Eight Million Ways To Die [Mass Market Paperback]

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Death in Uptown by Michael Raleigh

Her hair long and braided, wrapped around her head like a turban. Her clothes fitting her in a way so perfect that you'd think that you would have to peel them off carefully. She walked as though she were floating on clouds and did not have a worry in the world. By the time I put my cup of coffee on the table she was walking towards me and sitting on the chair at the opposite end of my table. I was amazed that of all the people there she came to sit near me. She was so close that I could smell her rose petal perfume, which filled the air that I breathed in as much as I could. But by the noticeable actions of her character, I could tell that she, if any, was a hooker.
The main characters of this story are Matthew Scudder, a retired policeman who is trying to get over a drinking problem, Chance, Kim's pimp, and Kim Dakkinen, the hooker that hired Matthew to get her out of her business that has been killed. Matthew Scudder gets to know Kim by her introducing herself to Matt at a bar where Matt was drinking coffee. Kim asks him if she pays him a certain amount of money if he will talk to her pimp and get her out of the business of being a hooker. By the time that Matt talks to the pimp, Chance, he says its ok for her to leave. The next thing that happens is Kim turns up dead in some nearby hotel. Now hired by Chance, Matthew Scudder is being paid to find who the killer is and why they did it. Hitting many potholes in his journey to find the killer, Matt keeps running into those dead ends and now is getting closer than ever.
I like this book for many reasons. It has many mysteries and riddles to figure out. It will keep your attention to the book and you will love or like this book. This is the kind of book I like to read, that's why I picked it up in the first place. This is the best crime novel I have ever read.
Matthew Scudder is a great character for this book in many different ways. He's a great detective and cares for his work in a weird way that no one could understand. Chance, the pimp, plays a great role here too. The way he acts and talks make's you jump back and forth to whether he's the person who killed Kim. Chance in this book leans towards the side of helping look for the real killer in the book.
This is a very good book to read if you are interested in this sort of thing. It keeps your mind busy and thinking throughout the whole time that you are reading the book. These are great characters that have life styles that most people can relate to in some way.
Matthew would have found the killer faster if he would have stayed sober and that would have kept his mind clear. I'm not saying that Matthew Scudder is not a good detective, but he has most of his personal problems like drinking jumping into the way of him getting the killer. By the time that he starts staying sober he finds a suspect that fits the profile of the killer, but it seems as though the suspect vanishes before he is found. This book twisted my mind in different directions while I was reading it. The great mystery that Lawrence Block puts in his books is what makes it one of the best crime novels ever.