Everybody Dies by
Lawrence Block
pbk out September 99
(Orion)
at £5.99
Scudder again. The fourteenth novel in the series opens slowly, three guys in a Cadillac at night, with a deer caught in the headlights. Not a lot of tension, but you stick with it because the prose is slick and easy, and you know Lawrence Block is playing a game with you, and that's fine, absolutely fine. In fact that's one of the main reasons you went out to get your hands on the book.
A couple of Irish workers are left dead in Mick Ballou's liquor warehouse, and Scudder is hired to find out who done it and why. But before long Scudder is jumped in the street and warned off the case.
Next, his friend is shot in a restaurant, and Scudder knows that he himself was the real target of the gunman.
For the neophytes amongst us, Mathew Scudder is an ex-cop, a private detective working out of New York. He's an alcoholic who hasn't had a drink in sixteen years. He's married now, and starting to feel his age. And he's a philosopher. 'It's hard to know what I am,' he says. 'I'm not sure I know exactly what a moral compass is, or if I have one.'
When the body count starts to get serious, Scudder thinks about legging it. He could take his wife to Ireland and wait until the coast is clear. After all, he's a respectable guy these days, even has a license to practise. But by this time he is personally involved. And he was never a guy to play for low stakes.
Lawrence Block doesn't have the zany humour of Elmore Leonard, but he puts it down on the page with the same sense of ease.
The only problem with this book is the lack of convincing characterization for everyone except Scudder and his wife, Elaine. There are many other players, mainly bad boys, but even TJ, Scudder's assistant, seems to evaporate on the page. Scudder himself is the main interest, however, and he is a complex and well-drawn character who keeps you turning the pages because you find yourself fascinated by his destiny.
Everybody Dies is a book which depicts startling scenes of violence, but it is a book with a human face. Block is concerned with the nature of friendship, and the ambiguity of the personality who finds himself trapped between the forces of good and evil. Lawrence Block is one of a select group of crime writers who raise the level of the genre above the mundane.
Once you've started this book, you won't put it down until you've read right through to the end.
(
John Baker
- author of the Sam Turner mysteries and one of Britain's most highly acclaimed writers)
Everybody Dies by
Lawrence Block