A review by adamcagey
The Sins of the Fathers by Lawrence Block

4.0

I started re-reading the Matthew Scudder books last year and haven't made a lot of progress, unfortunately. Like al of my favorite mystery novels, Block's books are less concerned with solving a murder than they are showing us the inner workings of the main character. And what a main character. Scudder's development mirrors that of his writer in a lot of ways. When the series begins, they were both alcoholics struggling to make it through the day. We get to watch them make the first tentative steps toward recovery and then (not without some backsliding, give up drink entirely. It all plays out in one of the meaner portrayals of New York I've read. I really think that the development of the Scudder character will be counted as a significant literary achievement. Block just needs some critics to "discover" him the way the New Wave "discovered" Hitchcock.