A review by hpuphd
A Stab in the Dark: A Novel of Suspense by Lawrence Block

5.0

This novel works expertly as both a detective story and a character-driven story on the struggle to keep the light on in our soul. Chapter 8 is a great example. Matt Scudder goes to talk to a woman familiar with the nine-year-old murder he is investigating. But they both happen to be incipient alcoholics, a condition they slowly begin to sense about each other in a long conversation with some difficult and revealing questions. As it develops, you suddenly realize that Block has set the crime story aside to favor the deeper concerns of a mainstream novel. Later, Scudder’s ex-wife calls him to say that the aged family dog had to be put to sleep. Their sons had grown so old that they ignored the pet, but the wife cherished and misses the dog. She has no one else who knew of him to talk to. Block devotes a page and a half to that awkward, human moment. Again and again lonely people reach out or fool themselves into thinking they don’t need to. The book is a dark but honest meditation on human need.