Matthew Scudder, ex-cop, ex-alcoholic, and unlicensed private detective, must draw on all his skills and imagination to find the vicious killer responsible for the robbery and murders of a wealthy couple in an Upper West Side brownstone.

The daytime bookseller and nighttime burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr of New York is hired to steal a packet of letters someone wants destroyed. Instead, he finds a dead man and now he must clear his name

A New York hit man named Keller becomes the target of a hit himself, a dilemma he is not accustomed to.

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....

New York is really a small town, filled with men and women from all walks of life whose aspirations, fears, disappointments, and triumphs are interconnected by bonds as unbreakable as they are unseen.

Nobody knows better than Matthew Scudder how far down a person can sink in this city. A young prostitute named Kim knew it also-and she wanted out. Maybe Kim didn't deserve the life fate had dealt her. She surely didn't deserve her death. The alcoholic ex-cop turned P.I. was supposed to protect her, but someone slashed her to ribbons on a crumbling New York City waterfront pier. Now finding Kim's killer will be Scudder's penance. But there are lethal...

A collection of stories in which a killer describes his hits. In one he kills the wrong man and has to do a repeat, in another he must decide which client to kill first, both having put out contracts on each other

A new town, a fresh start. A chance to escape old demons. Or meet new ones. He got on the Trailways bus in Galbraith, North Dakota, booked all the way through to Spokane. But the Help Wanted sign at the diner in Cross Creek was calling his name. Soon, he had a job working the grill and a place to stay, and a new name to go with them. But what he didn't have was peace of mind. Or a clear conscience. Or any memory at all of what he'd done the night...

Kenan Khoury's wife went out grocery shopping and never came home alive. 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.

Bookseller and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr travels to New England to spend a weekend in a mansion where he hopes to steal a rare book. But his scheme is sidetracked by the murder of one of the guests and the burglar turns sleuth.