Sun 11 Jan 2015
Reviewed by Mark D. Nevins: LAWRENCE BLOCK – Out on the Cutting Edge.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
LAWRENCE BLOCK – Out on the Cutting Edge. Morrow, hardcover, 1989. Avon, paperback, 1990.
Apparently, after the flashback story for the sixth book in this series (When the Sacred Ginmill Closes), Block is finally ready to bring his now-sober sort-of-PI Matthew Scudder back into the present day with #7.
Out on the Cutting Edge feels at times a little tentative — as if Block is still working out what to do with a protagonist who spends his free time at AA meetings and not passing out after blurry nights of drinking Bourbon. The mystery here is a perfectly capable one: a young aspiring actress from the Midwest goes missing in the big city, and her father hires Scudder to get to the bottom of it.
But what remained in my mind long after the book was finished was not the crime and detection, but rather the wonderfully drawn characters and Scudder’s internal musings and travails. Maybe that’s what Block is most interested in writing about after all.
Mick Ballou, son of an Irish butcher, plays a big and robust role in Cutting Edge, and even though his resume might raise some eyebrows he seems to be a good friend for Scudder, and I have to think we’ll be seeing more of him in future installments — he’s too good a character not to bring back.
January 11th, 2015 at 4:56 pm
This was about the time I parted ways with the Scudder saga. Like Parker and Spenser Block was outpacing me producing more books than I could read and keep up with anyone else, and while Block is always great to read the plots were beginning to blur as much as one of Scudder’s alcoholic fogs.
There is a point in some series where it feels like all you are doing is getting together with old friends and the rest has receded into the background.
Also, maybe one too many turned on Block’s love of word play. After the one with “Here’s Johnny” and the killer named “Carson” and not Johnny that tendency wore a little thin. I stuck with Bernie and Keller, but I felt as if I stayed with Scudder I was going to end up with cirrhosis of the liver.
I’m still a huge fan of Block’s, but Scudder like Spenser just went a book too far for me.
January 11th, 2015 at 6:43 pm
I’m very much the same way in regard to the Matt Scudder novels. The first three came out in 1976-77 as paperback originals from Dell, and I devoured them immediately as soon as I bought them.
Then there was a four year gap, when the fourth one came out in hardcover, and I’d gone on to other things. I bought that one when it came out in paperback and all the ones that followed, but it’s been hit or miss whether I’ve ever gotten around to read them or now.
This is probably my fault, not Block’s, but I think after first three that came out, one right after the other, something was missing, that I’d moved on but Scudder hadn’t.
An easier answer is that once other authors and characters had attracted me away, it was difficult to go back. I ought to start reading Scudder again, and in order, but whether there’s time to do that or not, I have to wonder.
January 11th, 2015 at 7:30 pm
With no affront to Block’s talent or the Scudder books it was a case of the “law of diminishing returns’ for me. I wasn’t getting what I read them for in the first place out of them.
I don’t think I would go back. There are plenty of Block’s I will happily reread, but I think Scudder and I should part on an amicable basis. You really can’t go home again some times.