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Title: Even the Wicked

Author: Lawrence Block

Narrator: Mark Hammer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 03-05-15

Publisher: Jammer Audio

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Suspense

Publisher's Summary:

Matt Scudder is drawn into the case of a serial killer targeting criminals the law cannot touch. The Will of the People, egged on by a vitriolic newspaper columnist, kills a sex offender, a mobster ,and a racist cult leader despite their seemingly impenetrable security. Then Scudder gets a call from a hot-shot attorney, the recipient of the Will's latest letter....

Members Reviews:

Serviceable but not as good as the other Matt Scudder novels

Ever since the fifth entry in the series, Eight Million Ways to Die, the Matthew Scudder novels have represented in my mind the pinnacle of high quality crime fiction. The books vary in style--some are thrillers, some are traditional mysteries, some are literary character pieces with only a wink and nod to their genre--but the writing has been consistently top-drawer, the characters nuanced, and the plotting inventive.

Unfortunately, this outing is the dreaded let-down entry. It was not a bad book; it was serviceable but lacked panache. It felt like a High Concept novel. It did not feel like a Matt Scudder story. Any detective could have been at the helm and it would not have changed the story. It did not even feel like a New York novel; it could have just as easily been set in Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Des Moines for that matter.

The opening premise is that a serial killer has taken to announcing his victims beforehand in the press and then killing them in superhero-life fashion despite their best security precautions. The fourth murder in particular is a neat locked room mystery. There are also two other mysteries at play in the novel, which Matt Scudder works in more or less parallel fashion. I figured out two of the three mysteries long before the detective--and both times I thought myself, "Oh, I hope that's not the solution Mr. Block chooses... Too obvious and too far-fetched."

The fact there were multiple mysteries detracted from the overall story. While this has happened before with Scudder, most noticeably in Out On the Cutting Edge, this time I could not see how the main plots (the serial killer and a possible copycat) tied to the other case (an AIDS patient murdered in a park) either via causality or thematically. Still, the writing is engaging and the plot keeps you involved. Like I said, it's a decent mystery, but certainly nowhere close to the best this series has to offer.

I have enjoyed Lawrence Block for many years

What reviews I write are usually short but this one won't be. I have enjoyed Lawrence Block for many years. I live and Mexico and read in English and before Kindle I had to read what I could find. Mostly, I haunted the used paperback sales at the Oaxaca Lending Library and I never passed up a Lawrence Block, or Elmore Leonard, or Lawrence Sanders that I hadn't read. I might have read all of the Rhodenbarr series and maybe all of the Keller series. I thoroughly enjoyed Matt Scudder until....

Preaching is basically story telling but when a story-teller passes from telling a story to preaching everyone can tell. I don't know if it's his advanced age or if he's seen the light but he's started preaching and I'm done with Matt Scudder. If Lawrence Block writes of other characters who aren't recovering alcoholics I'll probably read them, unless he keeps preaching.

In "Even the Wicked" the preaching is overwhelming. Preaching about sobriety and AA. And in this one he even manages to preach about abortion.