When the Sacred Windmill Closes is a much more complex and involved tale then the previous books in Lawrence Block’s popular detective series. While in previous books amateur gumshoe and professional drunk Matthew Scudder would hammer at one single case relentlessly, battering and bludgeoning it until the ugly truth lay exposed, whimpering on the concrete in a mess of blood and viscera, this sixth installment juggles multiple investigations.
The events all take place as Scudder recalls, “a long time ago,” back in the summer of 1975. Scudder is reminiscing about that summer—it was when Morrissey’s (the afterhours taproom run by IRA goons) was held-up a gunpoint. It was when drinking pal Tommy Tillary spent the night in the city with his girlfriend only to discover the next morning that someone had broken into his house out on the island and knifed his wife to death. It was the summer that Scudder’s buddy Skip Devoe, co-owner of the saloon Miss Kitty’s, had his accounting ledger stolen—the one that showed how he and his partner were skimming off the top from Uncle Sam. Now Devoe was being blackmailed for their return. In other words a busy time.
The book kicks off in present times. Scudder is now sober. He remarks in a great passage, “now I don’t drink at all. I don’t regret a single one of the drinks I took, and I hope to God I never take another. Because that, you see is the less traveled road on which I find myself these days, and it has made all the difference. Oh, yes. All the difference.” But in 1975 he did not have this tranquility—he was drinking like a fish, getting clobbered nightly and suffering blackouts. In between pickling his liver, Scudder (at the requests of his drinking buddies) was investigating all three crimes. Oddly, the details Scudder unearths seem to show links between the cases—are they connected in some way?
Everything that was great in the previous volumes of the Scudder series is on display here. When the Sacred Ginmill Closes is populated with terrific characters. The frequently soused Scudder is– as always– awesome. And his surrounding cast is likewise riveting. These are the guys inhabiting dank, ratty dives at eight in the morning. They are dicey, rough, and angry, while secretly nursing a bruised and sensitive nucleolus. Even the cops are stained with a rancid cynicism that makes them drink their lunches and stagger to their cars reeking of booze several hours after their shifts have ended. These guys are not caricatures—they are 100% (uncomfortably) real. And engrossing.
Lawrence Block’s writing has never been better, taut and compelling. I feel this is the best of the series to date—New York City is a lawn where the raccoons have ripped into the trash bags. Garbage is strewn everywhere. The scavengers are wolfing down their carrion. Yet there is virtue and integrity here as well. An outstanding novel. And as a side note–how great is the internet in this day and age where a reader (such as moi) can Youtube Dave Van Ronk’s song ‘Last Call’ and hear the music that is affecting the characters in this story so deeply!
- Goodreads rating – 4.17
- REVIEW – Truman32