A Walk Among the Tombstones

This is the tenth in the series of Matt Scudder novels from Block, and they keep on getting better. The subsidiary characters are starting to have lives of their own, and Scudder, the ex-police, ex-drunk, maverick detective is getting more complex a personality with each novel. This one sees him finally establishing a firm relationship with ex-hooker Elaine, which makes a good sub-plot. The main story this time is the hunt for a particularly gruesome kidnapper and serial killer whose latest victim is the wife of a rich drug dealer. The dealer pays the ransom demand, and his wife is returned to him - dismembered! He can't go to the police, so persuades Scudder to take up the chase to avenge his wife's death. Absolutely gripping.

The tenth installment in the Matthew Scudder series, Lawrence Block takes a peek inside the mind of a very calculating killer. The story starts with the kidnapping and eventual ransom of the wife of a heroin trafficker, Keenan Khoury. The kidnappers had obviously done their homework as Khoury was not going to involve the police. He does however call his brother Peter. After a series of calls to phone booths, presumably to determine no others were involved, the kidnappers set up the exchange. The ransom is paid and Keenan receives his wife back in several pieces. Unable to leave matters as they now stood, Keenan takes the advice of his brother and calls Matthew Scudder, who Peter remembers from one of his AA meetings.

Scudder, an ex-cop, show more has very little evidence to work with. Pounding the pavement near the scene of the kidnapping, Scudder is able to discern a rough number of criminals involved as well as a basic description of the vehicle used. Receiving help from his girlfriend Elaine, a young street urchin known only as TJ, and TJ's computer hacker friends the Kong's, Matthew is able to piece together the sequence of events leading to the death of Keenan Khoury's wife. Scudder also relies on his police training and gut instincts to determine this is not the first time the killers have struck. When another girl is kidnapped, Scudder is ready and sets up the exchange in - you guessed it - a graveyard.

I thought the detective work done by Scudder, especially considering the little he had to go on, was quite spectacular. Although most of the people he talked to and leads he followed up bore no fruit, I imagine that's the way it truly is in detective work. But he was persistent and eventually pieced enough together to find the killers. After that, he left it up to Keenan Khoury to exact justice, or at least his brand of it.

As I said earlier, this is the tenth in the Matthew Scudder line of books, however it is the first that I have read. I have found in previous series that reading the books in order lend more to each story, especially in the line of character progression. There were also many questions I had that were not answered in this book but were probably addressed in previous installments, such as: why did Scudder leave the police force? Did it have something to do with his drinking problem? How long had he been sober? What happened to make him want to get sober? How did he survive when he only worked occasionally?

One thing I did not like was all the talk about AA and the goings on at the meetings. I understand he was a recovering alcoholic, but sometimes he went to 3 meetings a day. I guess I don't understand AA enough, but I always thought that a person only went to a meeting when they were afraid they might start drinking again, and I never got the impression that Matthew was ever close to that. I understand it is an important part of his character, but I felt way too much time was spent on the subject. Overall, a very good detective novel and it makes me want to go back and read the previous installments. show less

Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series has been around since 1976 and is quite famous, so it is more than a bit embarrassing that I only discovered them in 2010. Block is a very prolific writer, and still manages not to sacrifice quality to quantity, at least not for the Matthew Scudder novels who through all of the ten volumes I have read so far have been among the best in crime fiction around.

A Walk Among the Tombstones, like the other novels in the series, has a noir-ish feel to it: it has a prevailing feeling of melancholy, it has the lone wolf crime-investigating protagonist, it has violence and lots of shady low-life characters, it has a somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards vigilante justice and in general heaps of moral show more ambiguity. But there are also a lot of elements you would not necessarily expect in any hard-boiled crime novel: the protagonist is a recovering alcoholic and in a steady relationships and the treatment of those two subjects covers a significant part of the novel, and it appears (at least to the layman like me) quite solid on investigative procedures – one of the things I particularly liked about A Walk Among the Tombstones is the way Scudder gradually (mostly with persistence and a good portion of luck) pieces together the identy of the main criminal from what at first appear no clues at all.

The only thing that grated on me was the character of TJ, a teenage street kid who is just too good to ring true: he turns out to be some nascent super-sleuth and all but solves the case for Scudder – the character just strained credibility beyond the breaking point for me. On the other hand, the rest of the cast is without exception well-drawn, particularly impressive were the rich drug merchant who hires Scudder and who struggles to escape the moral turpitude his profession has gradually sunk him in and the main criminal who is both spine-chillingly evil and despicably pathetic. Block also manages to keep up the reader’s interest in the ongoing development of his main protagonist Scudder even as he seems on the road of putting his inner demons to rest and come to terms with himself and his life. show less

From Amazon:

Kenan Khoury’s wife went out grocery shopping and never came home. Alive, anyway. But because Kenan Khoury buys and sells drugs for a living he can’t go to the police for help. He goes to Matthew Scudder instead -- an alcoholic ex-cop and unlicensed private eye who will stop at nothing to bring the brutal killers to justice before another innocent woman falls beneath their knives.

My Thoughts:

I like the story, but it was written several years ago when cell phones and the internet were not available. You have to put yourself in that time frame and remember what it must have been like for detectives to do research at that time. The book was very well written although at times it seemed to drag but always picked back up. show more Block's characters are always interesting because of their moral codes and flaws...very complex with interesting personal takes on what is right and wrong and how that affects their handling of both personal and occupational problems. The ending was a bit of a let-down but nothing you can't live with. I haven't seen the movie but I understand it is excellent. show less

Block opens the book with an "English lullaby" that is pretty much guaranteed to cause sleeplessness in any child listening. It might scare them quiet, however: "baby, baby if he hears you/As he gallops past the house/Limb from limb at once he'll tear you/Just as a pussy tears a mouse." A gruesome and fitting way to start off one of Scudder's more horrific cases.

A Walk is little more to the 3.5 area on the scudder scale of awesomeness. Scudder is back in usual form, but with some of the character subtlety missing--it feel a little like--deep breath --Block might be phoning it in. It has a similar feel to the Spenser mysteries, ten or fifteen books in. Plug in the general ingredients: love interest colorful informants dubious client. show more Season with interaction with NYC's boys in blue, library newspapers, cursory sprinkles with Matt's friends, Mikey, Danny Boy and sponsor Jim, add a few AA meetings, and voila! Baked mystery. Frost with vengeance story and you are ready to serve.

I know, I know. I'm going to be punished for saying this. I think Block's strength in prior books was the sweet blend of characterization with gritty mystery. Opening with an imagined flashback to the victim's last day seems a cheap emotional trick. This time around, it's a little less focus on Scudder. TJ, the street kid from Times Square area, plays more of a role, and honestly, for me he was one of the bright spots of the books. It makes me a little uncomfortable, however, because it just misses being the funny/resourceful black man hip sidekick. Block keeps it from going quite that far, partly through Scudder's own ability to mock himself. Scenes with TJ and Elaine are where my favorite bits of dialogue show up. The hacker kids were amusing, but appear dated, circa 2012. Reading dialogue that mentions "Jolt" soda brought back a strange kind of nostalgia.

"I'm stunned," I said. "I didn't know you could talk like that."
"What, you mean talk straight? 'Course I can. Just because I street don't mean I be ignorant. They two different languages, man, and you talkin' to a cat's bilingual."

Where Block seems to have concentrated his subtle awesomeness is in the characterization of his client(s), a drug moving middleman and his alcoholic-in-recovery brother. While one scene with him seemed particularly awkward to me--the scene where they discuss the morality of selling drugs versus arms--I suppose it does fit within the context of the dealer questioning life choices of the awful event that happened. Still, it's a little pat and though the dealer is reasonably educated, he doesn't go the route of "all business is based on exploitation," a rejoinder that seems rather obvious to anyone in New York.

I was charmed by a group of drug dealers acting like a band of merry men, but I wonder... really? I was aware I was believing this section of the plot because I wanted to, not because Block was writing a story that seemed remotely plausible. The final disposition scene was a hard one to stomach. Necessary? I'm not sure. I also felt like some of Scudder's personal story was tacked on at the end, rather than growing organically through the book.

Still, it was gripping, a fun fast read, and several bits made me smile. It was a diverting. Three and a half stars.

Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/a-walk-among-the-tombstones-by-lawrenc... show less

A stunningly resourceful brand of criminal has recently set up shop in the big city; an ingenious breed of human predators who victimize the loved ones of those who live outside the law. These sadistic extortionists have certainly chosen their victims wisely; knowing that criminals will never run to the police, no matter how brutal the threat. As a result, these vicious monsters have consistently been able to get away with their nefarious business.

On a Thursday morning in late March, Francine Khoury leaves her home to run some errands. Hours later, her heroin-dealing husband Kenan receives a mysterious phone call demanding a hefty ransom for Francine's safe return. Despite following all of the caller's instructions - including show more delivering payment - Kenan is devastated by the discovery of his wife's mutilated body in the trunk of a car.

Desperate to bring his wife's sadistic murderers to justice, Kenan knows that he can't turn to the police for help. Instead, he explores alternative avenues for justice: which is where Matthew Scudder comes in. Matthew Scudder - ex-cop turned private eye - has absolutely no love for the drug dealers and glorified poison peddlers who have now come to him for help. However, Matt's personal aversion to Kenan Khoury's shady lifestyle in no way lessens the private investigator's sorrow for the man's horrific loss.

Matthew Scudder, private eye, will do whatever it takes to bring these perpetrators to justice - because they are using the innocent to fuel their diabolical schemes. He is determined to find the elusive extortionists and put them out of business permanently. Before another drop of innocent blood is spilled.

First of all, let me say that I had initially wanted to read this book after seeing advertisements for the 2014 film adaptation starring Liam Neeson. I may never actually see the movie, but the book was definitely worth the wait to read. In my opinion, while the plot dealt with some seriously dark issues, it was still remarkably realistic. Although parts of the story were difficult for me to read because of some graphically violent passages, I still enjoyed the book very much. I would give this book an A+! show less

"A Walk Among The Tombstones" is Lawrence Block's tenth Matthew Scudder book and was first published in 1992. This is a review of the book. I have not seen the movie. Scudder is an ex-cop who fell into the bars in Hell's Kitchen and had a hard time falling out of the bars. He does some private detective work without a license and often relies on his old NYPD connections in between going to AA meetings and he goes to a lot of them.

This book is about a high-end drug dealer middleman who is very much insulated from street activity. That is, he thought that living in a fancy gated house kept him insulated from the violence and pain and it did, until someone kidnaps his wife and demands a million dollars. He pays the ransom and they return show more pieces of her in a box, like so many chops wrapped from the butcher. This dealer has a brother who met Scudder at a AA meeting and asks for help tracking down the guys who did it.
Scudder does an excellent job of piecing together tiny little clues and tracking down the killer gone mad.

What's great about this book is the realistic dialogue. This is not a bang-bang, shoot-em-up, kind of novel, although it has its share of gruesome violence. This book is about how the brothers and Scudder talk about what happened and what they should do and what Scudder is comfortable with. It is about Scudder and his assistant TJ and the telephone hacker brothers piecing together from so many payphones tiny bits of information. It is about Scudder tracking down other women who might have been attacked and mutilated and piecing together the bits of information.

For those of us who have been reading Block from his early days, it is evident how mature and focused his writing has become. This is an excellent novel and is highly recommended. show less