When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

This is a fine entry in the Matt Scudder series, but fans of conventional mystery novels may be somewhat disappointed, for it involves not one particular case, but three: the armed robbery of an after-hours joint, the extortion of a tavern for the return of its cooked books, and the murder of the wi......more

This is among the best of Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series, which is saying quite a lot. Set in the mid-1970s, it finds Scudder divorced, working as an unlicensed P.I. in New York City and essentially living in the bars that dot the neighborhood around his small hotel room. The book opens with......more

I wish you could add sound effects to books because it would have been cool if the flashback noise from Lost would have played when I started reading this. According to Lawrence Block lore, he originally planned to end the Scudder series with the last book, Eight Million Ways to Die, and it certainly......more

And so we’ve had another night Of poetry and poses And each man knows he’ll be alone When the sacred ginmill closes—Dave VanRonk I’ve exclusively been listening to all the (free) available audio versions of Block’s Matt Scudder mysteries, and am up to #14, but am a completist, and this one is not availa......more

A few years ago it became somewhat fashionable for like a month or two to talk about how Stephen King deserved to win literary awards. Because I'm lazy I'm not going to look it up, but I think he was even given some kind of lifetime achievement award from the folks who provide us with the National B......more