A Long Line of Dead Men
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, 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 ranks of this very select group of gentlemen.
But Scudder has mortality problems of his own, for this is a city that feeds mercilessly on the unsuspecting— and even the powerful and those who serve them are easy prey. There are too many secrets here, and too many places for a maddeningly patient serial killer to hide… and wait… and strike.
A New York Times Notable Book
Even the Wicked
Matthew Scudder knows that justice is an elusive commodity in the big city, where a harmless man can be shot dead in a public place while criminals fly free through holes in a tattered legal system. But now a vigilante is roaming among the millions, executing those he feels deserve to die. He calls himself 'The Will of the People,' an ingenious serial killer who announces his specific murderous intentions to the media before carrying through on his threats. A child molester, a Mafia don, a violent anti-abortionist, even the protected and untouchable are being ruthlessly erased by New York's latest celebrity avenger.
Scudder knows that no one is innocent— but who among us has the right to play God? It is a question that will haunt the newly licensed P.I.. on his journey through the bleak city grays as he searches for the sanity in urban madness… and for a frighteningly efficient killer who can do the impossible.
Everybody Dies
Matt Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life. The crime rate's down and the stock market's up.
Gentrification's prettying up the old neighborhood. The New York streets don't look so mean anymore.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Scudder quickly discovers the spruced-up sidewalks are as mean as ever— dark and gritty and stained with blood. He's living in a world where the past is a minefield, the present is a war zone, and the future's an open question. It's a world where nothing is certain and nobody's safe, a random universe where no
one's survival can be taken for granted— not even his own. A world where everybody dies.
A New York Times and Publishers Weekly Notable Book HOPE TO DIE
A Matthew Scudder Crime Novel
When a prominent Manhattan couple is killed in a brutal home invasion, the whole city catches its breath.
A few days later, their killers turn up dead behind a locked door in Brooklyn. One has killed his partner, then himself.
The city sighs with relief. The cops close the case.
Private investigator Matt Scudder and his wife were in the same room with the couple just hours before their death, and in spite of himself, Scudder is drawn to the case. The closer he looks, the more he senses the presence of a third man, a puppet master who manipulated his two accomplices, then cut their strings when he was done with them.
The villain who looms in the shadows is cold and diabolical, murdering for pleasure and profit. Nobody but Scudder even suspects he exists— and he's not done killing.
He's just getting started…
A frightened hooker named Kim asked private investigator Matthew Scudder to help her get out of 'the Life.' Now she's dead, slashed to ribbons in a high-rise hotel. Finding her killer will be Scudder's penance. But there are lethal secrets hiding in Kim's past that are far dirtier than her trade— and many ways to die in this cruel and dangerous town.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
