Depending upon what you want from a piece of hard-boiled crime fiction this can push your buttons or miss the target...
It pushed my buttons! This work did exactly what I try to do with my writing (sorry for the plug) in that it goes against the Noir cliche of everyone is at least a bit guilty and says instead that everyone is a bit innocent. There is a nice variety of character in this story and the attrocities they are capable of vary with them. But what is constant is the understanding of the fact that everyone ends up where they are because of where they have been. Actions are driven by character, character is driven by experience. We get a rich insight into why each person has done what they are accused of doing and for me this is the true essence of story telling.
The protagonist, Matt Scudder, is not a PI as such but just a guy who sometimes does favours in exchange for gifts (another attempted disembarkment from the genre). He's haunted by a horrible incident that occured during his years as a police officer and he donates to the church and drinks heavy. What makes him interesting is that the experience that haunts him does so because of the injustice not because of the nature of the act. Had the horrible incident occured to someone more deserving and Scudder would not have lost a moments sleep.
The plot itself would not seem as obviously rich as some of his peers but this is because this is a plot in the past. Scudder is finding it all out after it has happened; what's done is done. However, it is deftly laid down as the clues to the whodunnit emerge in a finale perfectly suited to Scudder's take on justice and thoroughly satisfying and noiresque.
I've been on a good run of first encounters with Authors lately (David Sallis, Dennis Lehane and now Lawrence Block) but this is my favourite by far. Plunging incredibly comprehensively into the "what makes us what we are?" question considering its meagre length, this is one of the more satisfying books I have read.
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