Hope to Die, by Lawrence Block.
New York: William Morrow, 2001.
$25 — 336 pages.

Good things come to those who wait.

Fans of Lawrence Block’s detective, Matt Scudder, are familiar with the truth of this aphorism. We bide our time, sometimes for several years, and then suddenly a new Scudder saga appears to bring a few hours of special enjoyment to our lives.

Block’s latest novel is Hope To Die, and Scudder is back on the streets of Manhattan. Older and a little slower — he’s 61 now and offers a few quips about his age — he nonetheless is the same Scudder, still making the AA meetings, still in love with Elaine, still seeing TJ and Mick and Danny Boy. He reveals in this book more of his interest in music; he and Elaine are at an appreciation dinner and concert as supporters of the Lincoln Center when the first murders occur. He is also a tamer version of the hardened loner portrayed in such books as Eight Million Ways To Die, a natural progression of character development which Block has put together well over the course of the last few books.

In Hope To Die, Bryne and Susan Hollander are found murdered in their West Seventy-Fourth Street home. As police begin investigating the murder, the bodies of the killers turn up in Brooklyn, a murder-suicide that allows police to close the case. Lia, the Hollander’s niece, nonetheless finds aspects of the case disturbing. She contacts Scudder with the idea that whoever did the murder needed both a key and the code to the burglar alarm, hesitatingly pointing out that Kristin, the Hollander’s daughter, had both.

Within a short time of investigating Kristin, however, Scudder decides that she is innocent, but that there is a third man involved in the murders. Here the reader enters Lawrence Block territory at its finest, with suspicion shifting from one person to another. A psychiatrist, Dr. Nadler, becomes a primary suspect until Scudder learns that he was out of town at the time of the murders. For a brief time Lia becomes a suspect, but then circumstances clear her of any wrongdoing.

In the meantime, we learn the murderer’s feelings and activities. Block gives a chilling picture of a man who originally murders for money and property, then finds that he enjoys it. Block’s portrait of this man, who goes by the name Arden Brill in this book but uses aliases so that we never know his real name, will remain vivid for readers if only because we see a personality that views the world as existing for his pleasure alone. It is a terrifying view of a human being whose idea of life maybe summed up in the single word “I.”

What makes the Scudder novels fun for readers is not simply the suspense but the characters and background that help shape Scudder’s life. In Hope To Die, Scudder’s ex-wife has died from heart failure, and at her funeral we get an in-depth look at his two sons, one of whom has turned into the sort of thief and con-artist that Scudder encounters on the street. From Block we also learn something about police techniques and the way that the police work on such a case.

Block’s voice as Scudder is also a pleasure for the reader. Here is Scudder talking about TJ, the street kid who moves from “hip-hop jive to the Queen’s English, turned out one day in baggy shorts and a Raiders cap and the next in a Brooks Brothers suit.”

And lately has been spending a lot of time at Columbia, where he dresses in khakis and polo shirts and just walks into any class that looks as though it might be interesting. You can’t do that, not without registering and paying an auditor’s fee, but it’s a rare professor who’s got a clue as to who does or doesn’t belong in his classroom, and the few who do catch on are tickled at the thought that someone wants to hear what they have to say even if he’s not getting academic credit for it.

I’m not sure how much I trust Block’s observation about professors not knowing their students. I tried this technique at the University of Virginia once, walking into a writing class, and didn’t find the professor at all tickled by my desire to hear what he had to say.

Readers may discover a few other points to criticize in Hope To Die. The motive for the Hollander murders seems vague; the reader never gets the sense that the killer really cared that much about acquiring the Hollanders’ house and money. Arden Brill’s attempt to fool police into thinking another murder is accidental — he maces the victim, then drowns her in a bathtub — is silly and beneath Brill’s intelligence. Finally, the ending of the book is somewhat dissatisfying in terms of the resolution of the murders.

But these are minor quarrels from a Matt Scudder fan. Block, who has written more than 50 books — readers may be familiar with his Evan Tanner series as well as the popular Bernie Rodenbarr mysteries — is a prolific writer. Scudder readers may surely look for more books down the road.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville.)

 

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