A Ticket To The Boneyard: A Matthew Scudder Crime Novel

Now I am hooked, and will read the entire series.

Scudder is an ex-NYPD cop...a flawed, complex, likeable, pragmatic character. Now an unlicensed PI, he investigates for his friends.

The plot in "Boneyard" roars along from page one with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing all the way. Not predictable. The villain is one of the most realistic, despicable and depraved I have run across.

Great hard-edged writing that leaps off the pages.

I am making Lawrence Block a priority.

A Ticket to the Boneyard
In A Ticket to the Boneyard Matthew Scudder is a former New York detective who left because he had a drinking problem. He is involved with a hooker called Elaine. They get into some trouble because of a man Elaine was involved with, James Leo Motley. Parts of the book explain the problems and results in drinking. It also describes the difficulty the main character, Matt, deals with the problem of drinking. Motley was not a normal customer of Elaine; he was new but caused trouble. The story starts out telling the life story about Matt and how he got involved with the hooker, Elaine and the man she was in trouble with. Then it goes to tell how Motley was put in jail, but before he can go he vows to revenge the man who puts him in jail. Motley was in for a number of years and yet he still remembers his vow. His vengeance toward the man who put him into jail encourages him to harm innocent people. The whole book is talks about how Matt and Elaine are scared of Motley and searching for him. Most of the time Matt is plays detective to find Motley and to protect Elaine from any danger from Motley. Although Matt is not a detective anymore he uses some of the skills he acquired and he goes searching around the city of New York for Motley after he got out of jail.
This book was written quite well and people. Although the descriptions of some people and some details do not help as much as other descriptions; the book does paint a good picture of the deaths. The details of how people were killed gave a nice description of how everything came together and how each event occurred in order. Like the saying "Never judge a book by its covers." It is part of what this book is like. The cover changes every once in a while yet it helps depicts what kind of story this is. When I first saw the cover of the book, I thought the book was going to be about a murderer and its victims. But when I finished reading the book it was not close to how the cover depicted the book to be like. I enjoyed his book very much. Some times it put me at the edge of my seat reading faster to find out what was going to occur next. Although there were not many exciting parts it was deep in learning one kind of problems a former detective. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy a nice murder story before they go to bed. Sometime there are scary parts, which you want to put down the book but it is so interesting that you rather finish the book.

Wrong Boneyard
I read all eight sample pages of this book and was captivated immediately by the author's use of adjectives. Well done Mr. Block. Well done.

Tom Emery
the-boneyard.com