Post 9/11 Matt Scudder story, where in his 60s, contently married to Elaine, all but retired and still sober, Scudder is as laid back and away from his old life as we've ever seen him.

However, winding his way across the states, returning to New York is a mass murderer, whose attention to detail, patience and changing MO has at least one man on death row for the rape and murder of three children he didn't commit.

Back in New York, and AB is killing time - and people - whilst planning a vengeance on Scudder for a slight either real or imagined. It's only in the last act that things begin to fall into place (perhaps a little too late to please some readers), and some lose threads from earlier stories, that I think I havent read, get tied up. ( )

Very slow start, hard time getting into it but big twist at the end that recovered for the rest of it ( )

I haven't read Block in several years, found this book on the shelf and thought why not. It was pretty much exactly how I remembered Block's writings. I enjoyed it. Was a quick read, and had a good resolution. ( )

I've enjoyed watching Scudder grow old. These last two have been particularly gruesome with half the book showing the POV of a deranged but capable sociopath. Nasty stuff. ( )

"All The Flowers Are Dying" Is the 16th of the 17 Matthew Scudder novels. After it, Block took six long years before publishing another one. If you are just hopping on the Scudder train, you are late and you've missed much of the journey. Scudder Is a former NYPD officer who took it hard when a young child got killed in a shooting and lost the taste for the job. He also lost the taste for his first marriage and his suburban home and moved into a residential hotel and into the bars and dives. Eventually, he picked himself up and started taking it one day at a time with endless AA meetings. He would work off the books without paperwork, taking on impossible cases as favors for friends, chasing down the slimmest of leads. At its best, this series is dark and gritty and the characters are all too real.
This volume takes an aging Scudder on a journey into several disparate mysteries that ends with a serial killer unleashing terror. It takes a real long while for this story to get moving, perhaps because too much time is spent inside the killer's head. There are threads of the story that don't immediately feel connected.Ultimately, the latter sixty percent of the story saves the day and runs ahead at breackneck speed. I still enjoy the Scudder series, and the characters I have come to know. ( )