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A review by jakewritesbooks
Time to Murder and Create by Lawrence Block
4.0
About ten years ago, I spent a summer working an internship and living with three other people. During the week, I bided time until the weekend, when I could go hang out with my then girlfriend, who lived about an hour away. But until then, there wasn’t much to do where I was at and the four of us were all broke interns. So I killed time reading and doing other stuff.
The job I was at had a cart full of random books. One day, I grabbed a Lawrence Block novel to waste away an evening. Wasn’t bad. Didn’t move me much one way or the other.
About eight years later, I grabbed another Matthew Scudder book on a whim. Killed a lazy afternoon with it. Again, not bad.
Recently, I was jonesing for a gritty crime tale set in 70s NYC. Inspiration struck and I decided to look up another Matthew Scudder novel. I realized that I had read the first and third in the series but not Time to Murder and Create, which is number two. So I dived in.
Again, not bad. Maybe slightly better than the other two? The case itself was more interesting than what I remember from the other two. The book has too many cliches (What’s more cliche than an alcoholic ex-cop PI?) but it’s an easy read and better than most PI fare. Has an interesting resolution too on the morality that Scudder is always grappling with.
I have a feeling I’ll look up one day and realize I read the entirety of the series with a string of “not bad” reviews.
2023 re-read:
This is the second time I've come out of a Matthew Scudder re-read with a better impression than the first time I read it.
How it bodes for the rest of the series, I don't know. Originally, I thought the first three books fine, if a little familiar and derivative.
But upon rereading this, #2 in the series, you can already see how Block is trying to subvert the genre, making Matt more than just an alcoholic PI and armchair philosopher. These are great New York books because they never let you forget how New York traps people like flies to flypaper: the allure, the glory and the crushing depression of the 1970s.
Maybe it's because I'm getting into dad-lit more (guilty as charged) or perhaps because I know Scudder's fate, I can appreciate what Block was doing with these earlier in his career. Nevertheless, this was another winner, which makes me curious how I'll feel about more favored novels in the series as I revisit them.
The job I was at had a cart full of random books. One day, I grabbed a Lawrence Block novel to waste away an evening. Wasn’t bad. Didn’t move me much one way or the other.
About eight years later, I grabbed another Matthew Scudder book on a whim. Killed a lazy afternoon with it. Again, not bad.
Recently, I was jonesing for a gritty crime tale set in 70s NYC. Inspiration struck and I decided to look up another Matthew Scudder novel. I realized that I had read the first and third in the series but not Time to Murder and Create, which is number two. So I dived in.
Again, not bad. Maybe slightly better than the other two? The case itself was more interesting than what I remember from the other two. The book has too many cliches (What’s more cliche than an alcoholic ex-cop PI?) but it’s an easy read and better than most PI fare. Has an interesting resolution too on the morality that Scudder is always grappling with.
I have a feeling I’ll look up one day and realize I read the entirety of the series with a string of “not bad” reviews.
2023 re-read:
This is the second time I've come out of a Matthew Scudder re-read with a better impression than the first time I read it.
How it bodes for the rest of the series, I don't know. Originally, I thought the first three books fine, if a little familiar and derivative.
But upon rereading this, #2 in the series, you can already see how Block is trying to subvert the genre, making Matt more than just an alcoholic PI and armchair philosopher. These are great New York books because they never let you forget how New York traps people like flies to flypaper: the allure, the glory and the crushing depression of the 1970s.
Maybe it's because I'm getting into dad-lit more (guilty as charged) or perhaps because I know Scudder's fate, I can appreciate what Block was doing with these earlier in his career. Nevertheless, this was another winner, which makes me curious how I'll feel about more favored novels in the series as I revisit them.