Out on the Cutting Edge by Lawrence Block
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Matthew Scudder used to be addicted to alcohol, but now he’s sober. Lawrence Block, however, is still addicted to killing young women, waiting for a several months, and then sending Scudder on a cold trail to find them. I don’t have a problem with this. (I mean, in terms of reading mysteries, I’m not advocating of murder in general, obviously.)
Here we are in the 7th Scudder novel, and we’re sort of returning to form. The first 4 novels had a Scudder who investigates, frequents bars, feels a kind of malaise. Then Block shook things up and gave us a look-see at Matt struggling with his alcoholism. And now, in Out on the Cutting Edge, instead of frequenting bars, Scudder frequents AA meetings. A decent author would probably be able to rewrite the earlier novels so that the bar visits were all AA visits too: and Block is a very decent author.
Which is what I mean when I say we’re returning to form. Existential Angst gave way to Struggling With the Human Condition and now, thankfully, we’re back to Angst. Not quite as Existential, but verging on the Absurd (not the “silly” absurd, but the “there’s no explaining things so why bother” absurd). Block achieves this by giving us a two-fer in Cutting Edge: two mysteries instead of one.
And the cynic in me wants to holler “but Deus Ex Machina!” at how those mysteries end up solving one another, and the handy little “I’m done writing so here’s the end” bow that Block puts on it at the end of the book. But I’m just glad we’re back to the good old Scudder novel, less than 200 pages, not too demanding on the morality front.