Matthew Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life. Hes sober, hes married, and the state just gave him a private investigators license. Hes growing older, and hes even getting respectable.And his town is mellowing, too. The crime rates down and the stock markets up. Gentrifications prettying up the old neighborhood. The New York streets dont seem so mean anymore.Then Scudder signs on to help his closest and most unlikely friend, the larger-than-life Hells Kitchen hoodlum Mick Ballou. And all hell breaks loose.Scudder finds out hes not so respectable after all. He learns the spruced-up sidewalks of New York are as mean as they ever were, dark and gritty and stained with blood. And he discovers hes living in a world where the past is a minefield, the present is a war zone, and the futures an open question. Its a world where nothings certain and nobodys safe, a random universe where no mans survival can be taken for granted -- not even his own.A world where everybody dies.Matt Scudders most desperate and suspenseful case is Lawrence Blocks richest, strongest, finest novel.