Eight Million Ways to Die by Lawrence Block

 

So this is a very early novel in the Matthew Scudder series, and it's deeply readable, with only a few things that make it seem like a time capsule from 1982--mostly the constant use of pay phones and other landlines, and the physical contacts book the main carries around. And of course, New York City is in some ways a very different city than it was forty years ago (though in some ways it isn't at all different). It's not a super-happy book, and it's got a few storylines going on, other than the killing that needs solved; the main alternate plotline is whether Scudder will figure out that he's past the point where his drinking will inevitably go nonlinear and kill him--the whole bottle isn't enough, and one drink is way too many. There's some wit and humor and verve, here, Block just naturally sees funny in things, but there's not as much laugh-out-loud funny as there is in some of his other novels. Good stuff.