- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow & Company; First Edition edition (Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 006019832X
- ISBN-13: 978-0060198329
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.5 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,794,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Hope To Die (A Matt Scudder Mystery)
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Product Description
Product Description
Lawrence Block, Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, is on dazzling form in his most compelling Matt Scudder novel to date. Byrne and Susan Hollander stroll home from a concert on a fine summer's evening in New York. Some hours later, their daughter Kristin arrives home to discover her parents brutally killed and the house ransacked. She also finds herself a very young millionaire. A few days later the police trace the two killers to an apartment in Coney Island and both are dead. One killed the other before turning the gun on himself. At least that's the way it looks. So that's that. Another case solved. But for Matt Scudder it's only the beginning. The more he looks into it, the more things look wrong to him. There's a murderer out there, and he's just getting started. Pitted in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Scudder is up against the most resourceful and diabolical killer of his career. Hope To Die is vintage, brilliant Block, and then some. His cool, dark wit masks a blistering pace, not to mention the perception and poignancy of his award-winning character, Matt Scudder.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Lawrence Block is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. His novels and short stories have won the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus awards four times each. He lives in New York City.
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First Sentence
"It was a perfect summer evening, the last Monday in Jul." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
"It was a perfect summer evening, the last Monday in Jul." Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Matt Scudder's entirely credible humanity continues to engage us as he confronts inhumanity once more. The crime at the centre of this story is horrible; the more we know and understand Scudder, though, the better we appreciate the contrasts between his evolving personal story and the horrors he confronts in his "job" - plus, we begin to appreciate how he solves such terrible mysteries: not by intervening in macho confrontation but by applying his maturity, subtlety and insight.
The whole series has developed the Crime genre in this beautiful and rewarding way. Yes, you get the gore and the action expected of the subject matter: you also get a human context, though - so that oft-claimed justification for violent material is actually appropriate in Block's writing. And it makes the "thrills" what they should be: disturbing, uncomfortable and thought-provoking.
This time, Matt interacts as ever with extremely well-realised characters - the "regular" cast of associates, this complex and delicate case's witnesses and suspects, and so on - applying his questioning and listening skills, his acuity about human nature, gradually to root out the truths behind what happened and why. He travels the locations (usually the city, usually on foot or by public transport) and pays deep attention. Block's fluent, incisive, witty turn of phrase similarly commands our attention, so that we get the whole story and usually learn something (ultimately about ourselves) in the process. It's quite riveting to experience. For one taste, have a read of the little sequence early on when Matt and TJ meet the murdered parents' niece in a Coffee Shop and Matt coaxes out of her the reasons for her suspicions about the involvement of the daughter (her cousin) who discovered the brutalised bodies. Brilliant!
We certainly get all the thrills we expect of the classic Thriller, but we get so much more from our time with Matt Scudder; in fact we get moral challenge and insight on a level at which any literature aspiring to the label "Great" should aim. Not just Who Done It, then; but Why They Did It and Why We Should Care, too. That's why the "digressions" and reflections on his personal life, his age, his changing physical capacity, his relationships and the rest are so essential.
Even if you take them as a kind of background "serial," or even (perish the thought) as the ongoing "soap" playing under the separate adventures, they are entertaining, engaging and full of richly-drawn and varied characters (his partner Elaine, ex-Hooker now a Woman of Culture and Property; TJ, the savvy street-kid still "street" but entrusted with a kind of "management" role for Matt's operations; the awesome butcher/barkeeper Mick Ballou). But this opulent cast further supplies the Scudder Mysteries with an unrivalled depth and originality of a "life" for Matt that makes his dealings with the darkest side of human nature that much more authentic and meaningful than lesser works in the same genre.
You can't fail, at the very least, to be excited and entertained by such another well-constructed Crime Thriller so beautifully written. I hope, though, that you'll join Scudder in this thought-provoking little community Block has created over the entire series. You will find your intelligence very well complimented.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
IMHO Lawrence Block has written some of the greatest crime novels of all time - but this isn't one of them. Hope to Die doesn't come close to the classic tone and cold realism of When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, 8 Million Ways to Die or Out on the Cutting Edge - for my money these three were Matt Scudder's peak - there's nothing to touch them in the genre. Compared to the deceptive mix of ambling introspection and sudden, cold, real life brutality that these books offer, Hope to Die reads like Block going through the motions. The ambling isn't deceptive, it's.....ambling. It's hard to care what happens to anyone, victims, villains or even Scudder himself. I think the interleaved perp-eye viewpoints were a mistake too - they shatter the realism of Scudder's incomplete 1st person vision.
The problem - I guess - is that Scudder has worn thin and angst-less. (It's perhaps not surprising after over a dozen outings and thirty odd years!) The guy is happily settled with his ex-hooker wife, doesn't really need money or redemption of any sort anymore - in his cheery contentment, he's sliding rapidly towards the Miss Marple end of the genre.
Maybe it's just time for Scudder to retire at last - the poor guy's certainly earnt it after all! How about a switch of focus? Keller's looking good in Hit List, or perhaps the ubiquitous Mick Ballou could step forward a tell a few tales of his own?
The problem - I guess - is that Scudder has worn thin and angst-less. (It's perhaps not surprising after over a dozen outings and thirty odd years!) The guy is happily settled with his ex-hooker wife, doesn't really need money or redemption of any sort anymore - in his cheery contentment, he's sliding rapidly towards the Miss Marple end of the genre.
Maybe it's just time for Scudder to retire at last - the poor guy's certainly earnt it after all! How about a switch of focus? Keller's looking good in Hit List, or perhaps the ubiquitous Mick Ballou could step forward a tell a few tales of his own?
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Often these long running series of books tend to go off the rails after the author runs out of ideas and plot lines. However with Block and this hasn't yet become a problem. Scudder is an engaging character who doesn't flinch from dabbling in the murky underworld he encounters in the course of his investigations. When Susan Hollander's parents are brutally slain Scudder is asked to investigate, and due to his dogged attitude he just cannot say no.
The plot twists and turns, and the writer paints a picture of New York that allows the reader to believe that he/she is really looking over Scudder's shoulder. The story really is excellent and the denoument particularly gripping. A recommended read for Block diehards and newcomers alike.
The plot twists and turns, and the writer paints a picture of New York that allows the reader to believe that he/she is really looking over Scudder's shoulder. The story really is excellent and the denoument particularly gripping. A recommended read for Block diehards and newcomers alike.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Hope To Die
Found it a very slow read. Not enough action for me. I knew who had 'done it' right at the beginning of the book. Not enough surprises. Sorry. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Julsmg
A Matt Scudder Mystery (paperback)
I had just finished a run of the mill, by the numbers serial killer thriller, full of characters I couldn't care less about with a plot obviously ripped off from other so much... Read more
Published 16 months ago by book fan
It keeps me going...
I'm in a not dissimilar line of work to Scudder, and I enjoyed this outing. Yes, I wasn't too happy with the "perp's eye view", but I really don't see how it could have... Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2002
Scudder ageing realistically
Hope to Die sees Scudder in his sixties. He is slowing down, facing fewer moral quandaries and some of the drama is ebbing out of his life. So far, so realistic. Read more
Published on 8 May 2002 by David Turnbull
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