A Dance at the Slaughterhouse [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Lawrence Block (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2000

A successful socialite's beautiful wife was raped and murdered in her own home -- and Matt Scudder believes the victim's "grieving" husband was responsible for the outrage. But to prove it, the haunted p.i. must descend into the depths of New York's sex-for-sale underworld, where young lives are commodities to be bought, perverted...and destroyed.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Matt Scudder, the recovering alcoholic private eye from The Devil Knows You're Dead and A Ticket to the Boneyard, embarks on another descent into the nightmarish quarters of New York, this time to investigate the sex-for-sale industry. Hired by the brother of an heiress to investigate her rape and murder, Scudder tails her husband to a boxing match and notices another man whom he saw on video a few months earlier on a different case involving a snuff film. As Scudder calls on old friends for assistance and tours New York's dark physical and social landscapes, Block masterfully builds the pressure that leads Scudder to the violent resolution in this winner of the 1992 Edgar Award for best mystery novel. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 468 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (December 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786229837
• ISBN-13: 978-0786229833
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,495,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lawrence Block (b. 1938) is the recipient of a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and an internationally renowned bestselling author. His prolific career spans over one hundred books, including four bestselling series as well as dozens of short stories, articles, and books on writing. He has won four Edgar and Shamus Awards, two Falcon Awards from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, the Nero and Philip Marlowe Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom. In France, he has been awarded the title Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice received the Societe 813 trophy.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Block attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Leaving school before graduation, he moved to New York City, a locale that features prominently in most of his works. His earliest published writing appeared in the 1950s, frequently under pseudonyms, and many of these novels are now considered classics of the pulp fiction genre. During his early writing years, Block also worked in the mailroom of a publishing house and reviewed the submission slush pile for a literary agency. He has cited the latter experience as a valuable lesson for a beginning writer.

Block's first short story, "You Can't Lose," was published in 1957 in Manhunt, the first of dozens of short stories and articles that he would publish over the years in publications including American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and the New York Times. His short fiction has been featured and reprinted in over eleven collections including Enough Rope (2002), which is comprised of eighty-four of his short stories.

In 1966, Block introduced the insomniac protagonist Evan Tanner in the novel The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep. Block's diverse heroes also include the urbane and witty bookseller--and thief-on-the-side--Bernie Rhodenbarr; the gritty recovering alcoholic and private investigator Matthew Scudder; and Chip Harrison, the comical assistant to a private investigator with a Nero Wolfe fixation who appears in No Score, Chip Harrison Scores Again, Make Out with Murder, and The Topless Tulip Caper. Block has also written several short stories and novels featuring Keller, a professional hit man. Block's work is praised for his richly imagined and varied characters and frequent use of humor.

A father of three daughters, Block lives in New York City with his second wife, Lynne. When he isn't touring or attending mystery conventions, he and Lynne are frequent travelers, as members of the Travelers' Century Club for nearly a decade now, and have visited about 150 countries.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense! Perhaps not for everyone., February 26, 2000

By 

shuvalkin - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dance at the Slaughterhouse (Matthew Scudder Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

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).

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Block's Matthew Scudder is one of the best, August 20, 2001

By 

Joseph A. Hines - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dance at the Slaughterhouse (Matthew Scudder Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All the best Block/Scudder qualities are here, September 8, 2000

By 

Michael Wendt (Vernon Hills, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dance at the Slaughterhouse (Matthew Scudder Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.