Sinner Man tells the story of small town insurance-peddler Don Barshter, and how after a few too many drinks, inadvertently murders his wife following an errant strike. Rather than call the police and turn himself in, Don decides to cram his wife’s body into a closet and flee town. It’s during his aimless travels that…
Back in 1978, Lawrence Block released a book detailing his advice for prospective novelists. Now, nearly forty years later, while much of the material is still relevant, Block decided to add and expand the text with the digital world in mind. Now dubbed, “Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print to Pixel”, Block’s gives important…
The Night & The Music holds eleven Scudder short stories that cover a wide spectrum of his literary life. The first few tales take place while Matt was still sucking down bourbon and coffee while the latter bring us up to his marriage with Elaine as well as his friendship with Irish gangster Mick Ballou.…
Doak Miller is a former cop living out his retirement in Florida. Not content to sit on his ass and collect a pension, Doak picks up a P.I. license and takes the odd job that floats his way. When a local sheriff comes to him with a request to impersonate a hit-man to a housewife…
Seeing as Matt Scudder ages along with his creator, Lawrence Block doesn’t feel there’s much interest in following the activities of a detective in his mid-70s. Rather than write a follow-up to All The Flowers Are Dying, Block backtracks about thirty years, all the way back to Scudder’s first year of sobriety where he finds…
The day I started my journey through the Scudder series in 2011, I’ve been dreading this moment. I somehow managed to stretch the sixteen novels over the past four years in an attempt to get maximum enjoyment out of the series. It was a great choice, if I don’t say so myself. While there are…
When a married couple is found brutally murdered in their own home, the two scum bags thought responsible are found dead in their own apartment of an apparent murder suicide. While the NYPD feels confident in closing the case, the niece of the deceased does not. She mentions this in passing to TJ who in…
“The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.” –Thomas Jefferson Lawrence Block’s fourteenth entry in his long running Matt Scudder series is by far the most tragic. The loss of life within these pages is astounding and there came a time near the end where I thought very few would make it out alive.…
