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A review by usbsticky
A Dance at the Slaughterhouse: A Matthew Scudder Crime Novel by Lawrence Block
4.0
I've been reading these in order and I assume that people reading this review started from book 1 so I won't explain the characters and the series. For those not familiar with the series, I suggest they start from book #1.
Spoilers ahead:
As usual Block does a pretty good job of segueing two story lines into one. In plot 1, a brother hires Scudder because he thinks that his brother in law (Thurman) staged a burglary gone bad in which his sister was raped and killed. He just wants the evidence that his BIL did it.
In plot 2, a fellow AA member discovers a snuff film taped over into the middle of a commercial VHS copy of the Dirty Dozen. Scudder decides to find the story behind it. By patient footwork, he discovers the man who owned the tape. He did this by investigating the rental store that the tape came from. He assumes that the man (since died) lived close by and was a renter. By looking through the records of people who stopped renting he finds the man. However it seems to be a dead end as the man was killed in a robbery.
By accident he is able to link Thurman and the culprit of the snuff film (Stettner) when he sees them at a boxing match together. By now Scudder has a lot of evidence that Thurman killed his wife and Stettner is the man in the snuff flim, but nothing concrete (or that can be explained away) that can be used to convict either one of them. In fact, Scudder's police friend (Durkin) is so bitter at the justice system that he gets upset and dead drunk while meeting Scudder at a dive.
At this point the series takes a turn (actually in the last book too). Is this series going to be a vigilante series? Because that's what's going to happen. Thurman is killed (probably by Stettner to keep his mouth shut) and Scudder sets up Stettner for a meet, ostensibly to trade the snuff tape for $50k but we know something else is in the works because he takes Ballou (a gangster he met a few books ago) and his crew along.
Stettner has set up Scudder too with 2 gunmen in an ambush but Ballou kills them both. And during the changeover, which has turned into a straight up robbery, Ballou kills Stettner and Scudder shoots his wife (who is an active participant in the films).
Afterwards Scudder meets up with Faber (his AA sponsor), tells him everything and explains his rationale (basically to the readers) of why he did it. We already know, since in the last book Scudder killed the villain because he didn't think the justice system would do justice.
The series: Block does a great job of making the characters real and the detective protocol footwork interesting. The characters are becoming a bit cliched though, everything from the street smart urchin, to the earnest detective or the high minded criminal. Sometimes the action is a bit slow when Block decides to write pages of philosophy or thought that doesn't move the plot along. Still, I'm vested in the characters. I like Scudder and I want to see him solve more crime and punish more villains. The plots have been quite unique and not cookie-cutter like many other authors. OK, on to the next book!
Spoilers ahead:
As usual Block does a pretty good job of segueing two story lines into one. In plot 1, a brother hires Scudder because he thinks that his brother in law (Thurman) staged a burglary gone bad in which his sister was raped and killed. He just wants the evidence that his BIL did it.
In plot 2, a fellow AA member discovers a snuff film taped over into the middle of a commercial VHS copy of the Dirty Dozen. Scudder decides to find the story behind it. By patient footwork, he discovers the man who owned the tape. He did this by investigating the rental store that the tape came from. He assumes that the man (since died) lived close by and was a renter. By looking through the records of people who stopped renting he finds the man. However it seems to be a dead end as the man was killed in a robbery.
By accident he is able to link Thurman and the culprit of the snuff film (Stettner) when he sees them at a boxing match together. By now Scudder has a lot of evidence that Thurman killed his wife and Stettner is the man in the snuff flim, but nothing concrete (or that can be explained away) that can be used to convict either one of them. In fact, Scudder's police friend (Durkin) is so bitter at the justice system that he gets upset and dead drunk while meeting Scudder at a dive.
At this point the series takes a turn (actually in the last book too). Is this series going to be a vigilante series? Because that's what's going to happen. Thurman is killed (probably by Stettner to keep his mouth shut) and Scudder sets up Stettner for a meet, ostensibly to trade the snuff tape for $50k but we know something else is in the works because he takes Ballou (a gangster he met a few books ago) and his crew along.
Stettner has set up Scudder too with 2 gunmen in an ambush but Ballou kills them both. And during the changeover, which has turned into a straight up robbery, Ballou kills Stettner and Scudder shoots his wife (who is an active participant in the films).
Afterwards Scudder meets up with Faber (his AA sponsor), tells him everything and explains his rationale (basically to the readers) of why he did it. We already know, since in the last book Scudder killed the villain because he didn't think the justice system would do justice.
The series: Block does a great job of making the characters real and the detective protocol footwork interesting. The characters are becoming a bit cliched though, everything from the street smart urchin, to the earnest detective or the high minded criminal. Sometimes the action is a bit slow when Block decides to write pages of philosophy or thought that doesn't move the plot along. Still, I'm vested in the characters. I like Scudder and I want to see him solve more crime and punish more villains. The plots have been quite unique and not cookie-cutter like many other authors. OK, on to the next book!