Lawrence Block - The Night and The Music

When Lawrence Block is in his Matt Scudder mode, crime fiction can sidle up so close to literature that often theres no degree of difference.

~Philadelphia Inquirer

One of the very best writers now working the beat. Block has done something new and remarkable with the private-eye novel.

~Wall Street Journal

Blocks prose is as smooth as aged whiskey.

~Publishers Weekly

One of the most complex and compelling heroes in modern fiction. Thrillers dont get better than this.

~San Diego Union-Tribune

After twenty-five years in the business, Matt Scudder still strolls New Yorks mean streets as if he had personally laid the cobblestones.

~Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

Matthew Scudder is the kind of mystery anti-hero who turns mere readers into series addicts.

~Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Much more than a mystery. A book about men, about booze, about New York, by one of the surest, most distinctive voices in American fiction.

~Martin Cruz Smith

Scudder is an original and these pages ring with all the authenticity of a blast from a .38.

~Anniston Star

Blocks characters, the bar-flies and the cops, are as much flesh and blood as any mystery writers working today.

~Greensboro News and Record

Consistently tasty and surprising, full of smart, ringing dialogue and multiple textures. If you prefer true grit, Matt Scudders your man.

~Seattle Times

One of the most hackneyed phrases that reviewers can use is to compare a writer to Chandler or Hammett. Perhaps the time has come to change that benchmark to include Lawrence Block.

~Book Page

Block is a rarity, a craftsman who writes about the sleazier aspects of life with style, compassion and wit.

~Denver Post

The Matthew Scudder Stories

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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The Night and The Music - The Matthew Scudder Stories

Copyright 2011Lawrence Block. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the author or publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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Visit the authors websites:
http://www.lawrenceblock.com
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ISBN: 978-1-937387-31-0 (eBook)
ISBN: 978-1-937387-07-2 (EPUB)
ISBN: 978-1-937387-32-7 (Paperback)

Version 2011.09.21

Right around the time I turned fourteen, in 1980, I convinced my parents to let me take the Long Island Rail Road into Manhattan by myself, so I could go to the Mysterious Bookshop on West 56th Street. And it was there, in Otto Penzlers place between Sixth and Seventh avenues, that I first met Matt Scudder.

Mysterious was an intimidating place, especially for a bookshop. There was a step down entrance, and a heavy door that swung shut behind you. Once inside, it was dead quiet: no elevator music playing. No friendly info desk. No other customers either. Just a silent bearded guy behind the front counter who had an uncanny (and slightly disturbing) resemblance to Stephen Kings 1970s author photo. Im telling you, for a place designed to sell books, it was pretty damned intense.

I was mostly reading spy books back then. But on the day I took my maiden solo voyage on the LIRR Port Washington line, I was looking for something else. I just didnt know what, exactly. Which was a bummer because that meant I was going to have to talk to spooky Stephen King behind the counter, and he was reading and seemed very involved in his book and not at all in the mood to be disturbed by some teenager from Nassau County.

So I just kind of stood around aimlessly until his eyes hovered for a moment above his book. And then I gutted up and asked him for a recommendation.

What do you like? he asked.

I mumbled something along the lines of A bunch of stuff.

You into funny books?

Not really, I said, "I guess I like when it feels like its really happening.

Oh, he said, You might be ready for something hard boiled.

Hard Boiled. I had never heard the phrase before. But it sounded just right. Especially if it was something I had to "be ready" for.

Yes, I said, give me something hard boiled.

And he reached up behind the counter and grabbed three books.

This is what you need, he said. And he held out the books The Sins Of The Fathers, Time To Murder and Create and In The Midst Of Death. Theyre by Lawrence Block.

I paid for them, headed back to Penn Station, caught the next train, found a seat and started reading Sins before the train had even begun to roll.

Fifty-five minutes later, I almost missed my stop.

My mom picked me up from the station, but I dont think I said two words to her on the drive home; I just kept reading. And I remember walking in our front door, nodding to my sisters and continuing on to my bedroom reading the entire way.

Fake Stephen King had gotten it right. Matt Scudder was, indeed, exactly what I needed.

I blasted through all three books. Im not sure how I was able to lock into Scudder so hard when our life experience was so far apartI had never had a drink, had never killed anyone, either on purpose or by accident, had barely kissed a girlbut somehow he made sense to me.

Maybe its because there was nothing phony about Matt Scudder. When Matt wanted to drink, he drank. When he wanted to fight, he fought. And if he didnt want to talk to you, he didnt. Hell, even if you were his client, he wouldnt try and charm you, wouldnt promise to solve your case, wouldnt even promise to tell you what he was doing to try and solve it.