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A Walk Among the Tombstones |
Author: Lawrence Block
Published: 1993-11-01 |
List price: $7.99
Our price: $7.99
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As of: January 08th, 2009 08:27:28 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Tombstones is gruesome, even for Block
I am a huge fan of Block and love his Matthew Scudder series, and I do think his books just keep getting better. But I have to say I almost wish I hadn't read this one. The details of the crimes commited by the serial killer psychos are the most gruesome I've ever encountered, and he goes over and over them. I realize he's trying to create really scary bad guys, but for me, this was over the top. Anybody out there who has trouble with explicit descriptions of torture should skip this one.
 Another Winner
If there is a better living crime novelist than Lawrence Block, I'd like to know who it is. I have yet to read a Scudder story that did not have me riveted! Having only recently discovered this series, every time I read another one it is deemed my new "favorite."
So, until I finish "Time to Murder and Create", which is excellent so far, "A Walk Among the Tombstones" is my favorite to date - vicious killers, flawed protagonists, interesting secondary characters and lots of action - what more could you want? I am a big fan of the Lawrence Sanders Commandment and Deadly Sin series so now that he is gone, I am glad that there are so many Scudder books yet to be read and savored. By the way, I have not read these books in any kind of order and it makes absolutely no difference!
 A good Scudder, but not a classic
A very gritty and black entry into the series of the former alkie but still unlicensed private eye. In this book, Scudder is hired by a drug dealer to find the sadistic spree killers who kidnapped and butchered his wife. With the help of his street connections, Scudder decides to mete out some more of the rough justice that is becoming his trademark. But lest he become a remorseless killing machine, Block allows Scudder to begin to craft some domestic bliss at the end of this saga. It's a fine read, because Block is always entertaining. A few points distract from the story. One is unfortunate timing; the book is dated, with its labyrinthine plot to get ahold of a phone number that today could be obtained by the police without a second thought, and most civilians who have the technology. Block uses a pair of teenage hackers as the tools for this caper, and it seems like Block's stretching, trying to get into the big "thing" of the early '90s. Clearly Block's not on familiar ground, plot- or dialogue-wise. He should stick to cynical thugs and world-weary cops. The other point is that this book has a lot of black humor of the particularly morbid variety. The Scudder that I'm familiar with wouldn't have made a joke about a woman getting her breast cut off (in A Dance At the Slaughterhouse, his reaction to torture was appropriately grim). Maybe now that Scudder's found love, he's light hearted enough tocrack about torture and mutiliation, but I'm not sure I like it.
Good story, boring book.
This is the first, and only, book I've read by Lawrence Block. I picked it up for a N.Y.-to-L.A. flight. After the reviews here and on the book, I thought it would at the very least be a harmless read that zipped along, but I was disappointed to find out it's a deadly slow and dull affair. Block writes the oddest, most stilted dialogue I've ever read. This novel has no drive whatsoever to it. The cover review speaks of "suspense" that "never lets up." Could have fooled me. (There IS no suspense.) The plot, which is good, is an afterthought. The book is really about AA and dealing with being a former drunk or an addict. This plot about kidnappers/rapists who are snatching up the loved ones of drug dealers is hardly dealt with. Scudder is a lumbering dope who shuffles about without doing much work. For the most part two hackers and a young black kid (who talks like an old white man trying to write slang) do all the work. This business in the book, about getting a number that called a particular phone, seems downright silly today, with Caller ID on every home phone.Block's prose style is that curt, brisk variety you see in a lot of detective books, and while I enjoy it when it's done right, here it comes off as lazy and half-assed. Like he couldn't be bothered. You'll find yourself skipping through the pale talk about alcoholics and God. Not because they aren't subjects for discussion, but because Block cannot craft even one realistic line of dialogue. I would have enjoyed a more detailed look about what is an intriguing idea -- kidnapping from those that can't go to the cops -- but this is clearly a case where an author had an idea and nothing after that.
a headlong ride with no letup
This was the first Scudder novel I tried,and I have since read all of them.The novel is one of the best.In one short passage where Block mentions a body being dumped in Mount Zion cemetery in Queens,he evokes a very sharp ,realistic image-you have to be there on a gray drizzly Sunday afternoon to know just how desolate a place in the city can be.A perfect place to dump a body.Block has a great sense of place as well as a very strong grasp of the details of how crime and the investigation of it play out in the real world.Block portrays evil in a way that makes you realize there is nothing theatrical or entertaining about it.These attributes form the reinforcing rods on which Block pours the concrete to achieve the finished story.Some of his novels are better than others,but none are poorly written.Even the one I liked least was saved by a single scene which was basically the outpourings of a hoodlum's feelings about his brother's death in Vietnam.It was far more powerful than my synopsis makes it sound and it made the book worth reading.
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