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Learn moreThere is no accolade or major mystery award that has not already been bestowed upon Lawrence Block. His acclaimed crime novels are as intelligent, provocative, and emotionally complex as they are nerve-tighteningly intense. And perhaps the most respected of his myriad works are the Matthew Scudder books—masterworks of suspenseful invention featuring a remarkable protagonist rich in conscience and character, with all the flaws that his humanity entails. This is the detective novel as high art.
In Matt Scudder's mind, money, power, and position elevate nobody above morality or the law. Now the ex-cop and unlicensed PI has been hired to prove that socialite Richard Thurman orchestrated the brutal murder of his beautiful, pregnant wife. During Scudder's hard-drinking years, he left a piece of his soul on every seedy corner of the Big Apple. But this case is more depraved and more potentially devastating than anything he experienced while floundering in the urban depths. Because this investigation is leading Scudder on a frightening grand tour of New York's sex-for-sale underworld—where an innocent young life is simply a commodity to be bought and perverted … and then destroyed.
With chapters by Mary Higgins Clark, John Connolly, Charlaine Harris, CJ Box, Mark Billingham, Lawrence Block, Ken Bruen, Alafair Burke, Stephen L. Carter, Marcia Clark, Max Allan Collins, James Grady, Heather Graham, Bryan Gruley, Val McDermid, SJ Rozan, Dana Stabenow, Lisa Unger, and Sarah Weinman.
Joe Barrett began his acting career at the age of five in the basement of his family's home in upstate New York. He has gone on to play many stage roles, both on and off-Broadway, and in regional theaters from Los Angeles, Houston, and St. Louis to Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Maine. He has appeared in films and television, both prime time and late night, and in hundreds of television and radio commercials. Joe has narrated over two hundred audiobooks. He has been an Audie Award finalist eight times, and his narration of Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman won the 2013 Audie Award for Original Work. AudioFile magazine has granted Joe fourteen Earphones Awards, including for James Salter's All That Is and Donald Katz's Home Fires. Regarding Joe's narration of John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, AudioFile said, "This moving book comes across like a concerto . . . with a soloist-Owen's voice-rising from the background of an orchestral narration." Joe is married to actor Andrea Wright, and together they have four very grown children.
Reviews
“Darkly entertaining…Shocking…This one has more voltage than most.”
“Outstanding…A smoothly paced, deftly plotted, brightly phrased study of perversity and coincidence with many twists and no straight arrows.”
“Block and Scudder never set a foot wrong on New York’s cracked, grimy sidewalks.”
“[A] pitch-perfect crime story…[Scudder’s] evolution in Block’s series, fraught with ambiguity, is as convincing as a real life.”
“This strong cast of supporting characters, along with a riveting plot and forceful prose, place this on the high priority list.”
“Strong stuff from a real pro.”
“A wrenching and lurid Matt Scudder outing that pits the unlicensed PI against child-killing slime and climaxes in vigilante violence…Written with great heart and care.”
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