A Long Line of Dead Men

Matthew Scudder investigates a secret, private club in Manhattan whose members suddenly start dying, when it becomes obvious that someone is trying to kill them all. 100,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. Tour.

The newest Matt Scudder novel by the blessedly prolific Block is right up to his usual standards. It takes a while to set up the situation (someone in an exclusive male dinner club that meets once a year is killing off the members at an alarming rate), but once it's established, Matt gets his man by his usual patient attention to detail and sheer doggedness. He almost misses him, however (giving rise to a matchless last line), and the punishment meted out to the villain is a highly unusual variant on the kind Scudder thinks up when the law, as sometimes happens, is helpless to act. His ex-call girl companion, Elaine, is her usual comforting self, and there's a brilliant portrait of an offbeat New York lawyer, obviously modeled on William Kunstler, who specializes in representing the underdog. The scene where the lawyer and suspicious ex-cop Scudder get to know and like each other is alone worth the price of the book. Those who become impatient with Scudder's determined pursuit of AA meetings--and it's possible to do so--should note his publisher's assertion that he now has a strong following not only among mystery buffs but also in "the recovery community."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Take a group of 31 men in their 20s. How many of them would you expect to die over the next 30 years? Lewis Hildebrand, one of the 1961 matriculants to the generations-old Club of 31 (rumored earlier members: Newton, Mozart, Franklin) whose sole purpose is to meet once a year to memorialize their dead and wait until their last surviving member can appoint 30 new fellows, thinks that 17 fatalities is entirely too many. So he hires unlicensed PI Matthew Scudder to determine whether and why somebody may be eliminating every member of the club. There's no obvious motive--no residual legacy, nothing the victims all had in common--and no obvious starting point for Scudder's investigations. But his patient legwork soon convinces him that several accidents, suicides, and murders blamed on other suspects are the work of a single dedicated individual who strikes again the day after 9 of the 14 surviving members meet. Working in a vein of contemplative tranquillity poles apart from his earlier savagery, Scudder manages to identify the killer and mete out condign punishment. Unfortunately, the autumnal acceptance of mortality Scudder's been moving toward in his recent outings (The Devil Knows You're Dead, 1993, etc.) works against both mystery and suspense this time, though Scudder's many fans won't want to miss his ritual Nunc Dimittis. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In Block's first novel since he was named the Mystery Writers of America's 1994 Grand Master, detective Matthew Scudder investigates murder at a private men's club.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lawrence Block is having a career year. His Bernie Rhodenbarr series returned to wide acclaim after a 10-year hiatus (The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams ), he was named the 1994 Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, and now the thirteenth entry in his long-running and much-loved Matthew Scudder series has arrived. Fans will be pleased to know it's one of the most entertaining of the lot. Scudder is summoned to investigate the curious run of deaths that seem to be afflicting the members of a private club. Not just any private club, mind you, but one whose raison d'{ˆ}etre, in a sense, is death. Thirty men gather once a year to celebrate, well . . . not having died yet. When they do die, eventually, the last survivor appoints 30 new members to keep the flame burning. The current batch, though, are dropping at an abnormally fast pace. Enter Scudder. Block takes this absolutely wonderful premise and makes the most of it. Like all the best hard-boiled writers in the post-Chandler era, Block knows that character and ambience are the heart and soul of crime fiction, but unlike so many of his brethren, he also maintains a healthy respect for plot. When you read a lot of mysteries, you come to feel a numbing inevitability about literary murder: there are only so many motives and so many ways to kill somebody, and we've seen them all. Hence the pleasure of encountering a new Block novel and realizing again the joys of a fresh premise. Perhaps that's a topic for discussion at the next meeting of the Not Dead Yet Club. Bill Ott