Synopsis
Private investigator Matthew Scudder searches for the missing link between two horrific crimes--the rape-murder of wealthy Amanda Thurman and a snuff film involving a young homeless boy
Reviews
In this pitch-perfect crime story, now-sober Manhattan PI Matt Scudder--seen last in A Ticket to the Boneyard --embarks on a personal mission as he investigates the death of the wife of TV producer Richard Thurman. Amanda Thurman was sexually assaulted and murdered during a robbery in which her husband was injured. Hired by Amanda's brother, who suspects his brother-in-law of complicity in the murder, Scudder tails the producer to a boxing match where he notices another man whom he believes he saw on tape a few months earlier on a different case involving a snuff film. Although he finally connects Thurman with the masked players in the film (a chilling husband and wife who quote Nietzsche with "New Age gloss"), Scudder can't provide enough evidence for prosecuting either the taped killing or Amanda's murder. Sticking with the case, Scudder explores New York's sex-for-sale industry, calls on such old drinking friends as cop Joe Durkin and criminal Mick Ballou, and attends AA meetings at all hours of the day, all over the city as Block masterfully builds the pressure that leads Scudder to the violent resolution. In his eight earlier appearances, Scudder has been a copy, an unrelenting drinker, a family man; his evolution in Block's series, fraught with ambiguity, is as convincing as a real life. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A wrenching and lurid Matt Scudder outing that pits the unlicensed p.i. against child-killing slime and climaxes in vigilante violence. Perhaps the plot externals are so fierce here because Scudder's internal demons have mellowed: He seems to have won his battle with the bottle, and his loneliness has been banished by love for call-girl Elaine and by friendship with Irish gangster Mick Ballou. The only enemy left is the evil of others--which is waged war upon in two related cases here. In the first, Scudder is hired by a dying man (AIDS) to determine whether, as both he and the cops suspect, the robbery/rape/murder of the man's sister was really a setup by her greedy husband, cable-TV magnate Richard Thurman, to cash in on her life insurance. In the second, Scudder is asked by an A.A. colleague to watch a rented video of The Dirty Dozen; hidden on the tape is a snuff film in which a costumed man and woman torture, then kill, a teenage boy. In one of several coincidences that gear the plot (and which Block doesn't try to hide), Scudder, trailing Thurman, recognizes the man from the film- -Bruno Stettner, who, with seductive wife Olga, had mesmerized Thurman into joining their sadistic sex games and killing Mrs. Thurman for profit. This Scudder learns by winning Thurman's confidence during several chats (which, added to his long talks with Ballou, Elaine, and a cop-pal, give the narrative a lazy, even slack, feel); but although Thurman's confession solves that case- -and leads to his murder by the Stettners--it takes Scudder and Ballou's vengeance by cleaver and gun, in a grand guignol finale, to close out the second. Written with great heart and care, but even less of a mystery and more of a melodrama than A Ticket to the Boneyard (1990), and smacking a bit too much of Andrew Vachss (the child-abuse vigilantism), as if Scudder/Block were treading water, albeit it dark and deep. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Unlicensed New York investigator and series protagonist Matthew Scudder seeks to determine if a cable television producer raped and murdered his own wealthy wife. At the same time, Scudder hunts for a brutal man who makes video "snuff" tapes involving teenage boys and a leather-dressed woman. The two cases merge, of course, as Scudder enlists the aid of his motley assortment of interesting friends. This strong cast of supporting characters, along with a riveting plot and forceful prose, place this on the high priority list. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/91.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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