Even the Wicked

This is not a bad book. I am not sure Lawrence block is capable of writing a bad book. But it is a book in which the Block Magic—that deceptively discursive narrative style which can unite a couple of plots, a smattering of anecdotes and a few observations into a pleasing whole—just does not work. I’......more

I've said several times here now that I believe Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series to be the best PI series ever written. Some of the books individually stand with any of the classics produced by people like Raymond Chandler et al., but Block has produced far more books in this series (sixteen......more

And you thought the tabloids were bad when they were just bugging phones…. After a child rapist and murderer gets released on a technicality, a New York columnist writes a piece openly wishing for the man’s death. Someone helps make this become a reality by stringing the pedophile up and then writes......more

I first read this book fifteen to twenty years ago. During a long journey I’d popped into a bookshop, somewhere in Oxfordshire, I think, and found a whole wall of Lawrence Block books for sale on a ‘buy one get one free’ offer. I’d filled a carrier bag full of Mathew Scudder titles and pretty soon b......more

This is a long book for Block, but hey, you get three murders solved in one book for the price of one! Let's call it a hat trick, hockey fans, and yes, at least twice Goodreads reviewers I've seen use this term to describe Scudder's accomplishment in the book. First he solves what seems to be a publ......more