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A review by usbsticky
Out on the Cutting Edge by Lawrence Block
5.0
The best in a long line of good Lawrence Block's books I've read so far. Block's books can be hit or miss but this one is inspired. Spoilers ahead.
Scudder is an unofficial private eye. A former NYPD detective who does favors for a little money. He works when he wants or needs the money. He's a recovering alcoholic and Block has spent a lot of pages in the last 2 books covering Scudder's journey from a functioning alcoholic to a sometime raving drunk to a teetotaler who attends AA meetings religiously.
The plot of this book is somewhat haphazard and unexpected. As with some crime fiction, there are two stories in this book, only marginally connected but well done.
In crime 1, a distraught family from Muncie, Indiana hires Scudder to look for their 3 month missing daughter (Paula) who came to the big city to pursue her dream of being an actress. She rents a small room, goes to acting classes, auditions, readings and gets a job as a waitress, basically everything that a budding actor does in NY city.
She stops calling her family, stops paying her rent and just disappears. Scudder does all the requisite footwork, painstakingly interviewing everyone who crosses paths with her to get the smallest clue to find out where she might have gone. He interviews people in her apartment, from work, from classes, auditions, etc. All he can figure out is that it's a criminal matter based on the way her clothing (but not her linen) disappeared from her apartment when she left. And it just ends up being a dead end.
Crime 2: Meanwhile he makes a friend at AA. Just a small time one time criminal down on his luck. But this friend Eddie has really stuck to it and hasn't fallen off the wagon. However one day he stopped showing up. Scudder goes to his apartment with the super of the building and finds that Eddie has died in an autoerotic accident. Scudder is shocked but he needs to know if Eddie died sober. So he pushes the coroner (or assistant?) for the autopsy results. Eddie died sober but there is some chloral hydrate (a sedative) in his blood, which makes his death suspicious and not accidental anymore.
Real spoilers below. Do not read below this for sure if you don't want to know the story.
Scudder does some digging (a lot of which is hidden from the readers) and he finds that several residents have also died with chloral hydrate in their blood and figures that the landlord is killing the residents (who have rent controlled apartments) so that their building can be converted into a co-op and make millions.
At the same time, while investigating Eddie's death, he comes across someone who knows Paula but pretends not to. After some digging, he figures that this person is involved in Paula's death. The ending of this story is presented in a reveal that Scudder is not really involved in.
Overall this is a pretty dark, noir and depressing police procedural. But that's exactly the way Block writes it. I like book not for the whodunit, mystery or edge of the seat aspect (of which there is none) but the realism of the characters and the setting. That's the way it is in good books. You like the book for the people in it. Characters that you feel for and want to follow. I'm now reading the next in the series.
Scudder is an unofficial private eye. A former NYPD detective who does favors for a little money. He works when he wants or needs the money. He's a recovering alcoholic and Block has spent a lot of pages in the last 2 books covering Scudder's journey from a functioning alcoholic to a sometime raving drunk to a teetotaler who attends AA meetings religiously.
The plot of this book is somewhat haphazard and unexpected. As with some crime fiction, there are two stories in this book, only marginally connected but well done.
In crime 1, a distraught family from Muncie, Indiana hires Scudder to look for their 3 month missing daughter (Paula) who came to the big city to pursue her dream of being an actress. She rents a small room, goes to acting classes, auditions, readings and gets a job as a waitress, basically everything that a budding actor does in NY city.
She stops calling her family, stops paying her rent and just disappears. Scudder does all the requisite footwork, painstakingly interviewing everyone who crosses paths with her to get the smallest clue to find out where she might have gone. He interviews people in her apartment, from work, from classes, auditions, etc. All he can figure out is that it's a criminal matter based on the way her clothing (but not her linen) disappeared from her apartment when she left. And it just ends up being a dead end.
Crime 2: Meanwhile he makes a friend at AA. Just a small time one time criminal down on his luck. But this friend Eddie has really stuck to it and hasn't fallen off the wagon. However one day he stopped showing up. Scudder goes to his apartment with the super of the building and finds that Eddie has died in an autoerotic accident. Scudder is shocked but he needs to know if Eddie died sober. So he pushes the coroner (or assistant?) for the autopsy results. Eddie died sober but there is some chloral hydrate (a sedative) in his blood, which makes his death suspicious and not accidental anymore.
Real spoilers below. Do not read below this for sure if you don't want to know the story.
Scudder does some digging (a lot of which is hidden from the readers) and he finds that several residents have also died with chloral hydrate in their blood and figures that the landlord is killing the residents (who have rent controlled apartments) so that their building can be converted into a co-op and make millions.
At the same time, while investigating Eddie's death, he comes across someone who knows Paula but pretends not to. After some digging, he figures that this person is involved in Paula's death. The ending of this story is presented in a reveal that Scudder is not really involved in.
Overall this is a pretty dark, noir and depressing police procedural. But that's exactly the way Block writes it. I like book not for the whodunit, mystery or edge of the seat aspect (of which there is none) but the realism of the characters and the setting. That's the way it is in good books. You like the book for the people in it. Characters that you feel for and want to follow. I'm now reading the next in the series.