Matthew Scudder

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Matthew (Matt) Scudder is a fictional character who appears in novels by American crime writer Lawrence Block. Scudder debuted in 1976's The Sins of the Fathers as an alcoholic ex-cop who had recently quit the NYPD and left his family after accidentally causing the death of a young girl. Living in a rent-controlled hotel room in Hell's Kitchen, he earns his living as an unlicensed private investigator—or, as he puts it, "doing favors for friends". The fifth entry, 1982's Eight Million Ways to Die concludes with Scudder introducing himself at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Block planned to end the series there, but a promise he'd made to supply an editor friend with an original short story resulted in "By the Dawn's Early Light", a story set during Scudder's drinking days in the 1970s (Abe Beame is mentioned as New York mayor) but told from the perspective of a recovering addict. The story won a Shamus Award for best short story of 1985. Block would go on to expand on that success with 1986's When the Sacred Ginmill Closes. From then on, Scudder's circumstances rarely remain the same for long. In Out On the Cutting Edge (1989), while looking into a missing prostitute he meets Mick Ballou, a brutal Irish mafia member and saloonkeeper who improbably becomes one of his best friends. 1990's A Ticket to the Boneyard reunites him with Elaine Mardell, a hooker from his days on the force, and concludes with him staging the suicide of a man who had threatened their lives.