Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
$8.99$8.99
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
$6.58$6.58
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Rascal Games Studio
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
Eight Million Ways to Die (Matthew Scudder) Mass Market Paperback – July 30, 2002
Purchase options and add-ons
Nobody knows better than Matthew Scudder how far down a person can sink in this city. A young prostitute named Kim knew it also—and she wanted out. Maybe Kim didn't deserve the life fate had dealt her. She surely didn't deserve her death. The alcoholic ex-cop turned p.i. was supposed to protect her, but someone slashed her to ribbons on a crumbling New York City waterfront pier. Now finding Kim's killer will be Scudder's penance. But there are lethal secrets hiding in the slain hooker's past that are far dirtier than her trade. And there are many ways of dying in this cruel and dangerous town—some quick and brutal ... and some agonizingly slow.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWilliam Morrow Paperbacks
- Publication dateJuly 30, 2002
- Dimensions4.19 x 0.96 x 6.75 inches
- ISBN-100380715732
- ISBN-13978-0380715732
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.
Product details
- Publisher : William Morrow Paperbacks (July 30, 2002)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0380715732
- ISBN-13 : 978-0380715732
- Item Weight : 7.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.19 x 0.96 x 6.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #967,514 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,000 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #7,489 in Private Investigator Mysteries (Books)
- #42,283 in Suspense Thrillers
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Lawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published more than 100 books, and no end of short stories.
LB is best known for his series characters, including Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner, and Keller. LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years and led to a series of books for writers. He has also written television and film screenplays. Several of LB’s books have been filmed, including A Walk Among the Tombstones.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America. He has won multiple Edgar and Shamus awards, the Japanese Maltese Falcon award, the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association of the UK, been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir, and has been awarded the Société 813 trophy.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Scudder is a former New York City cop who quit the force after accidentally killing a child while pursuing two thieves. By the time the book begins, he has long since left his family, and has been living for years in a mid-town Manhattan hotel. He makes his living under the table, as a cash-only unlicensed detective. His training helps him out, as do his connections on the force and on the street. His chronic drinking hinders him.
The story begins with Scudder in his favorite bar, talking to a prostitute who wants to get out of “the life.” She’s afraid to talk to her pimp, Chance, about leaving, and wants Scudder to feel him out first.
The pimp is not an easy man to find. While trying to track him down, Scudder has the following exchange with his informer, Danny Boy. The informer asks, “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a pimp.”
“Diogenes was looking for an honest man. You have more of a field to choose from.”
“I’m looking for a particular pimp.”
“They’re all particular. Some of them are downright finicky. Has he got a name?”
When Scudder manages to track him down, he finds Chance is no ordinary pimp. He’s reserved, thoughtful, well-spoken, and introspective.
After Scudder finds the pimp has no objection to his client’s leaving, the prostitute is brutally murdered in a Manhattan hotel room. The pimp, obviously, is the prime suspect. The only problem, though, is that he has an airtight alibi.
With no other suspects to pursue, NYPD lets the case languish, but Scudder isn’t willing to let it go. The pimp returns and hires Scudder himself to find the killer.
That’s the setup. Most of the action involves Scudder doing old-fashioned detective work, what Scudder calls “goyakod”: Get off your ass and knock on doors. We then follow the detective through a number of encounters with cops, pimps, prostitutes, artists, witnesses, and drinking buddies in three of New York’s five boroughs.
The book is heavy on dialog, which is one of Block’s strong points as a writer. He doesn’t need to spend much time on backstory to develop rich characters. He reveals a person’s perspectives, attitudes, and temperament through their speech.
Eight Million Ways to Die was published in 1982 and takes place around that time. Much of the book is a meditation on the state of New York City, and if you spent much time in the city in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, you’ll find that Scudder’s narrative brings the old city vividly to life.
New York in the late ‘70s, with its filthy streets, its grafitti and general slovenliness was the urban incarnation of a hangover. By the early ‘80s, crime was rampant and seemed to be getting worse every day.
Scudder begins most of his days reading the news, which seems to be a catalog of human depravity. The title of the book comes from his reflection, after reading about a number of murders, that in a city of eight million people, there are eight million ways to die.
He spends much of the book working with an NYPD homicide detective named Durkin, a cop who has seen too many of the things cops see, and who bitterly laments the decline of the city. Many of Durkin’s complaints echo those of today’s political right: the influx of poor and struggling immigrants from all corners of the world has transformed the city into one he hardly recognizes. Many of the city’s new arrivals, it seems, have brought with them the troubles they were hoping to flee.
Durkin complains that when he goes on the subway he feels like he’s in a foreign country. He is overwhelmed by a world he can no longer comprehend, and he confides to Scudder that he can’t wait to retire. Trying to keep order in such a vast, unruly city has sapped his energy to the point where he just wants to withdraw.
As he tracks down the clues to the prostitute’s murder, Scudder spends an enormous amount of time and emotional energy contemplating his alcoholism and trying to resist the temptation of drinking. He admits that part of the reason he wants to keep working the murder case is to keep his mind off booze.
I won’t say how the investigation pans out, since that’s the mystery the reader signs up for when he or she picks up the book. I will say that like most good mysteries, the story isn’t about the crime or even the solving of it. It’s about a time and a place, the psyche of the main character, the world he inhabits and the lens through which he sees it. It’s about a violent, paranoid city in decline after Son of Sam, and the struggles of one of that city’s eight million souls as he tries to come to terms with his personal demons. Its final scene, one of the most famous in all of detective fiction, tells you it’s a book about character. And it’s well worth the read.
Eight Million Ways to Die is probably one of the best of Block.
That said, I would try another Matt Scudder book and will likely do so. Try it for yourself.
-Wix Simon
-author of "A Lost Gun"
@WixSimon
Top reviews from other countries
Scudder himself is an addiction!
Matt ends this book in tears. I did too.
Great twisted story telling where NYC becomes a important character & we are kept on edge for the grand final act.