{"id":1720,"date":"2016-07-08T14:05:38","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T21:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1720"},"modified":"2017-12-18T08:30:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T16:30:59","slug":"review-in-the-midst-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/08\/review-in-the-midst-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: In the Midst of Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In<\/a>
\n In the Midst of Death<\/a> by Lawrence Block<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

Third book in the Scudder series, and so far we\u2019re three for three with suicides. Yeah, that\u2019s a spoiler, but this book was written more than 40 years ago, and I ain\u2019t gonna say who it was or why. Besides, if you\u2019re going to read this third book, it\u2019s because you\u2019ve read the other two already. And if you\u2019re not, you won\u2019t bother with them either. I ain\u2019t spoiled nothin.<\/p>\n

More of the same is what we have here in this novel: Matthew Scudder drinks all the time, although he doesn\u2019t get drunk very often. One of the things I like about Lawrence Block\u2019s writing, though, is that when Scudder IS drunk, you can tell without being told– its a simple matter of word choice and sentence length. Its subtle and subliminal.<\/p>\n

Scudder himself goes with his gut and trusts his instincts, so it\u2019s kind of nice how a reader can do the same thing, reading these novels. Block has a precise touch. And it\u2019s used to describe a depressing world full of bad cops and dive bars. You can\u2019t win for losing in a Matthew Scudder novel.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, suicide aside, there\u2019s a tiny bit of happiness for ol\u2019 Matt in this one, for a change. Not much, and it doesn\u2019t last, and that\u2019s not a spoiler either, that\u2019s just another trope Block\u2019s trying on for size. What\u2019s it all for in the end? I don\u2019t know. You never know you\u2019ve had too much until you\u2019ve had too much. <\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Midst of Death by Lawrence Block My rating: 3 of 5 stars Third book in the Scudder series, and so far we\u2019re three for three with suicides. Yeah, that\u2019s a spoiler, but this book was written more than 40 years ago, and I ain\u2019t gonna say who it was or why. Besides, if … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: In the Midst of Death”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-rK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1721,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions\/1721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}