Rating: 
Summary: Words Are Not Enough
Review: Even though mystery is not my favorite genre, I always make an exception for Lawrence Block novels, especially the Scudder novels. SACRED GINMILL is one of the best. Block's descriptions of the drinking life are so realistic, he even describes what the characters are drinking, with the kind of loving detail that only a real alcoholic could appreciate. This is a fantastic novel. Block's emphasis on character and shading brings Scudder and his world to life. The dialog is right on target, and I loved the ending. This book touched me in ways that few have. I can't recommend it enough.
Rating:
Summary: Words Are Not Enough
Review: Even though mystery is not my favorite genre, I always make an exception for Lawrence Block novels, especially the Scudder novels. SACRED GINMILL is one of the best. Block's descriptions of the drinking life are so realistic, he even describes what the characters are drinking, with the kind of loving detail that only a real alcoholic could appreciate. This is a fantastic novel. Block's emphasis on character and shading brings Scudder and his world to life. The dialog is right on target, and I loved the ending. This book touched me in ways that few have. I can't recommend it enough.
Rating: 
Summary: What story?
Review: I think there was a possiblity of a great plot in there somewhere with some great characters but it read more like an authors notes than a book. If you think show not tell is over rated in writing then this is a book you'll love. It is a flash back of a drunk telling you what he remembers which "ain't" much. The characters are only seen thru the eyes of the speaker who does a lousy job of telling you what they are like. The speaker, Matt Scrudder, does nothing to involve us in his life or plight. Anger, love, hate, are all missing from the feelings he evokes. Sheer boredom is not. "Well you see I tied one on all year and to the best of my memory here is what I remember before the brain damage." Whoop time to go get the coffee while this speaker talks. Matt Scrudder comes across as a joke. James Lee Burke carrys it off and involves us with Dave. Kellerman has us hoping Milo stays straight. Block does not with Scudder. There are several plots going on at the same time none of which tie into each other or at least tie in well except in his recall of the summer of 75. It should have stayed there. Let me know when he's done speaking. I'll come back with my coffee.
Rating:
Summary: Falling Uphill
Review: I was introduced to Lawrence Block's tales of Matthew Scudder relatively recently, but I believe I have made up for lost time. There is something about this tough guy detective that adds a level to these stories that similar series', such as Robert Parker's, do not have. No doubt this is due to Scudder's recovery from alcoholism. AA meetings and wisdom permeate the series, sometimes as a major theme and sometimes as background music. It never interferes with the story itself but it adds much to Scudder's character and makes the tales more accessible. "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" was written in 1986. Scudder narrates from the viewpoint of that year, but the story actually takes place 10 years earlier, when Scudder was still drinking heavily. It is very much a bar story; most of the action takes place in and around these establishments in New York City and its environs. There are many Irish in the story, as players, bartenders and owners, so there is always just a dash of an accent in the air. When the wife of one friend is murdered, and the illegal accounting records of another are stolen, Matthew Scudder is drawn in as 'a friend who does favors for money.' Scudder, an ex-cop who left the force when a ricocheting bullet accidentally killed a child, survives by being a not quite private eye in the moments between drinks. This is a tough story, about hard-bitten people. While drinking hasn't destroyed the lives of any of Scudder's friends yet, it has hollowed many of them out. Beneath the smiling exteriors lie anger and greed and sorrow. As Matthew digs and considers in his search for answers, he uncovers much of the masquerade. This is a story about betrayals, some subtle and some not. Most readers will quickly single out the killer, but the nature of the crime and its aftermath unfold slowly, until Scudder is unable to know and not take action. The story of the theft is a separate thread, full of humor and melancholy, and is true detective fiction While the theme of "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" is somber, it's mood is kept light by the dry wit of Block's telling. Characters are limned with quick sure strokes and the rhythm of the dialog keeps the story moving easily along. The novel draws its title from a Dave Van Ronk song -- "Last Call." The verses tell the real story that lies beneath the action; "And so we've had another night of poetry and poses. And each man knows he'll be alone when the sacred ginmill closes." This is a novel that steadily grows on the reader, providing much to think about.
Rating:
Summary: Falling Uphill
Review: I was introduced to Lawrence Block's tales of Matthew Scudder relatively recently, but I believe I have made up for lost time. There is something about this tough guy detective that adds a level to these stories that similar series', such as Robert Parker's, do not have. No doubt this is due to Scudder's recovery from alcoholism. AA meetings and wisdom permeate the series, sometimes as a major theme and sometimes as background music. It never interferes with the story itself but it adds much to Scudder's character and makes the tales more accessible. "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" was written in 1986. Scudder narrates from the viewpoint of that year, but the story actually takes place 10 years earlier, when Scudder was still drinking heavily. It is very much a bar story; most of the action takes place in and around these establishments in New York City and its environs. There are many Irish in the story, as players, bartenders and owners, so there is always just a dash of an accent in the air. When the wife of one friend is murdered, and the illegal accounting records of another are stolen, Matthew Scudder is drawn in as 'a friend who does favors for money.' Scudder, an ex-cop who left the force when a ricocheting bullet accidentally killed a child, survives by being a not quite private eye in the moments between drinks. This is a tough story, about hard-bitten people. While drinking hasn't destroyed the lives of any of Scudder's friends yet, it has hollowed many of them out. Beneath the smiling exteriors lie anger and greed and sorrow. As Matthew digs and considers in his search for answers, he uncovers much of the masquerade. This is a story about betrayals, some subtle and some not. Most readers will quickly single out the killer, but the nature of the crime and its aftermath unfold slowly, until Scudder is unable to know and not take action. The story of the theft is a separate thread, full of humor and melancholy, and is true detective fiction While the theme of "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" is somber, it's mood is kept light by the dry wit of Block's telling. Characters are limned with quick sure strokes and the rhythm of the dialog keeps the story moving easily along. The novel draws its title from a Dave Van Ronk song -- "Last Call." The verses tell the real story that lies beneath the action; "And so we've had another night of poetry and poses. And each man knows he'll be alone when the sacred ginmill closes." This is a novel that steadily grows on the reader, providing much to think about.
Rating: 
Summary: Leaden
Review: I was none too taken with the first in the Matthew Scudder series "The Sins of the Fathers". But then I picked this one up at an airport, thinking I'd try something from a bit later before giving up. I'm afraid I think I'll give up now. The book is mildly engaging. But Block cannot really write at all well. He can't do character; he can't do dialogue and he can't do narrative rhythm. Of course that doesn't leave much. Take character: his characters are generally given idiosyncratic habits, such as Scudder's of giving a portion of his earning to the church or his friend Skip's of stubbing out cigarette in drinks while at the same instant voicing facetious disapproval of so doing. This seems to be a clumsy efort to make these people distinctive but it doesn't work at all. They are intersubstitutable ciphers whose arbitrary and inadequately motivated idiosyncracies do not stop them from remaining dead on the page. Thematically, this is a book about drunks, about people most of whose waking hours are spent sitting in bars sustained by whisky. But his characters don't really convince as drunks - they don't talk like drunks and they don't think like drunks - and the atmosphere of delinquent oblivion Block seeks to create is strikingly absent, perhaps, inter alia, because his prose is so lacking in in any kind of sensual conviction. Suspense too is never delivered. Indeed the rather dull chapter 16, which tells the tale of the delivery of a payoff to recover some stolen account books could provide a textbook case of writing that is clearly intended to be gripping and full of suspense and isn't even faintly anything of the kind. I'd been told Block was one of the very best American crime writers. If the sample I have read is at all representative, I hope that is wrong. If it's right, American crime writing is in some trouble.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Matthew Scudder prequel
Review: In this book, Matthew Scudder reminisces about a period in the early seventies, when he was an alcoholic and helped out some of his drinking buddies. The narative is taut, the language is excellent and the scenarios are entirely plausible. This is perhaps one of Scudder's best books, although it is somewhat underrated. This book does not have the anticlimactic ending like in the later Scudder novels, and leaves the reader refreshed. I simply could not get up before finishing the book.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of a Great Series!
Review: Just wanted to say this. I read this book years ago (I'm a fanatic about reading detective series in chronological order) and it's my favorite in the series. The betrayal at the end really blew me away emotionally. I'm reading Block's current Scudder novel in paperback, 'Everybody Dies', and thoroughly enjoying it.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite of the Matthew Scudder books.
Review: Lawrence Block is the best. While this book about the drinking
life may be light on plot, it captures the slowly unfolding, unbearable sadness
of Matthew Scudder's life even better than any of the other Matthew Scudder mysteries.
Rating:
Summary: An Array of Runyonesque Characters
Review: Matt Scudder is living in a residential hotel in New York City after leaving his marriage of twelve years. A former police officer, Matt now works as a private investigator. In spite of Matt's depressing lifestyle, the book does have its lighter side and the reader is entertained throughout by an array of Runyonesque characters who hang around the bars near Columbus Circle.
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