When the Sacred Ginmill Closes: Amazon.ca: Lawrence Block: Books

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific, Edgar Awardwinning Block has written many mysteries, most in assorted series with colorful protagonists. Featured here is Matt Scudder in his follow-up appearance to Eight Million Ways to Die. Scudder is a former New York cop, now an unlicensed private detective who does favors for friends. Divorced from his wife, who lives with their sons on Long Island, Scudder rooms in a West Side hotel. His real home, however, is any one of three or four local bars, and his family are their owners, staff and habitues. In the summer of 1975, Matt is busy with assorted favors. Tommie Tillary, an investment salesman in flashy clothes, whose wife has been murdered in Bay Ridge, needs to be cleared of suspicion. The real booksas opposed to those shown to the IRSstolen from Skip Devoe's bar must be ransomed, and the masked gunmen who robbed the Morrisey brothers' after-hours place have to be identified. Drinking steadily all summer, Scudder accomplishes all of the above, his intuition, doggedness and respect for a higher law sputtering through the alcoholic haze. Block is an accomplished storyteller, and Matt Scudder is a fine example of hero as human being. Mystery Guild selection.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Ambitious and intense...A compelling and memorable novel." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Chilling" -- Washington Post --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

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The windows at Morrissey's were painted black. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Matthew Scudder prequel, Jan 8 2003

By

Sunanda Dutta "kolikata" (Hoboken, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: When The Sacred Ginmill Closes (Mass Market Paperback)

In this book, Matthew Scudder reminisces about a period in the early seventies, when he was an alcoholic and helped out some of his drinking buddies. The narative is taut, the language is excellent and the scenarios are entirely plausible. This is perhaps one of Scudder's best books, although it is somewhat underrated. This book does not have the anticlimactic ending like in the later Scudder novels, and leaves the reader refreshed. I simply could not get up before finishing the book.

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1.0 out of 5 stars What story?, Sep 20 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: When The Sacred Ginmill Closes (Mass Market Paperback)

I think there was a possiblity of a great plot in there somewhere with some great characters but it read more like an authors notes than a book. If you think show not tell is over rated in writing then this is a book you'll love. It is a flash back of a drunk telling you what he remembers which "ain't" much.

The characters are only seen thru the eyes of the speaker who does a lousy job of telling you what they are like. The speaker, Matt Scrudder, does nothing to involve us in his life or plight. Anger, love, hate, are all missing from the feelings he evokes. Sheer boredom is not. "Well you see I tied one on all year and to the best of my memory here is what I remember before the brain damage." Whoop time to go get the coffee while this speaker talks.

Matt Scrudder comes across as a joke. James Lee Burke carrys it off and involves us with Dave. Kellerman has us hoping Milo stays straight. Block does not with Scudder.

There are several plots going on at the same time none of which tie into each other or at least tie in well except in his recall of the summer of 75. It should have stayed there. Let me know when he's done speaking. I'll come back with my coffee.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Leaden, Jun 26 2003

By

snalen "snalen" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When The Sacred Ginmill Closes (Mass Market Paperback)

I was none too taken with the first in the Matthew Scudder series "The Sins of the Fathers". But then I picked this one up at an airport, thinking I'd try something from a bit later before giving up. I'm afraid I think I'll give up now.

The book is mildly engaging. But Block cannot really write at all well. He can't do character; he can't do dialogue and he can't do narrative rhythm. Of course that doesn't leave much.

Take character: his characters are generally given idiosyncratic habits, such as Scudder's of giving a portion of his earning to the church or his friend Skip's of stubbing out cigarette in drinks while at the same instant voicing facetious disapproval of so doing. This seems to be a clumsy efort to make these people distinctive but it doesn't work at all. They are intersubstitutable ciphers whose arbitrary and inadequately motivated idiosyncracies do not stop them from remaining dead on the page.

Thematically, this is a book about drunks, about people most of whose waking hours are spent sitting in bars sustained by whisky. But his characters don't really convince as drunks - they don't talk like drunks and they don't think like drunks - and the atmosphere of delinquent oblivion Block seeks to create is strikingly absent, perhaps, inter alia, because his prose is so lacking in in any kind of sensual conviction.

Suspense too is never delivered. Indeed the rather dull chapter 16, which tells the tale of the delivery of a payoff to recover some stolen account books could provide a textbook case of writing that is clearly intended to be gripping and full of suspense and isn't even faintly anything of the kind.

I'd been told Block was one of the very best American crime writers. If the sample I have read is at all representative, I hope that is wrong. If it's right, American crime writing is in some trouble.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Scudder as you've never seen him...
Still an alcoholic. Still a dark, cynical, unlicensed P.I. Still has a twisted, dry sense of humor. But this book is different. Read more

Published on Mar 23 2003 by mfx3

5.0 out of 5 stars Falling Uphill
I was introduced to Lawrence Block's tales of Matthew Scudder relatively recently, but I believe I have made up for lost time. Read more

Published on Aug 19 2001 by Marc Ruby™