{"id":1726,"date":"2016-07-11T09:54:09","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T16:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1726"},"modified":"2017-12-18T08:30:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T16:30:59","slug":"review-a-stab-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/11\/review-a-stab-in-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: A Stab in the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>
\n A Stab in the Dark<\/a> by Lawrence Block<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve made a mistake: I started reading 8 Million Ways to Die<\/em> before I write this review for A Stab in the Dark<\/em>. So I apologize if the one leaks into the other. I\u2019ll do my best. Not really sure what to say about Stab<\/em> that I didn\u2019t already say about the first three books in the Matthew Scudder series.<\/p>\n

Matt\u2019s an ex-cop and an unlicensed PI. He drinks and he solves crimes. This time he\u2019s been asked to solve a crime that happened 9 years before. The usual theme: cops probably won\u2019t bother, this is more about peace of mind than justice, etc. Along the way Matt makes a friend and of course you know how that\u2019s going to go. Don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not bloody, just sad.<\/p>\n

Of course Scudder solves the case, with some leg work and some patience. This is a work of fiction, after all, so you knew he would. And so what if there\u2019s a convenient coincidence that helps things out. And so what if there\u2019s some justice at the end that\u2019s maybe a little far-fetched. We don\u2019t drink these drinks for our health, do we. You don\u2019t exactly get drunk, reading these crime novels. But you can get a little buzzed.<\/p>\n

Then again, it\u2019s a sort-of existential buzz, a kind of comfortable-melancholy. I realize \u201cangst\u201d and \u201ccomfort\u201d and all that compatible, but when you\u2019re following around a guy who stays on the job even when no one wants him to, you identify with his tenacity. You keep reading, not because you want to know whodunnit, but because you feel like you\u2019re where you\u2019re supposed to be, curled up around your e-reader.<\/p>\n

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

A Stab in the Dark by Lawrence Block My rating: 3 of 5 stars I\u2019ve made a mistake: I started reading 8 Million Ways to Die before I write this review for A Stab in the Dark. So I apologize if the one leaks into the other. I\u2019ll do my best. Not really sure what … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: A Stab in the Dark”<\/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-1726","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-rQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726","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=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1727,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions\/1727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}