Lawrence Block -- All the Flowers are Dying

Lawrence Block

(Born 1938 in Buffalo, NY)             

Also Known As:

Harrison, Chip; Kavanagh, Paul; Lord, Sheldon (American novelist); Shaw, Andrew

Author’s website:  www.lawrenceblock.com

Lawrence Block is a highly-acclaimed and extremely versatile Mystery author of several best-selling series, as well as a few stand-alone novels and short story collections. Readers enjoy Block's characters, who are all thinking men and who share a fundamental integrity. The tone is different in each series, ranging from comedic to hard-boiled. Block creates tension with an extraordinary sense of pacing, which alternately drags readers along at breakneck speed and then forces them to wait impatiently for events outside their control to occur. Start with: The Burglar on the Prowl

All the Flowers Are Dying (2005)

Lawrence Block (Author)

Now in his sixties, semi-retired from his work as a private detective and long fully retired from drinking, Matt Scudder spends most of his time hanging out in AA meetings and coffee shops and relaxing with his wife Elaine, a former call girl. The good times come to a halt when a very nasty serial killer emerges to match wits with Scudder, one linked to the unresolved crimes in Scudder's last case, Hope to Die. This time it soon becomes obvious that Matt and Elaine will become his next targets if Matt doesn't find the psychopath first. All the old familiar characters from the series are present, and as is often the case, the violence is graphic and unsettling. The author, who has won numerous awards over the course of his long career, also writes several other series, including one featuring burglar/bookseller/detective Bernie Rhodenbarr, as well as numerous non-series crime novels

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Bryant and May on the Loose - Christopher Fowler

Charlie Parker Series - John Connolly

Dave Robicheaux Series - James Lee Burke

John Marshall Tanner Series - Stephen Greenleaf

The Last Juror - John Grisham

The Mitch Tobin Series - Tucker Coe

Neil Hockaday Series - Thomas Adcock

Nine Dragons - Michael Connelly

Pegasus Descending - James Lee Burke

"MATTHEW SCUDDER" SERIES

• Sins of the Fathers, (First book in series)
• Time to Murder and Create (#2)
• In the Midst of Death, (#3)
• A Stab in the Dark, (#4)
• Eight Million Ways to Die, (#5)
• When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, (#6)
• Out on the Cutting Edge, (#7)
• A Ticket to the Boneyard, (#8)
• A Dance at the Slaughterhouse, (#9)
• A Walk among the Tombstones, (#10)
• The Devil Knows You're Dead, (#11)
• A Long Line of Dead Men, (#12)
• Even the Wicked, (#13)
• Everybody Dies, (#14)
• Hope to Die, (#15)
• All the Flowers Are Dying, (#16)
• A Drop of the Hard Stuff,    (#17; forthcoming, May, 2011)       

OTHE SERIES:

KELLER SERIES

EVAN TANNER SERIES

BERNIE RHODENBARR SERIES (under pseudonym Paul Kavanagh)

CHIP HARRISON SERIES; (originally published under pseudonym Chip Harrison)

Lawrence Block

by Lynne Welch

Lawrence Block is the highly-acclaimed, extremely versatile and highly prolific author of no fewer than five best-selling series as well as several stand-alone novels and various short-story collections. He has won nearly every award in the genre, some of them as many as four times apiece, and was designated a Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster in 1994 for his contributions to the field. In addition, the British Crime Writers' Association recently (2004) awarded Block its Cartier Diamond Dagger to mark his lifetime achievement in crime writing.

Why is Block so popular? In large part it is due to his characters, who are all -- in spite of their divergent professions and personalities -- thinking men, and whose reflections add a great deal of color and background to the story. They also share a fundamental integrity. Burglars, assassins, and secret agents alike, each has his own moral code to which he adheres. A third major reason for Block's popularity is his ability to comment in an insouciant manner on all sorts of outrageous situations -- in particular those involving the political arena -- with a drolly self-deprecating, sly sense of humor which sneaks up on the reader at the most unexpected moments.

The tone of each series, however, is distinctly different from the others. Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr series is in the sub-genre known as "Comic Capers," in which bumbling but likeable criminals try to solve crimes in order to keep their own heads out of the noose. Bernie is a burglar by trade, who owns and operates an antiquarian bookstore, and who periodically supplements his income by accepting "special assignments" to exercise his unique talents in the service of justice. Bernie is easygoing, charming, and unrepentantly light-fingered, but he has his standards. He doesn't steal from those who can't afford the loss, he is loyal to his friends, and he will follow through with bulldog tenacity in aiding the cause of justice, regardless of the legalities of his actions. The series is considered Cozy, meaning that violence and bloodshed, while present, generally occur off-screen or are described in limited, rather than graphic, detail.

The Matthew Scudder series, by contrast, features a hard-boiled private investigator who is also a recovering alcoholic, trying to put his personal life back together. He too is an intriguing personality in his own right, having chosen to leave the police force but maintaining mutually-rewarding ties to some of its officers. Scudder drifts aimlessly from one day to the next, looking into situations on an unofficial basis -- he never obtained a license as a detective, pays no tax on his gains, and files no reports, even with his employers. Instead, he "does favors" for people by looking into situations, and they in turn present him with gifts of money. Scudder is a much darker and more complex personality than Bernie. In the first few stories, he is a heavy drinker, but as the series progresses he becomes more and more of an alcoholic, and eventually decides to quit drinking. Interwoven into the tales are his relationships, some of them on-again, off-again, and some of them continuing. His first wife and two sons live on Long Island, and every so often he takes the boys to a ball game, or sends them money, but other than that they are not a real part of his life. And Scudder does not think of himself as a religious man, but when he is troubled he spends some quiet time in church to meditate and light candles for the departed. Block draws on the legacy of the classic hard-boiled detectives and the noir genre as created by such great authors as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald to provide contemporary characters in modern-day situations who appeal to readers.

avenged swiftly and without fanfare by this incredibly matter-of-fact woman of a certain age who has made it her mission in life to mete out justice to these scoundrels, without counting the cost to herself or expecting to reap material benefits from her actions. As with Block's work, the setting, which takes full advantage of New York City's role as a diplomatic and artistic hub, is used to great effect, although Smith prefers to concentrate on the exclusive apartments, soirees and museum galas rather than the bars, nightclubs, and other unsavory locales Block employs to further his tales. Start with Miss Melville Regrets to appreciate fully the sea change in her circumstances, from a desperately impoverished gentlewoman who decides to shoot herself at a benefit honoring her greedy and unscrupulous landlord, and ends up shooting him instead, to a paid assassin at the mercy of an unknown employer who blackmails her into his service, and finally to a life of leisure and acclaim where she can pick and choose her own targets.

Seattle-based J. P. Beaumont, the creation of J. A. Jance, is another good match for Matt Scudder. Both are long-running series, featuring a brooding detective with an alcohol problem, a loner with an active sense of compassion and a need to act on the side of justice -- whether within or outside the law. Strong parallels between the two continue with their failed marriages and their estrangement from their children. Each has a multitude of acquaintances -- mostly connected with police work -- but few real friends. The similar settings, cosmopolitan atmosphere and vividly descriptive passages combine with the pacing to make these two investigators, separated by the width of a continent, seem almost like brothers in the service of a higher authority. Start with Until Proven Guilty to read them in order and track the course of Beau's growth as a character.

Readers who enjoy Block's novels of Suspense, such as the Evan Tanner series and many of his stand-alone novels (Such Men Are Dangerous, Small Town) should investigate the work of Jack Higgins. International settings, breakneck pacing, colorful characters, and political conspiracies combine to make tales such as Dark Justice enduringly popular and provide a good match for Block. This latest adventure featuring the exploits of British General Charles Ferguson pits recurring character Sean Dillon, formerly of the IRA but now working for British Intelligence, and his counterpart in the White House, Blake Johnson, against a terrorist group trying to assassinate the President and generally cause havoc in both the U.S. and Britain.

Lynne Welch is an Ohio librarian specializing in Readers' Advisory and Electronic Reference Services.