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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2005, 304 pages
Paperback:
Feb 2006, 384 pages
The suspense is breathtaking, the outcome never certain. A series that has garnered no end of awards -- the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe, the Maltese Falcon -- has ascended to a dizzying new height.
In his sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel, All the Flowers Are Dying, New York
Times bestselling author Lawrence Block takes the award-winning series to a
new level of suspense and a new depth of characterization. Building on the
critical and commercial success of Hope to Die, Block puts Scudder -- and the
reader -- at the very edge of the abyss.
Scudder, a complex character who has grown and aged in real time, confronts
the implacable challenge of mortality. But he must also tackle a determined,
relentless, and icily inhuman adversary, perhaps the most unforgettable
villain Block has ever created.
A man in a Virginia prison awaits execution for three hideous murders he
swears, in the face of irrefutable evidence, he did not commit. A psychologist
who claims to believe the convict spends hours with the man in his death row
cell, and ultimately watches in the gallery as the lethal injection is
administered. His work completed, the psychologist heads back to New York City
to attend to unfinished business.
Meanwhile, Scudder has just agreed to investigate the ostensibly suspicious
online lover of an acquaintance. It seems simple enough. At first. But when
people start dying and the victims are increasingly closer to home, it becomes
clear that a vicious killer is at work. And the final targets may be Matt and
Elaine Scudder.
The suspense is breathtaking, the outcome never certain. A series that has
garnered no end of awards -- the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe, the
MalteseFalcon -- has ascended to a dizzying new height. With this novel,
Lawrence Block, who recently received the Diamond Dagger for lifetime
achievement from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom, is at
the very top of his form.
Chapter One
When I got there, Joe Durkin was already holding down a corner table and
working on a drink -- vodka on the rocks, from the looks of it. I took in the
room and listened to the hum of conversation at the bar, and I guess some of
what I was feeling must have found its way to my face, because the first thing
Joe asked me was if I was all right. I said I was fine, and why?
"Because you look like you saw a ghost," he said.
"Be funny if I didn't," I said. "The room is full of them."
"A little new for ghosts, isn't it? How long have they been open, two years?"
"Closer to three."
"Time flies," he said, "whether you're having fun or not. Jake's Place,
whoever Jake is. You got a history with him?"
"I don't know who he is. I had a history with the place before it was his."
"Jimmy Armstrong's."
"That...
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