Great character study as well as a crime story

books:


	• A Ticket To The Boneyard: A Matthew Scudder Crime Novel Lawrence Block Avon, 1991 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great character study as well as a crime story

Matthew Scudder, P.I., fights the urge to return to the booze as vigorously as he battles an old nemesis who's killing friends, family, associates and even people who share the surname Scudder.

Fortunately Matthew, like Lawrence Block's bookstore owner/cat burglar/sleuth Bernie (THE BURGLAR WHO TRADED TED WILLIAMS), has good friends, including a prostitute ex-lover with whom he rekindles a romance. The dialogue is as sharp and explosive as the action scenes. My personal favorite bit, after Bernie and his ladylove go to a Kevin Costner/Michelle Pfeiffer caper...

"She's (Michelle Pfeiffer) not really pretty, but there's something about her, isn't there? If i were a man, I'd want to ----- her."
"Repeatedly."
"Oh, she does it for you, huh?"
"She's all right."
"'Repeatedly.'"

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Wrong Boneyard

I read all eight sample pages of this book and was captivated immediately by the author's use of adjectives. Well done Mr. Block. Well done.

Tom Emery
the-boneyard.com

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A Ticket to the Boneyard

In A Ticket to the Boneyard Matthew Scudder is a former New York detective who left because he had a drinking problem. He is involved with a hooker called Elaine. They get into some trouble because of a man Elaine was involved with, James Leo Motley. Parts of the book explain the problems and results in drinking. It also describes the difficulty the main character, Matt, deals with the problem of drinking. Motley was not a normal customer of Elaine; he was new but caused trouble. The story starts out telling the life story about Matt and how he got involved with the hooker, Elaine and the man she was in trouble with. Then it goes to tell how Motley was put in jail, but before he can go he vows to revenge the man who puts him in jail. Motley was in for a number of years and yet he still remembers his vow. His vengeance toward the man who put him into jail encourages him to harm innocent people. The whole book is talks about how Matt and Elaine are scared of Motley and searching for him. Most of the time Matt is plays detective to find Motley and to protect Elaine from any danger from Motley. Although Matt is not a detective anymore he uses some of the skills he acquired and he goes searching around the city of New York for Motley after he got out of jail.
This book was written quite well and people. Although the descriptions of some people and some details do not help as much as other descriptions; the book does paint a good picture of the deaths. The details of how people were killed gave a nice description of how everything came together and how each event occurred in order. Like the saying "Never judge a book by its covers." It is part of what this book is like. The cover changes every once in a while yet it helps depicts what kind of story this is. When I first saw the cover of the book, I thought the book was going to be about a murderer and its victims. But when I finished reading the book it was not close to how the cover depicted the book to be like. I enjoyed his book very much. Some times it put me at the edge of my seat reading faster to find out what was going to occur next. Although there were not many exciting parts it was deep in learning one kind of problems a former detective. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy a nice murder story before they go to bed. Sometime there are scary parts, which you want to put down the book but it is so interesting that you rather finish the book.

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Now I am hooked on Block.

I was mildly entertained by Lawrence Block's "Even the Wicked." "A Walk Among the Tombstones" was gritty enough to get me to try my third Matthew Scudder: "A Ticket to the Boneyard."

Now I am hooked, and will read the entire series.

Scudder is an ex-NYPD cop...a flawed, complex, likeable, pragmatic character. Now an unlicensed PI, he investigates for his friends.

The plot in "Boneyard" roars along from page one with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing all the way. Not predictable. The villain is one of the most realistic, despicable and depraved I have run across.

Great hard-edged writing that leaps off the pages.

I am making Lawrence Block a priority.

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Well-Written; Suspenseful Book

As always, the novel is well-written with lots of great language. The book moves along quickly. You won't be bored ot tempted to put it down.

Block does a great job confronting Scudder's problems with alcohol, with full descriptions of AA meetings and his AA friends. You really believe that Scudder is an alcoholic. Block also frequently mentions the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a book that Scudder is reading. Scudder ponders the Meditations as different things happen in the book. The only slight problem with this book is that the ending is somewhat predictable.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Twelve years ago, Matthew Scudder lied to a jury to put James Leo Motley behind bars. Now the ingenious psychopath is free. And the alcoholic ex-cop-turned-p.i. must pay dearly for his sins. Friends and former lovers -- even strangers unfortunate enough to share Scudder's name -- are turning up dead. Because a vengeful maniac is determined not to rest until he's driven his nemesis back to the bottle...and then to the boneyard.

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