Matthew Scudder mysteries
The hooker was young, pretty ... and dead, butchered in a Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, was also dead, the victim of a jailhouse suicide. The case is closed, as far as the NYPD is concerned. Now the murdered prostitute's father wants it opened again—that's where Matthew Scudder comes in. But this assignment carries the unmistakable stench of sleaze and perversion, luring Scudder into a sordid world of phony
...Jerry Broadfield thinks he's a good cop. But now he's been charged with extortion—and his former buddies in the NYPD would like to see him laid out on a morgue slab for squealing to a committee on police corruption. Suddenly, he's got a lot of enemies, and when a dead call girl turns up in his apartment, his troubles get even bigger. Broadfield screams "setup," but nobody believes him—except ex-policeman, now unlicensed PI Matthew Scudder.
...Nine long years have passed since the killer last struck—nine years since eight helpless young women were brutally slaughtered by an icepick-wielding maniac. The trail grew cold, and the book was unofficially closed on a serial killer who stopped killing. But now the "Icepick Prowler" has confessed—but only to seven of the killings. Not only does he deny the eighth but he also has an airtight alibi.
Barbara Ettinger's family had
...This is a city that seduces dreamers—then eats their dreams.
Matthew Scudder understands the futility of his search for a longtime missing Midwestern innocent who wanted to be an actress in the vast meat grinder called New York City. But her frantic father heard that Scudder is the best, and now the ex-cop turned private investigator is scouring the hell called Hell's Kitchen looking for anything that might resemble a lead. And in this
...Matthew Scudder is about to face every cop's worst nightmare: James Leo Motley, psychopath extraordinaire.
Twelve years ago Matthew Scudder lied to a jury to put James Leo Motley behind bars. Now the ingenious psychopath is free, and the alcoholic ex-cop turned private investigator must pay dearly for his sins. Friends and former lovers—even strangers unfortunate enough to share Scudder's name—are turning up dead because a vengeful
...There is no accolade or major mystery award that has not already been bestowed upon Lawrence Block. His acclaimed crime novels are as intelligent, provocative, and emotionally complex as they are nerve-tighteningly intense. And perhaps the most respected of his myriad works are the Matthew Scudder books—masterworks of suspenseful invention featuring a remarkable protagonist rich in conscience and character, with all the flaws that his humanity
...In New York City, there is little sense and no rules, and those who fly the highest often come crashing down the hardest.
A deranged, derelict, crazed Vietnam vet has been arrested for gunning down successful young lawyer Glenn Holtzmann at a corner phone booth on Eleventh Avenue—and the suspect's brother wants unlicensed private investigator Matthew Scudder to prove the madman innocent. But Scudder's curiosity and dedication are leading
...An ancient brotherhood meets annually in the back room of a swank Manhattan restaurant, a fraternity created in secret to celebrate life by celebrating its dead. But the past three decades have not been kind to the Club of 31. Matthew Scudder—ex-cop and ex-boozer—has known death in all its guises, which is why he has been asked to investigate a baffling thirty-year run of suicides and suspiciously random accidents that has thinned the
...13) Even the Wicked
14) Everybody Dies
15) Hope to Die
In this sixteenth book-length adventure, Matthew Scudder, Block's acclaimed unlicensed private investigator, pursues his most personal case to date. Scudder has just agreed to investigate the ostensibly suspicious online lover of an acquaintance. It seems simple enough. At first. But when people start dying and the victims are increasingly close to home, it becomes clear that a vicious killer is at work. And the final targets may be Matt and Elaine
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