11 short stories or novellas from the master mystery writer, Lawrence Block. I don't think you could claim to be a fan of great mystery if you have not read Block's library of titles. This compilation is a great place to start your binge.

While Block’s gentleman burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr will always be my favorite, Matthew Scudder has a gritty appeal all his own. There are 17 Scudder novels to date. The Night And The Music pulls together 11 novellas and short stories. It can seem like a somewhat uneven scrapple of a compilation, but it’s a must-read for Scudder fans or Lawrence Block fans in general.

It contains the following stories:
Out the Window
A Candle for the Bag Lady
By the Dawn’s Early Light
Batman’s Helpers
The Merciful Angel of Death
The Night and the Music
Looking for David
Let’s Get Lost
A Moment of Wrong Thinking
Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen
One Last Night at Grogan’s

One of my favorite lines was from A Candle For The Bag Lady, originally published in 1977.

“I don’t know where he lives. I have the feeling he’s Canadian. So many people
are nowadays. It used to be that no one was Canadian and now simply everybody
is. I’m sure it must be a virus.”

I received this Advanced Reader Copy of The Night And The Music from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lawrence Block is one of my favorite authors, and this latest collection did not disappoint. It was so enjoyable to get back to Matt Scudder and Elaine and all the rest of their world.

The mysteries are clever, but what's best is Block's writing style and the warmth that he generates, even when terrible things are happening.

my favorite character from Block. some very nice stores here to go along with the novels. great collection. im so glad i got a signed numbered copy of this from Subterranean Press.

I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

This was a satisfying read, as a collection of Matthew Scudder stories set at various stages of his career/life.

While I feel this collection was best suited for longtime readers of Scudder's cases, this was a fine introduction for new readers, giving us a glimpse of this investigator/ex-cop and the style that Block uses with him.

I was captivated enough in the overall character and writing style to be drawn into the novel series that these stories are based on, so with that it did its job.

“The Night and the Music” by Lawrence Block is the latest (final?) collection of short stories featuring Matthew Scudder, one of Mr. Block’s most-loved characters. In this collection which spans from the 1970s till today, we get to see the complete history of Scudder: married cop, alcoholic private-eye, aging sober detective once again married.

This collection runs the gamut from murder mystery novelettes to character studies to short reminisces as Scudder fades into the sunset. And for me the best of the bunch are the mysteries: a waitress who commits suicide for no reason, a bag lady who leaves Scudder money (to find her killer?), a bar buddy who may have killed his wife. But Scudder books have always been more about the characters and the human condition than the mysteries, and we have several short stories here about New York characters, the best being about hustling immigrant street vendors and an angel of death during the AIDS epidemic. And for the hardcore fans we see Matthew and Elaine sitting back and getting old together.

A great treat for the fans, others may want to start with the novels, all of which are pretty darn excellent.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Subterranean Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

It's possible that I'm one of the very few people who will read this book who has never read a Matthew Scudder novel before. I'm not sure that I've ever read any novel by Lawrence Block. I've been wanting to read some of Block's work, and I've been in the mood for some 'hardboiled' fiction so I thought I'd give this a try. I'm glad I did.

It should not surprise anyone that someone with Block's publishing history knows how to tell a good story. What was a surprise, however, was how effortlessly Block managed to combine the classic, hard-boiled detective fiction popular in the 1950's with the modern day world and modern P.I.

Though I've never read a Matthew Scudder novel, I feel as though I got a pretty good handle on the character from these stories. Starting with the first story in the collection, "Out the Window," we get a idea of Scudder's keen sense, and observation, his drive to find a conclusion, and that he's willing to get pretty dirty to find the answers ("I spent the next five days picking the scabs off Paula Wittlauer's life").

In "By the Dawn's Early Light" we see that Scudder isn't afraid to do what's 'right' (by his moral standards as well as the general morals of the population) rather than trusting a system that is set up to offer every protection to the accused (and thereby the guilty as well). The story is more a reflection on a past case and the current Scudder does say he would do things differently.

We also see that Scudder tends to look favorably on the downtrodden, doing what he can for them

I gather that the collection is a bit of a 'good-bye' to the character and the final story reflects this, with a core group of the characters gathered for a final time in a favorite local hangout. I suspect this is a place that appears in many of the books.

I really liked this collection and I will be seeking out some of Block's Matthew Scudder novels based on my readings here. I don't think I would call these mystery stories specifically (some of them clearly are, like the aforementioned "Out the Window") but rather a 'procedural' or a detective story, where the focus is on a character or their methods instead of on the mystery itself.

This book contains the following:

Growing Up with Matt Scudder by Brian Koppelman
"Out the Window"
"A Candle for the Bag Lady"
"By the Dawn’s Early Light"
"Batman’s Helpers"
"The Merciful Angel of Death"
"The Night and the Music"
"Looking for David"
"Let’s Get Lost"
"A Moment of Wrong Thinking"
"Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen"
"One Last Night at Grogan’s"
About These Stories…
Beyond the Afterword
A final, technical, note, which does not impact my review; this book, as it was sent to my Kindle, was stripped of some formatting so that the title of each new story was missing. In general, I could tell when a story was finished and therefore when a new one was starting, but I did need to go to the PDF that I was sent as well in order to really see the separation of stories. But I don't like to read for pleasure from a computer screen - I do enough of that in my day to day work. Hopefully this is resolved for the actual sale purchases of the digital book.

Looking for a good book? The Night and the Music by Lawrence block is a collection of short stories featuring the author's popular detective, Matthew Scudder. Fans of the Matthew Scudder books won't want to miss this collection and newcomers, such as myself, will find they don't need any prior knowledge of the character to enjoy these well written stories.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. Always loved the Matthew Scudder novels, but hadn't read any of the short stories. These were just as enjoyable. Always loved the characters, and just smaller, bite sized stories. Maybe we will get more Scudder novels. #TheNightandtheMusic #NetGalley

First published in 2011; published in a deluxe edition by Subterranean Press on September 30, 2021

Lawrence Block has always been an observer of humanity. Much of his fiction fits within a softer, less hardboiled version of the noir tradition. Not long ago, Subterranean Press released a volume of Block’s stories about Bernie Rhodenbarr, the gentleman bandit. The Night and the Music collects short stories that feature Block’s best recurring character, Matthew Scudder. It concludes with Block's explanation of his history with Scudder and his memories of the collected stories.

Scudder began the series as a damaged man, not quite an antihero but far from a role model. Scudder is an ex-cop. When he was on the force, he shot at a murderer and one of his shots killed a little girl. End of his job, end of his marriage, end of his relationship with his children, end of his sobriety. “People go through changes and life does the damnedest things to us all.”

Scudder’s life has changed for the better over the years that Block has written about him. Over the course of 17 novels published between 1976 and 2011, Scudder stopped drinking and married a former hooker. Throughout the series, Scudder never lost his empathy for individuals who have lived unfortunate lives.

Scudder’s world is filled with corrupt and racist cops, newsstand gossips, and neighborhood residents who are panhandlers, drunks, homeless, unbalanced. Scudder tolerates the cops and treats the residents with dignity and respect. He sees the people on the street, even as wealthier residents pretend they don’t exist or want them chased away.

“A Candle for the Bag Lady” is the best story in the volume and one of the best short stories in crime fiction. A shopping bag lady on the periphery of Scudder’s existence is murdered. She leaves him $1,200 in her will. Scudder investigates both the murder and the reason she named him as her beneficiary. The story is about the ways that people touch lives without knowing the impact they’ve made. The moral of the story is that everybody matters. Whether we think about them or not, whether we notice them or not, they matter.

Most of the other stories are quite good. A man claims to be framed for his wife’s murder and asks for Scudder’s help. Scudder gives him exactly what he deserves. A waitress at Scudder’s gin joint dives out a seventeenth-floor window, naked. Her sister believes she was murdered. Scudder investigates the case, taking on a locked door mystery in the process. Years after Scudder sent a man to prison for murder, the man tells Scudder his life story. The story is interesting because of the unusual motive that the man had for killing his lover — and because of the gruesome way in which the killer achieved his objective.

In one of the most entertaining stories, Scudder recalls a time when he was a somewhat corrupt cop who was asked to help some poker players deal with a stabbing death. Scudder immediately sees through their lies but also sees how he can create an outcome that will do justice while making everyone happy.

In the collection’s most offbeat story, Scudder joins a crew that has been hired to confiscate unlicensed Batman products from New York street vendors. Scudder realizes he doesn’t have the heart to bully people who don’t speak English and don’t know anything about copyright law. Another story that breaks the pattern of private detective fiction is a sensitive contemplation of AIDS and death, a story that has Scudder looking for an angel of death who might be a mercy killer.

I love Block’s dialog, the way collateral characters ramble about nothing yet reveal something of their place in the world. For my money, Block has always written some of the best dialog in crime fiction.

A few of the stories failed to resonate with me. The title story and a couple of others seem designed to tie up loose ends in Scudder’s life; they don’t work well as independent stories. Most of the stories, however, will appeal to fans of the Scudder novels — which should include most fans of crime fiction.

RECOMMENDED

Back in the day, I read all of Lawrence Block’s Bernie the Burglar novels and a few of his Matt Scudder novels. Block is a giant in the crime fiction genre. He’s a prolific writer who has won earn countless awards and raves. Block introduced Matthew Scudder, an alcoholic ex-cop turned unlicensed private investigator, in the mid1970s. Scudder has been around for awhile and has seen some things. The stories in this collection were published in various magazines and anthologies at over time. One of the stories was written especially for this edition. The stories are a mish-mash and cover various stages of Scudder’s life and career. In some he’s drinking a lot after his life imploded after accidental killing a child while trying to stop a robbery in progress. In other stories, Scudder is remarried and is a recovering alcoholic. The stories are wide ranging. The anthology opens with Scudder investigating the apparent suicide of a waitress who worked at his favorite bar. In another, his curiosity gets the better of him when he finds out a murdered neighborhood bag lady bequeathed him a nice chunk of money in her will. A few stories are from when he was still with the police department. He has his own idea of justice that doesn’t always follow the law. You don’t have to be familiar with any of the Scudder novels to enjoy this collection. Block knows how to craft an intriguing story whether it’s a novel or short story.

Alcoholic ex-cop Matthew Scudder is that rarest of fictional characters who ages in something approximating real time. Since making his debut back in 1976, in the novel The Sins of the Fathers, Scudder has gone through a lot of changes in both his personal and professional life. No longer an unlicensed investigator who "does favors" for people in return for cash "gifts", he is now licensed, respectable, married and somewhere near 80-years old.

This anthology collection of novelettes, short-stories, vignettes, and essays published at various times captures the essence of the man and the changes he's gone through over the last forty-five years. They take us from when Scudder was still learning the ropes as a patrolman in uniform, a married police detective with a hooker girlfriend, an ex-cop who walked away from his wife and kids, an alcoholic struggling mightily not to drink, and on through to one last night spent in a notorious local ginmill with the equally notorious career criminal who somewhere along the line became one of his best friends. Every Scudder short ever published in one anthology collection. This is the good stuff!

The collection was previously published as an ebook and paperback edition ten years ago (in 2011). At that time many of these stories had only had limited publication and least one of them, 'One Last Night at Grogan's', was written specifically for the collection. This new edition will be published in both limited and trade hardcover editions featuring a beautiful dustjacket illustration and frontispiece by John K. Snyder III, the artist who previously adapted Eight Million Ways to Die (Matthew Scudder #5) into an amazing graphic novel (highly recommend it!).

A new afterward titled, appropriately enough, 'Beyond the Afterward' appears for the first time in this latest edition. It is a beautiful, heartfelt message from author Lawrence Block explaining why he considered but ultimately chose not to include a new Scudder story for this book. If you're a long time fan, like I am, that entry alone is worth the price of admission.

***I received a free digital review copy of this title from NetGalley and Subterranean Press for which I thank them profusely (even though I had already preordered a copy of the limited hardcover edition the moment I heard about it).

If you're as dedicated a fan of Lawrence Block as this reader is, you can never get enough of his series protagonists, from Keller the assassin to Bernie the Burglar , and this collection of stories featuring my favorite Block leading man, Matt Scudder, will tickle your fancy . Three stories cover various periods in Matt's life, from his years on the police force when he was a semi alcoholic father and husband to his midlife adventures in Manhattan living in an SRO in midtown Manhattan and working as an unlicensed but very effective PI. In a few later stories , the autumnal feeling that permeates the action adds an elegaic overlay to his late life friendships with familiar characters like Mick Ballot, once an adversary and now a friend, and Arlene, the working girl he married in one of his last adventures .
Most of these gems have been published in various magazines and collections over the years, but there's one commissioned just for this volume, and all are worth a second read - or a first one if you haven't read them before

The Night and The Music by Lawrence Block- A book-load of Matt Scudder novellas, novelettes, and short stories is a welcome addition to the many memorable novels in this series. We see Scudder weaving his way through various phases of his life(to drink or not to drink), and finding his own brand of justice. There's turmoil, heartache, and laughs, with Matt always stoic in his appreciation for right and wrong. This book has been out for a while but I'm reviewing this edition by Subterranean Press, who are sure to present a beautifully rendered copy. If you're a Scudder fan, it's a lock!