Matthew Scudder Books in Order

Police officer Jerry Broadfield plans to expose corruption, then finds himself accused of murdering a call girl. Matthew Scudder believes he may be innocent, but investigating means facing cops who have little interest in helping.

A young prostitute is murdered, and the man blamed for killing her dies in his jail cell. Her father hires Matthew Scudder to learn who she really was, reopening questions the police consider settled.

An informer turned blackmailer pays Matthew Scudder in advance to investigate if he's murdered. When his body turns up in the East River, Scudder follows the promise into the dangerous lives of the man's targets.

A serial killer admits to seven old murders but insists he didn't kill Barbara Ettinger. Matthew Scudder investigates the exception, reopening a nine-year-old case that may conceal a separate murderer behind the original pattern.

A prostitute named Kim hires Matthew Scudder to help her leave her life behind, then is murdered. Struggling with his own drinking and the failure to protect her, Scudder searches for the secrets behind her death.

During his drinking years, Matthew Scudder accepts paid favors from friends in New York bars. Three assignments begin to overlap in disturbing ways, drawing him away from familiar routines and into a fight to stay alive.

The father of a missing aspiring actress hires Matthew Scudder to find his daughter in New York. Searching Hell's Kitchen for a slim lead, Scudder encounters new relationships and deaths that complicate an already uncertain investigation.

James Leo Motley is released from prison twelve years after Matthew Scudder's false testimony helped convict him. The killer targets people connected to Scudder, forcing the detective to confront a revenge campaign that threatens his sobriety and life.

Matthew Scudder is hired to establish whether Richard Thurman arranged the murder of his pregnant wife. The investigation leads into New York's sexual exploitation underworld, where another young victim's suffering may connect to the case.

Drug dealer Kenan Khoury hires Matthew Scudder after his wife is abducted and murdered, unable to seek police help himself. Scudder hunts the killers through New York before another woman becomes their victim.

Matthew Scudder investigates the killing of lawyer Glenn Holtzmann and finds gaps beneath his respectable image. Questions about Holtzmann's past, expensive lifestyle, and presence on Eleventh Avenue make the death harder to explain than it first appears.

A secret Manhattan club asks Matthew Scudder to examine decades of suicides and suspicious accidents among its members. As the pattern threatens the surviving men, he searches for a patient killer hiding behind apparently unrelated deaths.

A vigilante calling himself the Will of the People announces murders before committing them, targeting people the law hasn't stopped. Matthew Scudder investigates the killer's impossible-looking successes while confronting the troubling appeal of punishment outside the justice system.

A waitress dies after falling from her apartment window, and police conclude she killed herself because the room was locked from inside. Her sister hires Matthew Scudder to investigate, unwilling to accept the apparently straightforward explanation.

Matthew Scudder investigates an attack on his friend Mick Ballou's criminal business after stolen liquor and two murders unsettle their lives. When Scudder becomes a target himself, a reluctant favor turns into a fight to survive.

After a couple are murdered during a home invasion, their suspected killers turn up dead too. Matthew Scudder doubts the closed case and searches for a third man who may have arranged the deaths and be planning more.

A dinner conversation about an apparent suicide reminds Matthew Scudder of a case from his early police career. Looking back, he revisits his partnership with veteran officer Vince Mahaffey and the incident that still remains in his memory.

Matthew Scudder agrees to check an acquaintance's suspicious online suitor, expecting a modest investigation. As people close to him begin dying, a patient killer's campaign turns the case into a threat against both Scudder and his wife Elaine.

During his first year of sobriety, Matthew Scudder investigates the murder of childhood friend Jack Ellery. Ellery's list of people he wronged offers possible suspects, but entering his troubled world also threatens Scudder's fragile recovery from alcoholism.

While still an NYPD detective, Matthew Scudder is asked to help after a friendly poker game ends in murder. His involvement requires more than finding out what happened, forcing him to consider how far he will bend the law.

Eleven short works follow Matthew Scudder across different periods of his life, from his police career to later investigations and sobriety. Murders, old acquaintances, and evenings with friends reveal the changing relationships and New York surroundings that shape him.

Matthew Scudder receives an unexpected twelve-hundred-dollar bequest from a woman he barely knew. Learning that she was murdered leads him to investigate both the seemingly random street killing and the reason she chose to remember him in her will.

A woman trying to leave sex work faces a client who refuses to let her go. Through Elaine, retired investigator Matthew Scudder becomes involved, confronting the man's threats while managing his own aging and sobriety.

Matthew Scudder recounts the life behind his detective cases, from childhood and family influences to his years in the NYPD. His memories explore police work, formative relationships, and alcoholism, revealing how he became the investigator familiar from his later adventures.