A Long Line of Dead Men : A Matthew Scudder Crime Novel

From Publishers Weekly The newest Matt Scudder novel by the blessedly prolific Block is right up to his usual standards. It takes a while to set up the situation (someone in an exclusive male dinner club that meets once a year is killing off the members at an alarming rate), but once it's established, Matt gets his man by his usual patient attention to detail and sheer doggedness. He almost misses him, however (giving rise to a matchless last line), and the punishment meted out to the villain is a highly unusual variant on the kind Scudder thinks up when the law, as sometimes happens, is helpless to act. His ex-call girl companion, Elaine, is her usual comforting self, and there's a brilliant portrait of an offbeat New York lawyer, obviously modeled on William Kunstler, who specializes in representing the underdog. The scene where the lawyer and suspicious ex-cop Scudder get to know and like each other is alone worth the price of the book. Those who become impatient with Scudder's determined pursuit of AA meetings--and it's possible to do so--should note his publisher's assertion that he now has a strong following not only among mystery buffs but also in "the recovery community." Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal In Block's first novel since he was named the Mystery Writers of America's 1994 Grand Master, detective Matthew Scudder investigates murder at a private men's club. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Ready Upoad : ? ISBN : 9780380720248 "It is an ancient brotherhood of prosperous men, created in secret to celebrate life ... by celebrating its dead. But the past three decades have not been kind to the Club of 31 ... As a former cop, an ex-boozer and an unlicensed p.i., Matthew Scudder has known death in all its guises. Which is why he has been asked to investigate a baffling, thirty-year run of suicides ans suspiciously random accidents that has plagued a very select group of gentlemen. But Scudder has mortality problems of his own. For this city feeds mercilessly on the unsuspecting-and even the powerful and those who serve them are easy prey for a patient, painstaking and perfectly relentless serial killer."--BOOK COVER Each year on the first Thursday in May, an exclusive club of what started out as thirty-one men meet at a restaurant for a meal and to read the names of club members who died during the past year. The surviving member will choose thirty more men to form a new group to continue the pattern. But someone is rushing things: the death rate is suspiciously high. Matthew Scudder investigates Matthew Scudder Crime Novel #12. "When Lawrence Block is in his Matthew Scudder mode, crime fiction can sidle up so close to literature that often there's no degree of difference" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).