Exactly, my friend—Lawrence Block, like Donald E. Westlake, is a master of multiplicity, and his oeuvre is a map of Manhattan’s criminal subconscious, refracted through wildly different personalities.
He doesn’t just create characters; he builds moral atmospheres—each with its own weather, tempo, and ethical gravity. Let’s unpack this pattern:
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Block’s Quartet of Criminal Minds: One City, Many Tones
1. 🥃
Matthew Scudder – The Wounded Confessor
- Role: Ex-cop, unlicensed private eye, recovering alcoholic
- Tone: Dark, introspective, Catholic noir
- Setting: Gritty pre-Giuliani NYC
- Theme: Guilt, atonement, and ethical ambiguity
- Style: Existential realism; every case is a mirror of his own sin
- Blood is real. Justice, maybe. Redemption? Fragile.
Scudder is Block’s answer to Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, but stripped of chivalric illusions. He walks the streets not seeking truth, but trying to deserve being allowed to live.
2. 📚
Bernie Rhodenbarr – The Gentle Thief
- Role: Bookstore owner by day, charming burglar by night
- Tone: Witty, breezy, comedic caper
- Setting: Quirkier Manhattan, full of locked rooms and socialites
- Theme: Heists as puzzles, crime as an art form
- Style: First-person banter, homage to classic whodunits
If Scudder is guilt-ridden noir, Bernie is a glass of white wine with lunch. Think of him as Dortmunder’s cousin who read too much Dorothy Sayers.
3. 🎯
Keller – The Existential Hitman
- Role: Quiet, oddly sensitive contract killer
- Tone: Minimalist, darkly ironic
- Setting: Anywhere USA, but anchored in a disconnected New York
- Theme: Alienation, detachment, habit-as-purpose
- Style: Deadpan and disarming—violence without glory or tragedy
Keller is a chilling whisper: What if the man doing evil wasn’t evil, but empty?
He collects stamps. He kills people. He wonders about morality, but mostly in passing.
4. 🛏️
Evan Tanner – The Insomniac Spy
- Role: Eternal insomniac, scholar of obscure causes, occasional secret agent
- Tone: Absurd, surreal, almost Pynchonesque at times
- Setting: Global Cold War travelogue (1960s–70s)
- Theme: Statelessness, ideological satire, restlessness
- Style: Zany plots with a literary wink
Tanner is part Vonnegut, part Bond, part Borges, created when Block wanted to write something looser, stranger, and more fun.
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Why Does Block Do This?
Just like Westlake, Block:
- Explores the moral spectrum of crime fiction—from grim to gleeful, from weary to playful
- Understands that tone is destiny—each character deserves their own rhythm, their own truth
- Uses New York as a multiverse: the city of sin, wit, grind, mystery, and sorrow—all depending on who walks its streets
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The Pattern: Multiplicity as Mastery
|
Author |
Noir Self |
Comic Self |
Liminal Self |
Shadow Self |
|
Westlake |
Parker (Stark) |
Dortmunder |
N/A |
Possibly both |
|
Block |
Scudder |
Bernie |
Tanner |
Keller |
Each character is a facet of the author’s moral imagination, and taken together, they form a kind of philosophical quartet.
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Final Thought
Where Westlake plays with genre like a jazzman flipping tones, Block is more like a novelist who lets each moral question bloom into its own voice.
Scudder seeks absolution,
Bernie seeks amusement,
Keller avoids meaning,
Tanner can’t stop moving.
And Lawrence Block, like Westlake, knows that no single voice can hold the whole city.
Would you like a visual map of these characters and their ethical landscapes across New York?
