Customer comments on this selection.
 Scudder and a snuff flick
My problem is, after reading When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes, all other Matthew Scudder novels, pale in comparison. This is a good novel, but not great. I have read about 5 of his books now and this is a good read. An insight into his relationship with his father. I am not big on endings with a hail of gunfire, but it was done better than most.
 Very good novel based on the element of pornography
The cable television producer may have orchestrated the rape and death of his wife, so the dead woman's brother hires Scudder to prove him guilty. A snuff film death holds a major clue that will connect both murders and help Scudder and his girlfriend Elaine solve the cast.
Good read....
 Slaughterhouse dances were never so much fun
Having only previously read Block's HIT MAN compilation of short stories, I was curious to dive into A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE and see how Block handled his chief series character, Matthew Scudder, in the sleuthing of an actual mystery, as opposed to a hit man globetrotting for his next assignment.
The result? A character-driven mystery that held me in its grip the entire time.
Block tends to write in ways that don't immediately appeal to me: He incorporates sparse visual detail, doesn't start the novel with a fast and furious hook right out of the gate, and moves much more languidly through the story, as if all the events of the novel take place on a lazy Sunday. And yet, despite all this, SLAUGHTERHOUSE had me hooked. I couldn't wait to get to the end and find out whodunit. Block focuses so much on the characters in his stories that you can't help but become interested and invested in them, following them through anything and everything to the end. Because of this, all the characters in SLAUGHTERHOUSE are intriguing and memorable, from Scudder and his girlfriend to the kid who drives the getaway car at the end. And the story is dynamic, too: Block sets up two seemingly independent storylines and fuses them together by the book's climax in a way that proves he truly is one of the all-time greats of the genre.
My only exceptions to this book concern one long, irrelevant passage in the middle that stretches for more than 20 pages, as well as the tendency of the secondary characters to simply blurt out everything Scudder needs to know. Very few people in this book pose a problem to Matt Scudder's info-gathering, which seems unrealistic given that he's an unlicensed Private Investigator in New York City, of all places. But nevertheless, A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE is Lawrence Block at the top of the fiction mountain. Read it for a great glimpse into one of the man's best works and one of the genre's best writers.
Matthew Scudder reviewed
Block's series featuring Mathew Scudder is ably carried on in "A Dance at the Slaughterhouse".
Best noir writer working today!
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?
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