Customer Reviews

Dance at the Slaughterhouse (Matthew Scudder Mysteries)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a big fan of Lawrence Block. I am a bit of an academic snob (i admit it), and i never used to go near mysteries. My grandparents gave me The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (i work on Spinoza), and i have been hooked on mysteries (Lawrence Block in particular--and the Scudder books especially) ever since.

I believe that Dance at the Slaughterhouse is the most powerful and interesting of all of Block's work (with perhaps the exception of a few of the short stories). However, i should add that Dance is certainly not a book to everyone's tastes. It's quite intense.

One aspect of Block's career that i appreciate is the diversity of his talents. The Burglar mysteries and the Tanner mysteries in particular are entertaining in the extreme. The Burglar books fascinate me because of their literary references; the Tanner books because of their political insights. But the Scudder books fascinate me because of their insights about the character of human beings. Consequently, they are often a bit more emotinoally taxing on the reader.

In Dance, Block plumbs the depths to get at some of the complicated relationships between human desire and drives towards violence toward the self as well as against others (and, not incidentally, also to get at the complicated structure that involves the tensions between love and violence as contrary expressions of desire). There's a hard-edge to this work as a consequence.

So while i highly recommend this book, i do so with the qualification that some of Block's other works might be more suitable to some readers (and even most of the other Scudder mysteries are less challenging).

I started reading Lawrence Block a few years ago and I have grown to really appreciate his Matthew Scudder books. Block can write extremely readable prose, he can create believable (and interesting) characters, and he can tell a story. "A Dance at the Slaughterhouse" is the perfect example of this. This is a great book that captures the reader early an doesn't turn him loose until the end. Elaine, T.J., and Mick are wonderful supporting characters for Matthew Scudder, who is dogged yet resourceful in his starring role. Scudder is flawed but still highly skilled as a detective and the reader becomes attached to this character very quickly. If you haven't put Scudder/Block on your "must read" list, do so immediately.

Among Block's fifteen or so Scudder novels, and about sixty books overall, many are not worth reading, but some stack up quite well against the top output of other mystery novelists. Here, the plotting is relatively complicated, with Block using to good effect the common trick of having two separate cases come together. Scudder's history and present life situation are as usual made integral to the story, and many of the peripheral characters get time in the spotlight, with TJ, who's a lot of fun, being introduced here. Hell's Kitchen is vividly brought to life here, and the story is dark enough to - almost - invite comparison to Andrew Vachss. Sometimes the Scudder novels are mostly about his journey through life, sometimes they tend to degenerate into a series of conversations, sometimes the plots are simple, linear, and seemingly designed to give Block enough reason to crank out another book. This one is very solid. Along with Boneyard and Tombstones, this amonts to something of a renaissance for the series.

I'd never heard of Lawrence Block until I read one of his short stories, "The Merciful Angel of Death" in THE NEW MYSTERY anthology, edited by Jerome Charyn. I liked the story so much that I was thrilled to find he also wrote novels, which led to A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE and Matt Scudder. Since then I've read all of the Scudder mysteries and buy the newest one as soon as I hear about it.

So what's so good about Scudder? He's a great character for one thing. He's a recovering alcoholic, a detective without a license, a former cop who left his wife and kids. And he's got some of the seediest friends you'll ever meet. An albino pimp. Mick Ballou, a bar owner who kills people. A high-classed prostitute girlfriend. Then there's T.J., his street-smart partner with a facility for computers.

Scudder walks or takes the subway wherever he goes. He putters around, drinking coffee, going to AA meetings, donating money to the church (any church) when he gets paid for a case. He never seems to make any progress, but his perambulations give us a chance to see New York. Then he finds a tiny thread here, another there, and before we know he's cooking with gas.

In A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE Scudder takes on the Amanda Thurman murder case. After attending a small dinner party on Central Park West, Richard and Amanda Thurman return to their brownstone on West Fifty-second Street, only to be confronted by burglars who draw guns and herd them into their apartment. They steal his watch, wallet, and Amanda's jewelry, beat Richard, tie him up and tape his mouth; then they rape his wife in front of him. Richard manages to knock the phone off the table, free the tape from his mouth, and call 911. But his wife is dead. The dead woman's brother doesn't believe Richard's story and he hires Scudder to prove Thurman murdered his sister. Scudder's investigation takes us on a journey through New York's "snuff" film, sex-for-sale underworld.

Lawrence Block learned his craft writing for the pulp magazines, and you sure can tell. Who else can make a reformed alcoholic, and wife deserter into a likable character?

Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder series is one of the absolute best P.I. Fiction series out there. He is one of the few that can be compared with the great Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe. And "Dance at the Slaughterhouse" is one of the best and is certainly the most grusome entry in the entire series. Death has always been a preoccupation in the Scudder novels. In New York City, death seems to be Scudder's constant companion as he struggles to remain alcohol free and to keep his life on track. Here he begin two seemingly unconnected cases and follows their meandering leads until they start to connect in some brutally ugly ways. Scudder has come into possession of a genuine snuff film, and he can't get it out of his mind. Ultimately, he encounters a world of sex deviants and children who sell their bodies. Along the way, recurring characters such as gangster Mickey Ballou, call girl Elaine and ex-pimp Chance provide plenty of color.

Block's Scudder series is almost unique among P.I. fiction in that it is able to maintain its edge even as its hero goes through significant life changes. His continuing battle with the bottle provides an added tension that stays in the background like a predator ready to pounce. Overall, this is one of the best Scudder novels and a must read for P.I. fiction fans.

Matthew Scudder is Lawrence Block's remarkable private investigator. He's a former NYPD detective who left the force after an accident left a child dead in a crossfire. Because he is unlicensed you can't "hire" him. Instead he does you a favor by taking your case and solving the crime. In exchange for the favor the client returns the favor by giving him some cash. Scudder is an alcoholic. In past novels Scudeer it was rare to find him without a drink in has hand or at one of has favorite watering holes. Now, at one point in his life, Scudder has given up the coffee laced with booze for coffee or a Coke and attending AA meetings. I generally prefer to read series books in sequence to follow character development. I read "A Dance at the Slaughterhouse" out of sequence. In "A Dance at the Slaughterhouse", Scudder becomes involved with solving the murder of a beautiful woman. Her husband stands to inherit almost a million dollars. The women's brother hires Scudder because he suspects the husbands. Scudder takes on the assignment and comes across a porno snuff film involving a young man. The case is chilling and Scudder and his girl friend must find how the two crimes are connected.

This is probably one of Block's finest novels, where he has polished
the rough edges of some of his previous work. The subject matter
(snuff films) is nonetheless incredibly apalling, and Block treats it with
realism, respect, and decency. Block is a genius.

If you're a hard-boiled mystery buff, you can't go wrong by picking up any of the Scudder series by Lawrence Block. This book finds Matt Scudder still sober and attending AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). In his spare time he's trying to prove that an accident was actually a murder. While he's not doing that, he's looking for a couple that made a child-porn snuff film.

I highly recommend this book for all hard-boiled mystery fans.

The opening chapter of this eighth outing for ex-New York cop Matthew Scudder, set at a third-tier boxing match in the back end of Queens, offers a fine display of Block's narrative skills. He introduces the characters, provides some dialogue that just sounds absolutely right, and clues the reader in to certain parts of Scudder's personal life. And then, just as you're settling in with this backgrounding, the chapter's closing paragraph really gets your attention and sets up the whole rest of the story. That's Block all over.

There was a horrific torture-murder of a young wife in a nearby apartment building while her helplessly bound husband watched and afterwards was himself beaten unconscious. But the woman's brother in Boston doesn't buy it. He thinks the husband either killed his wife or set it all up, and he wants Scudder to find the proof. Matt isn't having much luck, even though he has become convinced himself of the husband's guilt. And then an entirely different problem pops up involving a snuff film discovered at a video rental shop, and Matt finds himself pulled into trying to uncover the circumstances of its filming on his own time. And then various figures in his two investigations begin to die, violently. It's a complex plot involving some very unsettling characters but Block carefully keeps it all straight. There are also a number of coincidences that might damage the story's believability -- but Matt himself notes them, and thinks about them, and comes close to attributing them to The Great Perhaps (to quote Rabelais). Anyway, though the question is unanswered, it's very nicely handled.

Perhaps the best writing in the entire book is the latter two-thirds of Chapter 13, and it doesn't even have much to do with the plot -- or only peripherally. It's getting late and Scudder drops by to visit with his Irish buddy, Mick Ballou, and they sit up all night drinking (Matt sticks to coffee) and swapping war stories and exchanging wide-ranging philosophical observations. The thing is, Mick (who also accompanied Matt to the boxing match in the first chapter) is a bar-owner but he makes most of his money through his criminal activities -- many of them pretty violent. "I kill people," he tells Scudder. "I only do it out of need, but I lead a life that makes killing a requirement." And while the stories they share often are horrific, the way Block tells them is beautiful work.

There's one thing that bothers me, though, about the Matthew Scudder books, as well written as they are. In every one that I have read, if and when the scales are balanced at the end -- and that doesn't happen every time -- it's the vigilante version of justice that's meted out, and not the sort purveyed in the courts. I mean, this isn't "Law and Order." What's more, everyone Scudder knows, from the bartenders he hangs out with, to his old friends at the precinct, to his AA sponsor, to Elaine, his semi-girlfriend, seems to accept this outcome, if not always to actually approve it. Nor do the reviewers ever mention it. Everyone seems to regard it as the natural way of things. I'm sure all this gets knowing smirks and even cheers from the Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson fans, but that's really not the sort of country I prefer to live in. Is this really what we've come to?

This one of a collection of the Matthew Scudder series written by Lawrence Block and as with all his writings it is of a high standard. It is one of those books that you don't want to put down. Block writes a believable and honest story line that is easy to follow but with a few suble turns just to keep you guessing. Look forward to finishing the Matthew Scudder series.