Lawrence Block has had a long and distinguished career as a crime novelist. He's written multiple series about different protagonists and done so in very different styles. He's written the light-hearted Bernie Rhodenbarr series of capers about an erudite burglar. He's also written the edgier stories about Evan Tanner, a man who can't sleep due to brain trauma suffered during the war. He's even done a series about a hitman named Keller.

But his most haunting and intriguing character is probably Matthew Scudder, an alcoholic ex-cop who quit the force after shooting a bullet that ricocheted and killed an innocent child. As a result, Scudder drinks too much and works as an unlicensed private eye, who earns a living by doing favors for people. (Then donates 10 percent of the proceeds to random churches, as a form of penance.)

The story starts off with a bang – literally. Scudder and a group of friends are sitting in an after-hours bar, enjoying their usual round of drinks when an explosion shakes the place. This particular explosion doesn't seem to connect with anything in particular related to the plot (which could be said of much of what happens in the book, actually).

However, the explosion seems to put the characters on edge, prompting dialogue that feels so real, it's about as close as you get to overhearing actual people talk. Soon afterward, two masked men with guns charge into the bar, rob the place and make their getaway. This robbery turns out to be one of three cases Scudder ends up investigating, the two others being a blackmail scheme against one of his friends and a murder case in which he's gathering evidence for the defense.

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Block doesn't disappoint in his Scuddder novels. This one is among the best. Gritty and dark throughout, the ending takes you one step further into malevolence. ( )

The story is about Matt Scudder who is drinking in a lot of different places in New York City during the summer of 1975. He drinks in a lot of different places everyday during the summer of 1975. Some of the bars are just places he goes to drink while some of the other bars are places he is drawn to where he has friends, of a kind, and he shares a life, of sorts, with them.He has quit the police force because he couldn't go on with the job after he accidently kills a child. He is cleared of any wrong doing, but he still can't go on with the job anymore. His wife moves out and takes his kids with her. Matt doesn't really feel sorry for himself or go into a rage. But he he has lost his direction and has turned drinking into his religion where he has slowly lost his soul in the sacred ginmills. There are friends at his favorite bars and he ends up being hired by 3 of them to solve 3 different mysteries that all occur in a short 2 week period in the summer of 1975.

The book does not spend a lot of time introducing characters and giving you a lot of different clues to keep up with. It tells you who everybody is and then tells the story. One of the things you see happen in a lot of mysteries is that the writer has the characters do sudden or suprising things near the end of the book that resolve the mystery but leave the reader feeling conned by the writer. Lawrence Block does not do that in this book. He tells you who the characters are and then they continue to be that person all the way through the book. What you expect the characters to do as the story unfolds is exactly what they do.

Mystery books have almost always been about murder. There aren't a lot of mysteries about who stole the chocolate chip cookies. The committing of the murder and then the solving of the murder is the primary focus of the book. Some of them are analytical, some are police procedural explorations, some are brain teasers, and some are even funny. But Dashiell Hammet started a murder noir style of looking at murder as being a part of the darker nature of man and that the exploration of that darker nature was really what the book was about. The very best of the books in this style do not just look at the bleak shadowy nature of the killer but also look at the dark side of the protaganist, of the hero who is trying to solve the murder mystery. Such is the case with this book. Matt Scudder is living in the shadows himself. The book does not dwell on this part of the story but it lets you see Matt as he drinks his way through his life. In the end he does solve the mysteries and he does come to some kind of peace himself with life. Lawrence Block does not turn the end of the book into a happy ending for the reader where good triumphs over evil. But he doesn't just leave the reader in the shadows either. The book is told in retrospect by Matt and we know at the end of the book that at least 10 years down the road from this story he has not just survived his own life but has quit drinking and is okay. And in many ways that is not a cop out by Lawrence Block, it is what we hope and expect Matt to do at some point. In fact, he is doing what we have come to believe he will do. During the book he keeps going into different churches and leaves his tithe, his 10%, in the poor box. He likes the Catholic churches best because the poor box is a good place to leave his tithe. His daily religion is drinking in the sacred ginmills, but he wants out. So in the end when we find out he does quit drinking, it is not an easy happy ending that Lawrence Block has given us, it is indeed what we have come to believe that Matt Scudder will do. ( )

All of Block's Matt Scudder series are worth reading, although last few have only been so-so (I get the impression he is tired of the character). This is one of his best. Block can write dialogue and move the plot along so quickly that you just keep reading but still don't want it to be over. A great craftsman. This is one of his darker Matt Scudder books but still one of the best. ( )

Haunting is the word.
An ex-cop looks bleakly into his days of 10 years before when, freshly out of NYPD, he subsisted on bourbon and spent his days staring at some of the most disheartening happenings his circle had to offer.