These were the dark days for Matthew Scudder. An ex-New York cop, he had drowned his career in booze. Now he was drinking away his life in a succession of seedy establishments that opened early and closed late, reduced to doing paid "favors" for the cronies who gathered with him to worship the bottle. Now, in a sad and lonely place like so many before it, opportunity comes knocking - a chance to help the ginmil's owner recover his stolen doctored...

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...

Matthew Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life. He's sober, he's married, and the state just gave him a private investigator's license. He's growing older, and he's even getting respectable. Then Scudder signs on to help his closest and most unlikely friend, the larger-than-life Hell's Kitchen hoodlum Mick Ballou. And all hell breaks loose. Scudder finds out he's not so respectable after all. He learns the spruced-up sidewalks of New York are...

Matt Scudder - former cop and alcoholic - has had enough. He plans to wind up his investigations and concentrate on his AA meetings and his lovely wife, Elaine. But he agrees to take one last case. Louise, a single woman, has finally met a man she likes - but she fears he's keeping something from her. She hires Matt to check him out. Meanwhile, Elaine's best friend, Monica, also has a secret lover. But Monica is more street-wise than Louise; to her...

One by one, the 31 members of a Manhattan tontine are dying in a bizarre series of "suicides" and violent accidents. Private eye Matt Scudder is hired to identify the murderer before the terrible scheme reaches its bloody and seemingly inevitable conclusion.

Ex-NYPD cop and now unlicensed private investigator Matt Scudder goes to any length to punish the killers of his wife before they commit the same crime again.

The streets of New York are never safe, but the release of James Leo Motley, a psychopath who went down swearing revenge on Matt Scudder on all who knew him, means death is out there looking for a victim. No-one is safe - friends, lovers or just those unfortunate enough to share the same name.