The Night and the Music, Lawrence Block
The Night and the Music, Lawrence Block
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

The Night and the Music
The Matthew Scudder Stories

Author: Lawrence Block

Narrator: Lawrence Block

Unabridged: 6 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/01/2012

Synopsis

Award-winning author Lawrence Block presents a rich volume of novelettes, short stories, and vignettes starring private eye Matthew Scudder. Lawrence Block’s seventeen Matthew Scudder novels have won the hearts of readers throughout the world—along with a bevy of awards including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe (Germany), and the Maltese Falcon (Japan). But Scudder has starred in short fiction as well, and it’s all here, from a pair of late-70’s novelettes (Out the Window and A Candle for the Bag Lady) through “By the Dawn’s Early Light” (Edgar) and “The Merciful Angel of Death” (Shamus), all the way to “One Last Night at Grogan’s,” a moving and elegiac story never before published.Some of these stories appeared in such magazines as Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, and Playboy. The title vignette, “The Night and the Music,” was written for a NYC jazz festival program; another, “Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen,” has appeared only as the text of a limited-edition broadside. Several stories look back from the time of their writing, with Scudder recounting events from his former life as a cop, first as a patrolman partnered with the legendary Vince Mahaffey, then as an NYPD detective leading a double life.Along with these eleven stories and novelettes, The Night and the Music includes a list of the seventeen novels in chronological order, and an author’s note detailing the origin and bibliographical details of each of the stories. Brian Koppelman, the prominent screenwriter and director (Solitary Man, Ocean’s Thirteen, Rounders) and a major Matt Scudder fan, has sweetened the pot with an introduction.

About Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block is the recipient of a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and a New York Times bestselling author. His prolific career spans over one hundred books, including four bestselling series and dozens of short stories and articles. He has won multiple Edgar, and Shamus awards, two Falcon Awards from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, the Nero and Philip Marlowe Awards, the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of America, and many others. Aside from being a mystery writer, he has also written a number of episodes for television, including two episodes of the ESPN series Tilt; he also cowrote the screenplay for the film My Blueberry Nights, starring Norah Jones. Block currently lives in New York City with his wife, Lynne.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bill

This, the last Matt Scudder book to be issued, published in 2013, is a rather motley affair. A Drop of the Hard Stuff (2011) has the honor of being--at least so far--the last substantial entry in the Scudder Series. The Night of the Music is instead, a collection of odds and ends: eleven short piece......more

Goodreads review by Dave

Play this as you read this review, “You and the Night and the Music,” Frank Sinatra: [URL not allowed] "I seem to remember every drink I ever drank; I just don't always remember why." I have as of this date read or listened to 13 of Lawrence Block’s 17 Matthew Scudder novels and......more

Goodreads review by Kemper

This was a good year for fans of Lawrence Block’s detective Matthew Scudder. First we got a new novel with A Drop of the Hard Stuff and then this collection of short stories. In Matt’s long history he’s gone from alcoholic ex-cop dealing with the guilt of accidently killing a child while breaking up......more

Goodreads review by James

Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder has been one of the most enduring and certainly one of the best-written protagonists in the history of crime fiction. Beginning with The Sins of the Fathers in 1976, Block has written seventeeen novels featuring Scudder, the recovering alcoholic who is also a cop-tur......more

Quotes

“The Night and the Music is a collection of all the short stories about Matthew Scudder. Within there is a history of the detective many have followed over the years. The stories explore Scudder as well as other well-known characters and frame the entire life of the famous detective from his time on the force to what looks like retirement. The stories also all have a strong sense of place, as the author celebrates the good and bad of New York…In total, the stories could serve as either a companion to the books, if you’ve read them, or an introduction to the characters if you have not…Also included in the book is a touching introduction from Brian Koppleman where he discusses the impact the books had on him as a young man and what the characters mean to him now. It also includes a revealing author’s note that shines as a story of its own. This is a marvelous collection for fans of Scudder and for those who have never read those riveting books.” CrimeFictionLover.com 

“The majority of these shorts are reprints, but “Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen” and “One Last Night at Grogan’s” are new to this volume and bring Scudder’s story up-to-date. Block mixes traditional procedural whodunits with more contemplative and anecdotal character-driven pieces. In the newer writings, Scudder is older, wiser, married (again), off the booze, and looking at life through more experienced eyes. Couched within the action are commentaries about the then looming AIDS crisis and the lingering problem of the homeless in New York, so there’s a conscience at work. Verdict:  A quicker, more enjoyable read you won’t find. Veteran Scudder fans will rejoice at sharing his adventures again. May Block—and Scudder—never retire.” Library Journal

“After twenty-five years in the business, Matt Scudder still strolls New York’s mean streets as if he had personally laid the cobblestones.” New York Times Book Review, praise for the series

“One of the very best writers now working the beat. Block has done something new and remarkable with the private-eye novel.” Wall Street Journal, praise for the author

“When Lawrence Block is in his Matt Scudder mode, crime fiction can sidle up so close to literature that often there’s no degree of difference.” Philadelphia Inquirer, praise for the series

“One of the most complex and compelling heroes in modern fiction. Thrillers don't get better than this.” Publishers Weekly, praise for the series

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