History Literature / MatthewScudder

* KarmaHoudini: The killer in [[spoiler: ''A Drop of the Hard Stuff'']].

* GentlemanThief: Matt and his cop friend Joe Durkin discuss the concept at the beginning of ''Hope to Die'' in the wake of a burglary that led to rape and murder. Durkin admits there were never that many gentleman thieves, but at least burglars in the old days didn't do what the men in this instance did. They grabbed what they could and got out.

* HollywoodHacking: Mostly averted in ''A Walk Among the Tombstones'' (in a subplot that was removed for the movie). The "Kongs" start out with social engineering, calling phone company employees to get information they need, and when they reach their limits with that it still takes them several hours to accomplish what they're trying to do.

* PrefersRocksToPillows: the titular victim in the short story ''A Candle for the Bag Lady'', as she had plenty of inherited money that she could have lived well off but never spent.

* PressurePoint: James Leo Motley, a psycho Matt had put away when he was a cop (who resurfaces in ''A Ticket to the Boneyard''), used these to hurt and immobilize people.
* PsychoSidekick: Mick "The Butcher" Ballou.

Mystery series by Lawrence Block. When the series starts Matthew Scudder is an ex-NYPD detective, following a line-of-duty shooting that left a little girl dead, and an alcoholic, living alone in a hotel after leaving his wife and two sons. He takes work as an unlicensed private investigator, looking into things for people (and if they happen to slip him some money, he'll take it).

Two of the books have been made into movies: ''Eight Million Ways to Die'' (which changed a lot, starting with relocating the action to Los Angeles) and ''Film/AWalkAmongTheTombstones'' (which was somewhat closer to the book, but still changed some things).

** ''A Drop of the Hard Stuff'' takes place in 1983, at the earliest point when Matt is working on his sobriety. (This one is deliberately framed as a story Matt tells Mick during one of their late-night get-togethers.)
* YourCheatingHeart: Matt met and slept with Elaine when he was married. [[spoiler:After he reconnects with Elaine and has been seeing her for a while, he starts sleeping with a client, Lisa Holtzmann. When he and Elaine marry, she hints that she knows he's been seeing someone else, and tells him that nothing has to change (her past as a prostitute having convinced her that men cannot be one-hundred-percent faithful).]]

* PayEvilUntoEvil: Many villains suffer this fate. Notable examples include the SerialKiller in [[spoiler: ''A Long Line of Dead Men'']] who is taken out to an isolated cabin in Canada, and left chained to the floor. He has a toilet, a bed and such, and well be brought food, but there's no way for him to get out (like by setting a fire, or chewing his own foot off) without killing himself, he'll essentially be trapped in solitary for the rest of his life, with a noose hanging from the ceiling and a cyanide capsule on the table in case he wants to end it all. The BigBad of [[spoiler: ''A Walk Among the Tombstones'']] gets it even worse at the hands of Scudder's client, whose wife he raped and tortured to death. What he describes to Scudder, after the killer is delivered to him, is one of the most chilling scenes in the series.

* BiTheWay: Jan Keane, whom Matt dates on-and-off for a while. Elaine hints that she has experimented a bit, presumably at the instigation of her clients, but isn't necessarily bisexual.

* StrayShotsStrikeNothing: An {{aversion}}; Matt left the police force because he accidentally shot a little girl in the line of duty.

* GrayAndBlackMorality: Matt was a crooked cop who took bribes, and once shot a little girl by accident, but the people he goes up against are even worse then he is. He's also friends with Mick Ballou, one of the most notorious gangsters in the city, and neither one can fully explain the basis of that friendship.

* PayEvilUntoEvil: Many villains suffer this fate. Notable examples include the SerialKiller in [[spoiler: ''A Long Line of Dead Men'']]. who is taken out to an isolated cabin in Canada, and left chained to the floor. He has a toilet, a bed and such, and well be brought food, but there's no way for him to get out (like by setting a fire, or chewing his own foot off) without killing himself, he'll essentially be trapped in solitary for the rest of his life and there's a nooose hanging from the ceiling and a cyanide capsule in case he wants to end it all. The BigBad of ''A Walk Among the Tombstones'' gets it even worse at the hands of Scudder's client, whose wife he raped and tortured to death. What he describes to Scudder, after the killer is delivered to him, is one of the most chilling scenes in the series.
--> ''Scudder's client'': I cut his eyes out, so he'd never look at another woman. And I cut his hands off so he'll never touch one. I used tourniquets so he wouldn't bleed out, I made 'em out of wire. I took off his hands with a cleaver, wicked fucking thing. I suppose it's what they used to, uh-. To dismember the bodies. I opened his pants. I didn't want to touch him but I forced myself, and I cut off his works 'case he wasn't gonna have any further use for 'em. And then his feet, I chopped his fucking feet off, because where's he gonna go? And his ears, because what does he have to listen to? And his tongue, part of his tongue, I couldn't get it all, but I griped it with a pliers and pulled it out of his mouth and cut off what I could, because who wants to hear him talk? Who wants to listen to that shit?

--> Scudder's client: I cut his eyes off, so he'd never look at another woman. And I cut his hands off so he'll never touch one. I sued tourniquets so he wouldn't bleed out, I mad 'em out of wire. I took off his hands with a cleaver, wicked fucking thing. I suppose it's what they used to, uh-. To dismember the bodies. I opened his pants. I didn't want to touch him but I forced myself, and I cut off his works 'case he wasn't gonna have any further use for 'em. And then his feet, I chopped his fucking feet off, because where's he gonna go? And his ears, because what does he have to listen to? And his tongue, part of his tongue, I couldn't get it all, but I griped it with a pliers and pulled it out of his mouth and cut off what I could, because who wants to hear him talk? Who wants to listen to that shit?

* PayUntoEvil: Many villains suffer this fate. Notable examples include the SerialKiller in [[spoiler: ''A Long Line of Dead Men'']]. who is taken out to an isolated cabin in Canada, and left chained to the floor. He has a toilet, a bed and such, and well be brought food, but there's no way for him to get out (like by setting a fire, or chewing his own foot off) without killing himself, he'll essentially be trapped in solitary for the rest of his life and there's a nooose hanging from the ceiling and a cyanide capsule in case he wants to end it all. The BigBad of ''A Walk Among the Tombstones'' gets it even worse at the hands of Scudder's client, whose wife he raped and tortured to death. What he describes to Scudder, after the killer is delivered to him, is one of the most chilling scenes in the series.

* TheAlcoholic: Matt, as well as his AA sponsor Jim Faber and sometime-girlfriend Jan Keane. Heavy drinkers ''not'' in the program include Mick Ballou and Danny Boy Bell (who drinks vodka like it's water but never shows any sign that it's effecting him).

The first few books are largely interchangeable, but in ''Eight Million Ways to Die'' Scudder begins to get serious about getting sober. Subsequent books show him befriending Irish-American gangster Mick "The Butcher" Ballou and reconnecting with prostitute Elaine Mardell (whom he had known when he was on the police force). Another important supporting character is TJ, a streetwise black kid who can go places Scudder, who never really stops looking like a cop, can't.

* CorruptCop: Matt was one, to a certain extent. His first partner taught him that when money comes your way, you take it, and he later admits that he never supported his family on his salary. On the other hand, there were lines he never would have crossed, and he becomes genuinely enraged at the thought that someone could bribe their way out of a murder charge.

* YourCheatingHeart: Matt met and slept with Elaine when he was married. [[spoiler:After he reconnects with Elaine and has been seeing her for a while, he starts sleeping with a client, Lisa Holtzmann. When he and Elaine marry, she hints that she knows he's been seeing someone else, and tells him that nothing has to change.]]