk of drug dealers and demanding huge ransoms. Former alcoholic PI Scudder-now going to more AA meetings than ever-reluctantly agrees to help one dealer, a Lebanese, after his wife is killed by the kidnappers. Slowly and methodically he discerns a pattern in the mayhem. With the help of his erstwhile police colleagues, his black Times Square sidekick TJ and his call-girl sweetheart, Elaine, Scudder tightens the net on the culprits. When they seize the daughter of a Russian dealer, he is ready for the showdown. Block isn't big on action, though when it comes it is swift, vivid and horribly convincing; his Scudder books are built on character, atmosphere, crackling dialogue and a great deal of brooding-the taste for them is addictive. An equal of Elmore Monard and Robert Parker, Block deserves similar acclaim. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A big bruiser of a crime novel...This is no pleasant stroll in the country, but it's some trip." -- The New York Times Book Review

"As good as the crime thriller gets." -- San Diego Union-Tribune

"Wonderful...Everyone who relishes a vicarious walk on the rough side should rejoice!" -- Arizona Daily Star

From Booklist

Lawrence Block is having a career year. His Bernie Rhodenbarr series returned to wide acclaim after a 10-year hiatus (The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams ), he was named the 1994 Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, and now the thirteenth entry in his long-running and much-loved Matthew Scudder series has arrived. Fans will be pleased to know it's one of the most entertaining of the lot. Scudder is summoned to investigate the curious run of deaths that seem to be afflicting the members of a private club. Not just any private club, mind you, but one whose raison d'{ˆ}etre, in a sense, is death. Thirty men gather once a year to celebrate, well . . . not having died yet. When they do die, eventually, the last survivor appoints 30 new members to keep the flame burning. The current batch, though, are dropping at an abnormally fast pace. Enter Scudder. Block takes this absolutely wonderful premise and makes the most of it. Like all the best hard-boiled writers in the post-Chandler era, Block knows that character and ambience are the heart and soul of crime fiction, but unlike so many of his brethren, he also maintains a healthy respect for plot. When you read a lot of mysteries, you come to feel a numbing inevitability about literary murder: there are only so many motives and so many ways to kill somebody, and we've seen them all. Hence the pleasure of encountering a new Block novel and realizing again the joys of a fresh premise. Perhaps that's a topic for discussion at the next meeting of the Not Dead Yet Club. Bill Ott

From Kirkus Reviews

Take a group of 31 men in their 20s. How many of them would you expect to die over the next 30 years? Lewis Hildebrand, one of the 1961 matriculants to the generations-old Club of 31 (rumored earlier members: Newton, Mozart, Franklin) whose sole purpose is to meet once a year to memorialize their dead and wait until their last surviving member can appoint 30 new fellows, thinks that 17 fatalities is entirely too many. So he hires unlicensed PI Matthew Scudder to determine whether and why somebody may be eliminating every member of the club. There's no obvious motive--no residual legacy, nothing the victims all had in common--and no obvious starting point for Scudder's investigations. But his patient legwork soon convinces him that several accidents, suicides, and murders blamed on other suspects are the work of a single dedicated individual who strikes again the day after 9 of the 14 surviving members meet. Working in a vein of contemplative tranquillity poles apart from his earlier savagery, Scudder manages to identify the killer and mete out condign punishment. Unfortunately, the autumnal acceptance of mortality Scudder's been moving toward in his recent outings (The Devil Knows You're Dead, 1993, etc.) works against both mystery and suspense this time, though Scudder's many fans won't want to miss his ritual Nunc Dimittis. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On a Tuesday night in August I was sitting in the living room with TJ, watching two guys hit each other on one of the Spanish-language cable channels, and enjoying the fresh air more than the fight. A heat wave had punished the city for two weeks, finally breaking over the weekend. Since then we'd had three perfect days, with bright blue skies and low humidity and the temperature in the seventies. You'd have called it ideal weather anywhere; in the middle of a New York summer, you could only call it a miracle.

I'd spent the day taking advantage of the weather, walking around the city. I got home and showered in time to drop into a chair and let Peter Jennings explain the world to me. Elaine joined me for the first fifteen minutes, then went into the kitchen to start dinner. TJ dropped by just around the time she was adding the pasta to the boiling water, insisting that he wasn't hungry and couldn't stay long anyway. Elaine, who had heard this song before, doubled the recipe on the spot, and TJ let himself be persuaded to take a plate and clean it several times.

"Trouble is," he told her, "you too good of a cook. Now on, I wait to come by until mealtimes is come and gone. I don't watch out, I be fat."

He has a ways to go. He's a street kid, lean and limber, indistinguishable at first glance from any of the young blacks you'll see hanging around Times Square, shilling for the monte dealers, running short cons, looking for a way to get over, or just to get by. He's much more than that as well, but for all I know there may be more to many of them than meets the eye. He's the one I know; with the others, all I get to see is what's on the surface. And TJ's own surface, for that matter, is apt to change, chameleon like, with his surroundings. I have watched him slip effortlessly from hip-hop street patter to a Brooks Brothers accent that would not be out of place on an Ivy League campus. His hairstyle, too, has varied over the several years I've known him, ranging from an old-style Afro through assorted versions of the high-top fade. A year or so ago he started helping Elaine at her shop, and on his own decided that a kinder, gentler 'do was more appropriate. He's kept it cropped relatively short ever since, while his dress ranges from the preppy outfits he wears to work to the in-your-face attire they favor on the Deuce. This evening he was dressed for success in khakis and a button-down shirt. A day or two earlier, when I'd seen him last, he was a vision in baggy camo trousers and a sequined jacket.

"Wish they was speakin' English," he complained. "Why they got to talk in Spanish?"

"It's better this way,'' I said.

"You tellin' me you know what they sayin'?''

"A word here and there. Mostly it's just noise."

"And that's how you like it?"

"The English-speaking announcers talk too much," I said.

"They're afraid the audience won't be able to figure out what's going on if they're not chattering away all the time. And they say the same things over and over. 'He's not working hard enough to establish the left jab.' I don't think I've watched five fights in the past ten years when the announcer hasn't observed that the fighter should be using the jab more. It must be the first thing they teach them in broadcasting school."

"Maybe this dude sayin' the same thing in Spanish."

"Maybe he is," I agreed, "but since I don't have a clue what he's saying it can't get on my nerves."

"You ever heard of the mute, Newt?"

"Not the same. You need the crowd noise, need to hear the punches land."

"These two ain't landin' many."

"Blame the one in the blue shorts," I said. "He's not working hard enough to establish the left jab."

He did enough to win the four-round prelim, though, getting a decision and a round of perfunctory applause from the crowd. Next on the card was a ten-round welterweight bout, a classic matchup of quick light-hitting youth against a strong puncher a couple of years past his prime. The old guy - I think he was all of thirty-four - was able to stun the kid when he landed a clean shot, but the years had slowed him some and he missed more often than he connected. In return, the kid peppered him with a barrage of blows that didn't have much on them.

"He pretty slick," TJ said, after a couple of rounds.

"Too bad he doesn't have a punch."

"He just keep at you, wear you down. Meanwhile he pilin' up the points. Other dude, he be tirin' more with each round."

"If we understood Spanish," I said, "we could listen to the announcer saying pretty much the same thing. If I were betting this fight I'd put my money on the old guy."

"Ain't no surprise. You ancient dudes has got to stick together. You think we need any of this here?"

"This here" was the line of goods in the Gehlen catalog. The Gehlen Company is an outfit in Elyria, Ohio, offering electronic espionage equipment, gear to bug other people's phones and offices, gear to keep one's own phones and offices bug-free. There's a curiously bipolar quality to the whole enterprise; they are, after all, promoting half their line as a defense against the other half, and the catalog copy keeps changing philosophical horses in midstream. "Knowledge is power," they assure you on one page, and two pages later they're championing "your most basic right - the right to personal and corporate privacy." Back and forth the argument rages, from "You have a right to know!" to "Keep their noses out of your business!"

Where, you have to wonder, do the company's sympathies lie? Given that their namesake was the legendary German intelligence chief, I figured they'd happily sell anything to anybody, committed only to increasing their sales and maximizing their profits. But would any of their wares increase my sales or boost my profits?

"I think we can probably get by without it," I told TJ.

"How we gonna catch Will without all the latest technology?"

"We're not."

"'Cause he ain't our problem?"

"Not as far as I can tell."

"Dude's the whole city's problem. All they talkin' about, everywhere you go. Will this and Will that."

"He was the headline story in the Post again today," I said, "and they didn't have any news to back it up, because he hasn't done anything since last week. But they want to keep him on the front page to sell papers, so the story was about how the city's nervous, waiting for something to happen."

"That's all they wrote?"

"They tried to put it in historical context. Other faceless killers who've caught the public imagination, like Son of Sam."

"Be a difference," he said. "Wasn't nobody cheerin' for Son of Sam."

From Kirkus Reviews

Mick Ballou can't tell the cops about the men who broke into his storage room in Jersey, murdered two of his errand boys, and carted off the liquor that was stored there, since Mick had stolen the booze himself. Instead, he calls Matthew Scudder. Even though Scudder is more respectable than ever - he's married his longtime companion Elaine Mardell and gotten a private investigator's license at last - he helps Mick and his driver Andy Buckley bury the bodies, and noses around just enough to satisfy himself that he can't tell whether the thieves were opportunists or personal enemies. But Scudder, his modest task completed, doesn't take himself off the case fast enough for the killers, who are only getting started. They arrange to have him beaten, they send a shooter after him, and then they go after Mick in earnest. The body count, as the title suggests, is fearsome. But even more harrowing is the obsession with death that grips everybody Scudder talks to, from gay albino African-American Danny Boy Bell, who's constantly updating his list of all the people he knows who've died, to Mick, still fabled 30 years later as having celebrated his victory over a rival mobster by toting around a hideous trophy in a bowling bag. Not as breathtakingly plotted as Scudder's last, Even the Wicked (1997), but still an unforgettable dispatch from a world in which there are no real survivors, just guys who haven't died yet. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.

From Publishers Weekly

Unlicensed PI Matthew Scudder returns after a three-year absence to investigate the murder of a wealthy couple savagely slain in their Manhattan townhouse. Matt's now 62, and his age shows in this relatively sedate outing. There's less violence than in many cases past, and the urban melancholy that pervaded his earlier tales has dissipated, replaced by a mature reckoning with the unending cycle of life and death. The mystery elements are strong. To the cops, the case is open-and-shut: the perps have been found dead, murder/suicide, in Brooklyn, with loot from the townhouse in their possession. Matt enters the scene when his assistant, TJ, introduces him to the cousin of the dead couple's daughter; the cousin suspects the daughter of having engineered the killings for the inheritance. At loose ends, Matt digs in, quickly rejecting the daughter as a suspect but uncovering evidence pointing to a mastermind behind the murders. Block sounds numerous obligatory notes from Scudder tales past the AA meetings, the tithing of Matt's income, cameo appearances by Matt's love interest, Elaine, and his friend, Irish mobster Mick Ballou and he adds texture with some familial drama involving Matt's sons and ex-wife. His prose is as smooth as aged whiskey, as always, and the story flows across its pages. It lacks the visceral edge and heightened emotion of many previous Scudders, however, and the ending seems patly aimed at a sequel. This is a solid mystery, a fine Block, but less than exceptional. (Nov.)Forecast: All Blocks sell and Scudder's return will do particularly well, especially with the attendant major ad/promo, including a 17-city author tour. Simultaneous Harper Audio and Harper large print edition.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is the 15th Matthew Scudder novel in 25 years, and readers of Block's noir series know what to expect. It's all here: a perfect evocation of the sights, sounds, and smells of New York City; trips to AA meetings in church basements; Mick Ballou's bar; and the recurring characters such as Ballou, the streetwise TJ, and Elaine, the civilizing influence. In this latest outing, Matt and Elaine attend a "Mostly Mozart" benefit concert at Lincoln Center. At the same concert are a couple who are later murdered in their Upper West Side apartment. Then, the "murderers" are themselves killed in Brooklyn. Without anyone really asking him to, and for want of something better to do, Scudder starts to pick at this case until the whole story unravels before him to a startling conclusion. Every so often, the real murderer narrates a chapter, which adds a cat-and-mouse element. But those looking for fast action will not find it here the pace is leisurely, and characters and set pieces are almost as important as plot. Recommended, especially for public libraries, where readers will ask for it.
- Fred Gervat, Concordia Coll. Lib., Bronxville, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.