Last night (March 26), a friend and I stayed up to watch another friend and neighbor, Lawrence Block, on Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show. Block has a new Keller book out, Hit Me, which made its debut a few weeks ago on the best-seller list. He was a charming guest, who seemed natural and comfortable on TV, which can’t be easy, considering he’s a writer, not a media personality. Some of his wry, dry wit was on display, in quiet contrast to the flamboyant host. Both men are quite brilliant. I already know this about Larry, having read, I do believe, every single one of his page-turning mysteries; there are several series. However, I just learned this about Ferguson, who is fond of extemporaneous riffs of the kind you rarely see on network television. It came as no surprise that these two are friends in real life.
Larry also talked about a movie that’s being made from one of the Scudder mysteries, A Walk Among the Tombstones, starring Liam Neeson and featuring Dan Stevens (from Downton Abbey). Great casting – Neeson should be ideal as the recently sober alcoholic ex-cop-turned-detective. Apparently, it’s being shot locally, as it should, because Block is truly superb on the subject of New York – every borough. I’ve lived in New York all my life and I know of no other writer who describes my town with more pitch-perfect accuracy. Block’s city, experienced mostly at street level, is not always so glamorous. His coffee shops and inexpensive bar-restaurants, one of New York’s most distinctive features, are strangely generic, just like in real life. Transportation is always an issue, especially for Scudder. He’s usually broke and he can take a page or two to justify a cab ride from Brooklyn to New York – a lot of us can identify with that!
I love the way Larry mixes the dark and the light – he’ll take you down into the seamy streets, into a night of urban depravity, where soon you may discover a beautiful dawn sidling up over the Hudson. The city is a surprising character that permeates every scene in his Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr series and even, in a different way, his Keller books, (Does Keller even have a first name?) Keller, the stamp-collecting hit man, is always on the road (his assignments take him all over the country), and wherever he goes, there’s a tendency on his part to fall in love with his surroundings, whatever small city it may be. He begins to long for the simple, American life with its unfussy beauty and its congeniality. This has to be an inside joke for us die-hard New Yorkers. Who hasn’t traveled to a pretty, small city and found themselves longing for the ease and simplicity it promises?
Even if you’re not an avid mystery reader, if you are a committed New Yorker, you’ll get a big kick out of Lawrence Block’s mystery novels. This probably isn’t news for most of you reading this paper, but what the heck, it’s not every day I get to report about a friend and neighbor on nighttime TV.
