About ten years ago, I spent a summer working an internship and living with three other people. During the week, I bided time until the weekend, when I could go hang out with my then girlfriend, who lived about an hour away. But until then, there wasn’t much to do where I was at and the four of us were all broke interns. So I killed time reading and doing other stuff.
The job I was at had a cart full of random books. One day, I grabbed a Lawrence Block novel to waste away an evening. Wasn’t bad. Didn’t move me much one way or the other.
About eight years later, I grabbed another Matthew Scudder book on a whim. Killed a lazy afternoon with it. Again, not bad.
Recently, I was jonesing for a gritty crime tale set in 70s NYC. Inspiration struck and I decided to look up another Matthew Scudder novel. I realized that I had read the first and third in the series but not Time to Murder and Create, which is number two. So I dived in.
Again, not bad. Maybe slightly better than the other two? The case itself was more interesting than what I remember from the other two. The book has too many cliches (What’s more cliche than an alcoholic ex-cop PI?) but it’s an easy read and better than most PI fare. Has an interesting resolution too on the morality that Scudder is always grappling with.
I have a feeling I’ll look up one day and realize I read the entirety of the series with a string of “not bad” reviews.