Customer Reviews

Time to Murder and Create (Matthew Scudder)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

. 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. Rarely do you find him without a drink in has hand or at one of has favorite watering holes. "Time to Murder and Create" is the second in a series of at least a dozen books in the Matthew Scudder Series. A petty thief, Jake Jablon, known as "the Spinner" because he's always spinning a silver dollar, is found murdered. Someone crashed in his skull and then dumped him in The New York's East River. Matt Scudder was hired in advance by Jablon to find his killer if he is killed. He knew someone was after him because he was blackmailing three people. Jablon hands Scudder and envelope containing information on the three. Scudder hides the envelope in his hotel room with the instructions not to open it until Jablon is dead. When it becomes known that he was dead Scudder's work begins. He examins the contents of the envelops and begins to visit all three victims of Jablon's blackmailing efforts. Scudder himself is in danger. The book makes citing reading and is very difficult to put down. The book originally appeared in paperback that makes it difficult to find in my public library system. After being a success a hard cover version of the book was published with mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman, another one of my favorite authors writing an introduction.

This was one of the earlier Scudder books by Lawrence Block and I read it as one of my first. I was most impressed and recommend it highly. Some of his books are better - the older ones are better than the newer efforts. This is early Scudder with just the right amount of alcohol comments and a hard core mystery which will delight the usual Lawrence Block fans.

The second in this series of 14 mysteries, soon to be 15, finds our unlikely hero Matthew Scudder further along on his trek to alcoholism, mixed up in unsavory mahem, and trying to get by day to day. It's an interesting case: A blackmailer posthumously hires Matt to determine which of his three pidgeons killed him. So the quasi-detective sets himself up as the blackmailer's replacement to entice the murderer to strike at him so he can solve the case. Matthew, because his mind is becoming benumbed by booze or maybe he just isn't a very good detective, bumbles this case every step of the way, and comes to a less than satisfactory conclusion -- the type of ending only Block has the nerve to create. It's book noir at a higher level. The dialogue is terrific and true, the settings in Manhattan are recorded with exactness, it's a fine tale that kept me reading well into the night. One aspect I especially appreciated, Block didn't seem to feel he needed gratuitous foul language in this second in the series as he did in the first. The book is a great example of why the series is so popular.

A small-time hood and grass who was an acquaintance of Matt Scudder's during his days as a cop comes calling when he fears for his life. The man, known as `The Spinner' was stringing along 3 different blackmail victims, but became aware that one of them was trying to kill him. Unfortunately, he doesn't know which one. He wants Scudder to hold onto a package for him that is to be opened in the event of his death, which is all too inevitable.

Naturally enough, Scudder accepts and then honours his agreement to find out who the murderer is. In order to flush out The Spinner's murderer, Matt decides to confront each of the people being blackmailed with the news that they're still not off the hook in the hope that one of them will blink. The obvious downside to this plan is that he would be making himself a target which, if you forget about the subsequent 13 Matt Scudder books for a moment, makes for some very tense and exciting reading.

This is quite a fast-paced mystery that gives us multiple suspects to choose from with the wrong choice possibly proving fatal. Scudder is still an introspective soul who seems to view the world and his place in it with bemusement. Lawrence Block doesn't waste a word in his narrative which serves to move things along nicely.

It's another compelling entry in a series that I think fans of hardboiled crime books would love.

"Time to Murder and Create" is the second novel in the Matthew Scudder series. Like many of the earlier Scudder tales, it is relatively short and not a greatly complex story. The plotline is clever; an extortionist gets a premonition of his own murder and hires Scudder in advance to investigate if anything happens to him. The story is well told, and this still being Scudder's drinking period, it is full of plenty of despair and loneliness. One major flaw exists however. One of the people the extortionist is blackmailing is politically connected figure who has sex with underage boys. Scudder's lack of outrage at the man's activity leads to a less than approriate conclusion of the story. If this had been Andrew Vachss' Burke, the pedophile would have gotten his just desserts. Overall, this is a fairly conventional mystery by Block standards. But it does have its moments.

This is the third book in the first-rate series about unofficial private detective Matt Scudder and, like all the early stories, it's quite short, only 185 pages. It turns out to be just the right length, though, to tell the story in Scudder's blunt, unremitting voice. An old acquaintance of his, known as "Spinner" from his habit of spinning a silver dollar, is a small-time criminal who has happened onto a lucrative blackmailing scam. He has the goods on three separate victims, and has been putting the squeeze on them, but now he's worried that one of them is trying to have him killed. He wants Matt to hold the evidence on which the payoffs are based and, if Spinner turns up dead, to investigate and nail the one who did it. Sure enough, he's found floating in the East River and Matt undertakes the commission. He approaches the three victims -- a businessman whose daughter was guilty of a hit-and-run homicide, a society woman with a past that includes porn films and prostitution, and a wealthy politician and pedophile who wants to be governor of New York -- and pretends to be picking up where Spinner left off, trying to provoke one of them into going after him, too. And then people start to die and Scudder knows he's responsible, which pushes him to continue the case even when he thought it was over. On the other hand, he's also not greatly concerned with morality or with society's standards and expectations, so "justice" is really whatever he decides it is. But it's a straightforward plot developed in Block's bald narrative style and it works very well, with plenty of atmosphere regarding Matt's past with the police and his chronic drinking. And we learn a little more about why he quit being a cop, husband, and father.

Overall I enjoyed the book. As pointed out in another review with a slightly lower rating, Scudder demonstrates his apathy towards a morally depraved criminal but unlike the other reviewer, I don't see this as a flaw in the book, rather as a flaw in the protaganist. In fact, the subplot is Scudder attempting to define his moral code, and in a very well written manner, seemingly panicing that he may not really have one.

My only criticism is that I enjoy a bit quicker moving story. Personal preference is all, but why I didn't give it five stars.

If you like the darker suspense genre with great character development, this is a must read.

Lawrence Block is one of my favorite authors. I bought 3 of his paperbacks to send to my grandson to introduce him to this great writer.

This is a good Scudder murder mystery. Scudder searches for a blackmail victim who murdered his friend. Who can this be? Is it the pedophile who hopes to be the next governor of New York; the society lady with a history of hooking and starring in porno flicks; the architect who paid off a judge to get his daughter exonerated from adrunken hit and run accident that resulted in a child's death?

Naturally, the killer decides that suicide's next. Block and Scudder never let the reader down if a good hard-boiled mystery is your cup of tea.

Time to Murder and Create is another attention holding Matt Scudder mystery. I have read nearly all of them and do not look forward to the day I run out of new ones to read.