Rating: 
Summary: Eight million reasons to read!
Review: This is the book that really set the standard for the Scudder series. It's the fifth Scudder adventure and it opens with Matt just out of the hospital after a major drinking binge. He is hired by a prostitute who wants out of the business, so he tracks down her pimp, Chance. No problem, Chance says. She can get out, but she could have saved herself some money and skipped the middleman.Everything looks great, but then the prostitute is murdered. Scudder, of course, assumes that Chance is the killer, so he calls in a tip to the police. Next thing you know, Chance is out and he's looking for Matt. This book is the first to really show Matt's struggle with alcohol. He starts attending AA meetings, but still doesn't see himself as an alcoholic. Normally, by the fifth book, a series begins to run out of steam. With Matt Scudder, though, the series is just beginning to find its legs. The mystery is fair play, but if you figure out how it all ties together before Matt, you're a more astute reader than I am. All of the characters are well-drawn and fully realized. Block is a true master and this is a masterpiece!
Rating: 
Summary: Spare yourself the cost of this book
Review: What a depressing novel. But of course I am not an alcoholic and I doubt that I fully understand what someone goes through that suffers from this disease. Nevertheless, I found myself turning the pages because I wanted to finish the book, not because I was enraptured with Block's fabulous story telling or his pathetically depressing protagonist. Ugh.
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