J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
OUT ON THE CUTTING EDGE by Lawrence Block.
This book is like #9 of the Matt Scudder series.
Matt Scudder is a former police detective who killed a child and crawled inside a bottle for several years. He abandoned his wife and kids. And keeps a room in a flop house. He's now in Alcohols Anonymous and makes a few bucks doing private investigations.
The Story:
Mom and Dad hire Matt to find their daughter who left their Indiana farm to be an actress in New York City. Matt spends many weeks looking for the daughter without result. He goes back to attending AA meetings and getting involved in the lives of former drunks. He takes up with a woman whos a former communist and nasty drunk. She makes a living doing plumbing.
I wont spill the beans but the book is an expose of serial murders and assassinations in the Big Apple. It answers the question: How do you get Granny Grunt outta her rent controlled apartment and 51 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER....a knife in the back, Jack!
There's too much AA in it for my taste. It seems like filler and word packing after a while. The ending is an abrupt accounting of all the murders and quick confrontations with the killers. I guessed the end wrong.
The book would be better had Block spent more pages detailing the killers, and fewer pages detailing AA meetings that are irrelevant to the story. This is a common complaint about Block. Its a subplot that wags the story.
This book is like #9 of the Matt Scudder series.
Matt Scudder is a former police detective who killed a child and crawled inside a bottle for several years. He abandoned his wife and kids. And keeps a room in a flop house. He's now in Alcohols Anonymous and makes a few bucks doing private investigations.
The Story:
Mom and Dad hire Matt to find their daughter who left their Indiana farm to be an actress in New York City. Matt spends many weeks looking for the daughter without result. He goes back to attending AA meetings and getting involved in the lives of former drunks. He takes up with a woman whos a former communist and nasty drunk. She makes a living doing plumbing.
I wont spill the beans but the book is an expose of serial murders and assassinations in the Big Apple. It answers the question: How do you get Granny Grunt outta her rent controlled apartment and 51 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER....a knife in the back, Jack!
There's too much AA in it for my taste. It seems like filler and word packing after a while. The ending is an abrupt accounting of all the murders and quick confrontations with the killers. I guessed the end wrong.
The book would be better had Block spent more pages detailing the killers, and fewer pages detailing AA meetings that are irrelevant to the story. This is a common complaint about Block. Its a subplot that wags the story.
