When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (Matthew Scudder, #6)

by Lawrence Block

And so we’ve had another night Of poetry and poses And each man knows he’ll be alone When the sacred ginmill closes. —DAVE VAN RONK

They didn’t water the booze and they poured a good drink. Wasn’t that as much of a character reference as any man needed?

What have you got there, some of that famous Kentucky coffee of yours?”

A bottle of Maker’s Mark from the store around the corner stood on top of her glass-and-wrought-iron coffee table. Her air-conditioner was on, quieter than mine and more effective. We were drinking out of rocks glasses but we weren’t bothering with ice.

“Oh, that’s what they all say. ‘My wife won’t even take it in her hand.’ I got a dirty mind, Matthew.” “Nothing wrong with that.” “I told you bourbon was low-down. Brings out the beast in a person. You could kiss me.” “You could put the gun away.” “You got something against kissing a woman with a gun in her hand?”

I wasn’t sure I liked him, but I was just as happy not to like the men I worked for. It bothered me less that way if I felt I was giving them less than full value.

You know how many actors it takes to change a lightbulb? Nine. One to climb up and replace it and eight others to stand around the ladder and say, ‘That should be me up there!’ ” “That’s not bad.”

“The Matthew Scudder novels are among the finest detective books penned in this century.”

--Jonathan Kellerman

“It is the perfect book to slap down in front of the otherwise literate people who ask, ‘Why do you spend so much time reading that crime stuff?’ ” Chicago Tribune

“Block’s masterpiece and the best of the Matt Scudder series. More than a mystery, it is a novel about men, about drinking, about talking, about the city of New York . . . This is American writing at its finest, as taut as a hang-rope and as gut-wrenching as the consequent drop. If Block had written nothing except this he’d still beup there with the immortals.” Irish Times