It's been a long time since I read one of Robert Block's Matt Scudder novels, and I decided to revisit the series, since Block is one of the better hard-boiled novelists. Out on the Cutting Edge is a fine novel, appropriately moody, yet with an underlying sense of optimism.
In an earlier novel (I think the previous one, but I could be misremembering), Scudder admits he's an alcoholic and joins AA. Here, he's constantly tempted to fall off the wagon, and his internal struggle is just as suspenseful as the external events. Although the novel has the hard, cyncical edge that all good noir books have, Matt is also moving along a path of finding redemption for himself.
I have to mention the length of the book; Block writes very sparely, and fits a very solid novel into about a third of the word-count that more wordy novelists use. It was very refreshing to read such taut prose after the slackness of, say, The Way of Shadows.
My one complaint about the novel would be the character of Micky Ballou, who plays a small part here. We're told that he's a very dangerous guy, but he comes across as too approachable.
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