Matthew Scudder mysteries

Small-time stoolie, Jake "The Spinner" Jablon, made a lot of new enemies when he switched careers, from informer to blackmailer. And the more "clients", he figured, the more money -- and more people eager to see him dead. So no one is surprised when the pigeon is found floating in the East River with his skull bashed in. And what's worse, no one cares -- except Matthew Scudder. The ex-cop-turned-private-eye is no conscientious avenging angel. But...

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 almost come to accept...

Already at work on two dangerous cases, Matthew Scudder, the down-and-out, hard-drinking ex-cop, becomes personally involved when the wife of a friend is brutally murdered.

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-p.i. 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 maniac is determined not to rest until he's driven his nemesis back to the bottle...and then to the boneyard.

"Kenan Khoury's wife went out grocery shopping and never came home. Alive, anyway. But because Kenan Khoury buys and sells drugs for a living he can't go to the police for help. He goes to Matthew Scudder instead--an alcoholic ex-cop and unlicensed private eye who will stop at nothing to bring the brutal killers to justice before another innocent woman falls beneath their knives."--page 4 of cover.

Scudder is summoned to investigate the curious run of deaths that seem to be afflicting the members of a private club. Not just any private club, mind you, but one whose raison d'etre, in a sense, is death. Thirty men gather once a year to celebrate, well . . . not having died yet. When they do die, eventually, the last survivor appoints 30 new members to keep the flame burning. The current batch, though, are dropping at an abnormally fast pace and...

PI Matt Scudder sets out to learn who is trying to kill Mick Ballou, a gangster who is his friend and who has become the object of several assassination attempts. A dangerous assignment as Scudder himself becomes a target.

As private investigator Matthew Scudder contemplates retirement, he takes on a case for a friend who wants a background check on his daughter's suitor and finds himself menaced by a killer from the past.

Lawrence Block's seventeen Matthew Scudder novels have won the hearts of readers throughout the world—along with a bevy of awards including the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe (Germany), and the Maltese Falcon (Japan). But Scudder has starred in short fiction as well, and here is volume two which includes the following stories: Looking for David, Let's Get Lost, A Moment of Wrong Thinking, Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen, and

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