Everybody Dies

Rating:
Summary: Even Block's 'less than best' is better than most
Review: There are no bad Matthew Scudder books. While I agree thatEverybody Dies is not as good as some of the previous Scudder books,Lawrence Block on any bad day can out write almost anyone else doing this kind of thing. There is a familiarity of place, character and action about these books that always satisfies. The writing is spare and evocative and seems perfectly tuned to the violence and the moral ambiguity of the world that Scudder inhabits.

I don't know what others sense as lacking in this book, and I doubt that I can put my own impressions clearly, but it seems that as Scudder's domestic scene has become more stable, some edge has been lost from the character. I think I liked it better when his woman was still turning tricks and he seemed more lost and unhappy. It added a dimension to the stories that I miss.

Nevertheless, I will continue to read Block's Scudder series as long as he wants to turn them out. They are a fine way to pass a few hours

Rating:
Summary: Action covers a weakish plot
Review: Plenty of action but at the end if you consider the plot it doesn't amount to a lot. We were completely spoiled by the suberb earlier entries in the Scudder pantheon. For anyone new to Scudder I would suggest reading everything from the first Sins Of the Fathers, A Time To Murder and Create and follow the series through. Doing so you might feel, as I do, that Mr Block has started to lose his way a little. I say that without any disrespect and with a little sadness. Scudder is really a great fictional creation, a flesh and blood man who possesses something called soul. here's hoping we may yet again see the earlier brilliance.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: The newest Matthew Scudder novel, "Everybody Dies" is up there among the best of the series. Everyone directly and indirectly connected to Mick Ballou are meeting untimely ends. There seems to be no suspect until very late in the novel. Not only is Matt Scudder a top detective, even Mick Ballou shows he has some sense of detection. One likable characted that has been a fixture in the Scudder series is killed so the reader is drawn into the investigation. This book is probably not the best Scudder novel in which to start the series. There are so many characters here that are in other novels, but for long-time fans of the series this has to rank up there with the best of them.

Rating:
Summary: Help! I need help from a true-blue Block fan!
Review: If there is a big Block fan out there, (or Mr. Block himself) perhaps you can help me with a research question. I am looking for a passage from one of the Matthew Scudder novels that is a strong description of police revolvers. I simply can't remember which book it was in. If anyone can help me, I'd be very appreciative. I am writing a novel about a policeman, and I simply need the information contained in that passage, because it is one of the few places I have heard guns described in such a detailed manner. You can e-mail me at [e-mail]. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Hooked on Block
Review: Yeah, well, he's one of the best. He's got the dialogue thing happening to a "T." A master of the wry understatement. I have to say I found Mick Ballou a bit sentimentalized, but still, you can't put down a Matthew Scudder story once you've read the first page. Sorry to sound greedy, but please give us another one, Mr. Block, asap!

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed the latest Scudder. After "Even the Wicked", I thought Block had run out of juice on Matt Scudder, but he's baaaack!!

Like one of the other readers, I re-read the book from cover to cover about two weeks after my first reading. Mick Ballou is one of the most fascinating characters I have ever read.

It gets harder and harder to identify my favorite Scudder. Certainly "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" is near the top, as well as "A Long Line of Dead Men". For a long time, 8 million ways to Die" was my favorite, but I think that's just because it was my first. But I have to say I think Block has reached a new high with "Everybody Dies.

Rating:
Summary: Another Block-Scudder MasterClass
Review: Block delivers another authorship master-class with "Everybody Dies." No-one since Chandler has managed to enhance the mystery genre to this level of character-depth, irony and moral consciousness, (and, for me, Block does it better, with more humour, pace and literacy). Block's mind in Scudder's voice and Scudder's thoughts in Block's language, make for a glorious sensibility. I mean, you just know, for example, that the praise for that great actor, Michael Moriarty, is Block's - but it still sounds like Matt talking and constitutes another brush-stroke in the fantastically sympathetic portrait of a modern renaissance hero who combines exquisite taste, (food, locations, music, films, people), with good martial skills; strict self-discipline, (the AA meetings, the tithing), with occasional rage and lust; and moral faculties such as loyalty, self-examination and the rest with expediency and rationalisation whenever it solves a problem. I really hope Jeff Bridges - have you seen his incredible work in "Arlington Road?" - gets to play Scudder in a better film than "Eight Million Ways to Die," maybe in the rumoured "Walk Among the Tombstones," (which is certainly one of the top three Scudder novels and my own favourite of the decade). Or perhaps Bridges is ear-marked for another wonderful Block hero, "Hit Man" Keller: either way, it would be fabulous to see Block's works properly realised for the screen. I was pretty "chuffed," as we say in the UK, to see my own ideal, (but anachronistic), actor for Mick Ballou - Victor McLaglen - get a mention in "Everybody Dies;" maybe we'll have to wait for Sean Penn to mature into the role? Anyway, I just wanted to add my voice to the deserved praise here: the book is beautifully balanced between tension, mounting carnage and those reflective and character-developing interpolations we Block fans have come especially to relish in the Scudder series. Ballou's "confession" to Matt on the way to the final showdown is one of the most beautifully crafted and placed passages I've read in a modern novel.

Rating:
Summary: AGAIN
Review: It is almost impossible to review just one Scudder book. They really are small parts of a larger whole. If you are new to the series, go way back and see where they came from. The important point here is not what happens, but who they are. Whenever I read a new Scudder novel I feel like I am being reunited with old friends. Has there ever been a better supporting cast, especially Mick Ballou? You can hear the lilt in his brogue when Block writes his dialogue. Simply wonderful. When Scudder opens the first chapter of this book riding upstate on a evening with his cohorts, failing to mention the bodies in the trunk, you realize that you are in the hands of a master. In one of the earlier books Elaine said to Scudder that, no matter what happens to them, they can't leave New York. They know too many interesting people there to ever leave. Well, no matter what happens to Tanner or Bernie, don't stop writing Scudder novels. These people are just too interesting to go away.

Rating:
Summary: Block is at his brilliant best with this one.
Review: I read "Everybody Dies" in one sitting. After a couple of weeks I read it again. On each occasion I was struck by the sheer quality of the writing, and the skill with which Mr. Block draws us into Scudder's world. I truy believe that this novel, along with "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes", places Lawrence Block at the very pinnacle of the mystery genre.In fact I would go as far as to say that, as a novelist, he has surpassed even Raymond Chandler. The reason for this, in my opinion, is that he has allowed Scudder to develop and change in a way that Marlowe never did. Some other of your contributors have mentioned Robert B Parker in the same breath as Lawrence Block. They are not even on the same planet. Spenser is, as Chandler said of Alan Ladd, " a small boy's idea of a tough guy", while Scudder is a man with all the faults and frailties of the human condition. Enter his world; the streets may be mean but if you travel them with Matt Scudder you will be in for the the walk of your life.

Rating:
Summary: Scudder Back on Form
Review: This is up there with the best Scudders after the disappointment of EVEN THE WICKED. I think it's fascinating to see Scudder closing down his loyalties as he gets older. He leaves Joe Durkin way behind here as he moves towards relishing full-scale anarchy. Great Western-style climax... maybe Block wants a movie out of this one. He deserves it.