One of the unifying techniques in Eight Million Ways to Die is the reflection of the macrocosm of the city in the microcosm of the detective. Just as the city is out of control with millions of strangers of different backgrounds crammed into a small space together (like riders on a subway) where law enforcement is futile and lawlessness can strike at any time (as in the case of a transit cop killed for telling a passenger to put out his cigarette), so Scudder goes out of control, falling into an alcoholic blackout and waking up in a hospital with a doctor wanting to commit him to a detoxification center. Aristotle said that memory provides the thread that makes one an individual human. A man without the faculty of coherent memory of his actions is less human and less humane than one who knows what he is doing...