Rating : 5/5
Read between June 19th to June 21st 2016
Read between June 19th to June 21st 2016
Edition Details:
Format : Paperback
Page Count: 217
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Series : Hard Case Crime #15
Format : Paperback
Page Count: 217
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Series : Hard Case Crime #15
First Sentence:
The name is Cordell.
The name is Cordell.
Once Matt Cordell had everything. He had his own detective agency. He had a loving wife and world he had constructed with her. Then he found out his wife was cheating on him and everything went downhill.
His detective agency was shut down as his license was revoked. He began drinking and now he had nothing. He had become a bum who just worried about the source of his next drink.
He had left his past life behind and didn’t want anything to do with it. But then Johnny Bridges came to find him. Johnny was his childhood friend and wanted him to do an investigation for him. It was a small case and Johnny succeeds in persuading him.
Matt thinks that he’ll just look but when people start dying he finds himself sucked into a murder investigation. He is also under suspicion and only way to clear his name is to find out who’s the real killer.
Now Matt is standing between the gutter and the grave and if he succeeds there is chance of him finding his life between them.
His detective agency was shut down as his license was revoked. He began drinking and now he had nothing. He had become a bum who just worried about the source of his next drink.
He had left his past life behind and didn’t want anything to do with it. But then Johnny Bridges came to find him. Johnny was his childhood friend and wanted him to do an investigation for him. It was a small case and Johnny succeeds in persuading him.
Matt thinks that he’ll just look but when people start dying he finds himself sucked into a murder investigation. He is also under suspicion and only way to clear his name is to find out who’s the real killer.
Now Matt is standing between the gutter and the grave and if he succeeds there is chance of him finding his life between them.
Ed Mcbain’s The gutter and the grave is another amazing hard case crime book that i really enjoyed reading. I have read few books in Ed Mcbain’s 87th Precinct series and i liked them. This one falls into your regular detective fiction.
If you like detective fiction then you’d surely like it. It has everything from a brooding detective who’s at his lowest, people who keep lying and murders that keep happening. The story is fast paced that would surely force you to keep turning pages.
If you like detective fiction then you’d surely like it. It has everything from a brooding detective who’s at his lowest, people who keep lying and murders that keep happening. The story is fast paced that would surely force you to keep turning pages.
Matt Cordell as a protagonist is a no nonsense guy who has never recovered from the betrayal from his cheating wife. When such things happen people try to immerse themselves in their work but Matt was forced to leave his work which i think was more responsible for him becoming a drunk. He has now finally gotten a chance to raise himself from his condition and become again the man he once was.
The book is a who dun it. I couldn’t guess who the killer was (before the author revealed it) which for me is a parameter by which i measure such books. There are two things that you need to find out in a typical whodunit:
a)Who is the murderer?
b) How was the murder done?
There are other questions too like why did the murder happen but these two are the main one imho.
a)Who is the murderer?
b) How was the murder done?
There are other questions too like why did the murder happen but these two are the main one imho.
If i’m able to find out the answers to both before the author reveals it then for me it’s not that good a book. But if i’m not able to find out answers to any one of the question then for me it surely would be a good book as i’d be forced to complete the book to find the answers. This book fall in the good book category as i couldn’t figure out who was killer until the big reveal.
I would definitely recommend this gem of a book to you. I enjoyed reading it a lot and i do hope that you would too.
If you haven’t read this book then you can get it from the following link:
If you haven’t read this book then you can get it from the following link:
