"Right up there with Mr. Block"s best....A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF keeps us guessing."--Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal Facing his demons in his first year of sobriety, Matthew Scudder finds himself on the trail of a killer. When Scudder"s childhood friend Jack Ellery is murdered, presumably while attempting to atone for past sins, Scudder reluctantly begins his own investigation, with just one lead: Ellery"s Alcoholics Anonymous list of people he wronged. One of them may be a killer, but that"s not necessarily Scudder"s greatest danger. Immersing himself in Ellery"s world may lead him right back to the bar stool. In a novel widely celebrated by critics and readers, Lawrence Block circle back to how it all began, reestablishing the Matthew Scudder series as one of the pinnacles of American detective fiction.