There are times when Crime Time must seem like Lawrence Block monthly - I don't think an issue has passed without a review of a Block novel, and most of them have been complementary. This issue, I'm afraid, is going to be no different.
Blame No Exit Press and Orion, who between them have been exhuming all Block's previous work, at the same time as publishing his new books. Even The Wicked is his latest Matt Scudder novel, for once out at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic. Scudder, for readers new to Block and / or Crime Time is Block's ex-alcoholic ex-cop, now a sort of unofficial private eye for those in the know.
Even The Wicked has a plot that goes back to Edgar Wallace's Four Just Men - the criminal who punishes those who are beyond the law, in this case a the self-styled 'Will Of The People', who is topping criminals in the public eye faster than you can say Jack Robinson.
But it's not the plot it's what you do with it, as Lia Matera, whose excellent Designer Crimes has the same plot device, proved earlier this year. Block is a master at misdirection, and so we end up with two mysteries for the price of one.
Scudder isn't as dark as he once was, in fact he's almost inhabiting Bernie Rhodenbarr territory these days with a permanent cast of friends that surround and help him.
It's effortless reading prose as good as this. Even in the darkest passages of his books Block's writing has a lightness that communicates itself to the reader.
