‘Dies’ An Erratic Chip Off Typical Block

“Everybody Dies” by Lawrence Block (William Morrow, 292 pages, $25)

It’s difficult to predict how Lawrence Block fans will react to his latest novel, “Everybody Dies.”

Of course, that depends on what fans you mean.

Are we talking about fans of Block’s Matthew Scudder series, of which “Everybody Dies” is the latest offering? Are we talking about his Bernie Rhodenbarr “Burglar” series (my favorite of which is “The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling”)?

Or are we talking about the prolific Block’s other two series, the one featuring Evan Tanner or the one featuring Chip Harrison or any of his many stand-alone novels, short-story collections or books on writing?

Just right now, the subject under discussion is the Scudder series, which, unfortunately, may be best-known because of Hal Ashby’s 1986 film adaptation of the Scudder novel “Eight Million Ways to Die.”

I say unfortunate because that’s a wretched film that captures none of the book’s essence. So if that’s the only orientation you have of Block’s work, you’ve been misled. Block’s potential is much more evident in “When the Sacred Ginmill Closes,” a book that I always nominate as one of the best of contemporary hardboiled mysteries.

In fact, if you are interested in checking out Block, turn to “Sacred Ginmill” first. It is superior to “Everybody Dies” in virtually every way.

To explain why this is so, let’s examine Scudder and his life. Like most hardboiled heroes, Scudder has a painful past that he’s trying to overcome. And the painful part involves death.

He was an NYPD detective when, during a shootout, he accidentally killed a young girl. Distraught, Scudder deserted his wife and children and began drinking heavily. To make ends meet, he does “favors” for people, donating 10 percent of whatever he gets paid to church poorboxes.

In recent years, Scudder has become almost legit. He attends Alcoholics Anonymous regularly (ever since “Eight Million Ways to Die,” in fact), has obtained a private investigator’s license and even gotten married to his longtime love, the former working girl Elaine.

But he still cares for T.J., the young black man whom he befriended off the streets. And he still keeps regular company with the shadowy Mick Ballou, behind-the-scenes owner of an Irish pub and full-time gangster whose sense of honor balances out the fact that he also is a ruthless killer.

“Everybody Dies” involves a period of change for Scudder and Ballou. Scudder finds his new legitimacy confining, and Ballou finds his very existence threatened by an unknown enemy who is killing off his whole circle of acquaintances. The novel takes off when Scudder, in the course of working for Ballou, becomes a target himself.

In contrast to “When the Sacred Ginmill Closes,” a flashback to 1975, when Scudder was still drinking, “Everybody Dies” feels like a book that has been written like a paint-by-number landscape. In capturing the spirit and feel for the time, not to mention of the part of New York in which Scudder lives, “Ginmill” is a minor masterpiece, a complete statement from start to finish.

“Everybody Dies,” though, is a looser concoction. And it feels padded. Much of what occurs does so in conversation between Scudder and his various co-characters - the streetwise T.J., the lovably understanding Elaine (a product of wishful thinking if ever there was one), Scudder’s AA sponsor Jim Faber and the darkly philosophical Irishman Ballou.

There’s plenty of action, of course. The book opens with the secret burial of two murdered men and it ends with the massacre of a half-dozen others. Yet most of the bloodletting is examined afterward in extended bouts of what amounts to self-therapy, some of which just doesn’t seem quite believable.

Case in point: It’s hard to believe that participating in any massacre, even a massacre of sociopaths, wouldn’t affect someone more than it seems to mark Scudder here.

Ultimately, “Everybody Dies” resembles something out of another popular hardboiled mystery series, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels. The straightforward plot, the problem confronted, the long discussions about relationships and rationalizations, the sudden bursts of murderous violence all are what make the Spenser stories so utterly readable.

But Parker, in recent years, has run into the same problem that now seems to be affecting Block. It’s a lot harder to work with a self-satisfied protagonist than a self-abusive one. Neither Spenser nor Scudder are as interesting when they aren’t battling their inner demons.

Maybe Block recognizes that (actually, he’s too good of a writer not to). Maybe that’s why, at the end of “Everybody Dies,” Scudder looks to be backtracking a slight bit.

That’s enough to bring me back for the next episode.

Until then, there’s always “When the Sacred Ginmill Closes” to reread.