Country: USA
Genre: Hardboiled
Pages: 276
Why would anyone want to kill anybody? The act of murder is performed four or five times a day in New York. One hot week last summer the count ran to fifty-three. People kill their friends, their relatives, their lovers. A man on Long Island demonstrated karate to his old children by chopping his two-year old daughter to death. Why did people do these things?
Cain said he wasn't Abel's keeper. Are those the only choices, keeper or killer?
Here's how it went, for real. I sat down to read the first chapter of THE SINS OF THE FATHERS. I closed the book because I had business to do downtown and while I was there, I bought TIME TO MURDER AND CREATE and IN THE MIDST OF DEATH, respectively number two and three in the Matthew Scudder series. I knew that if I liked the first novel of the series that bad, this was for me. It's hard to put a brilliant P.I novel out there after so many great hardboiled writers did. It's even harder to create a brilliant P.I, period. Really, who wants to live up to Philip Marlowe? Lawrence Block took the challenge and beat it with ease. While clearly being influenced by the classic P.I character, Scudder had this taint, this invisible aura of a damaged soul around him. I finished THE SINS OF THE FATHER with a wide grin, because there is still sixteen more Scudder novels to go.
Matthew Scudder used to be a cop. He walked away from the force from his own volition after doing something he couldn't live with. Since then he's operating privately without a license, but his friends in the NYPD keep sending him clients. Desperate people they don't really want to deal with. Cale Hanniford is one of those people. His estranged daughter Wendy has been murdered in brutal fashion, seemingly by Richard Vanderpoel, her roommate. The case is closed since Vanderpoel has been arrested and hung himself in his jail cell. Cale Hanniford doesn't really debate the investigation. He just wants some closure. He wants to know how he ended up with a murdered daughter. Scudder accepts the case and sets foot in the strange world of Wendy Hanniford's ghost, waking up his own at the same time.
When I say THE SINS OF THE FATHERS is influenced by the classic P.I novel, I mean the form is identical to the one you will find in Chandler and Hammett's novels. It's structured rather rigidly around one case and a series of interrogation. In that regards, Scudder reminded me of a darkened Columbo*. There is very little space for character development outside the story structure, but Lawrence Block being a brilliant writer, he ties up the loose ends and makes Scudder's moment of doubts count in the greater scheme of things. You get to know Scudder a little less than the first chapter makes you anticipate, but you get to know him just enough to want to read the second book. Just to know where he goes from there. I like it when a writers doesn't take cheap shortcuts to build a relationship in between his star protagonist and his audience.
"Why was she living with Vanderpoel?"
"He had a twelve inch tongue."
"Seriously. Was he pimping for her?"
"Probably."
"You didn't have a sheet on either of them, though."
"No. No arrest. They didn't exist officially for us until he decided to cut her up."
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS (and probably Matthew Scudder in general, I just can't say it YET) is a piece of history in hardboiled literature. My personal favorite P.I, Dennis Lehane's Patrick Kenzie probably wouldn't have existed, at least not in the same form, if it wasn't for Matt Scudder. This was the first of hopefully many, many reviews of his novels. The way I see it, things can only get better from here. First novels often feel rigid and insecure. Lawrence Block managed to keep it smart and fascinating despite those two issues (that are minor, but still present). But you know, while I didn't fall in love with the plot (it was a little predictable), I fell for Scudder, his strenghts and his doubts, the way he handle himself in the tough streets. The best is still to come, I'm sure. Expect many reviews of Lawrence Block novels in 2012.
FOUR STARS
* Which is awesome, admit it. You all watched every Columbo movies twenty times on television at your grandmother's house and never got enough of it.
Hardboiled Classic