This was a paperback mystery when it was first published in 1976. The edition that I am reading is from 1992, is the first hardcover edition, and has an Introduction by Stephen King. In 1991 King published Needful Things. According the Wikipedia, “It is the first novel King wrote after his rehabilitation from drugs and alcohol.” King’s introduction includes a discussion of the alcoholism of series protagonist Matthew Scudder. In all, I found the ten page introduction more enjoyable than enlightening.I had bought The Sins of the Fathers used online. It turned out to be a former library book. It had some library markings but the back page where some additional markings might have been had been ripped out. The pages of the book were in very good condition. I noticed as I read the beginning of the book that there were a couple of printing errors that someone had neatly corrected with a sharp pencil. One I remember was where “the” was actually supposed to be “them” and the m was neatly entered. The other one was where “on” was corrected with the same sharp pencil to be “no.” And then there were more. I noticed the mistakes because of the markings but I was impressed that someone would be reading with enough attention to detail to notice the errors. Mistakes like this are rare and make me think less of the quality of the publishing job. But then I think that is not really fair to make that judgment since there are so many pages and so many words that it is not surprising that there are occasional mistakes. I think of someone going through the entire book looking for errors and am glad not to have that job. The publisher was Dark Harvest in Arlington Heights, Illinois, not one that I have ever run across before.This is the first book in the Matthew Scudder series. The series is seventeen books with the final one published in 2011. I sought out the first book in the series out of curiosity. Judging from used book prices and availability, first books in a series must be something that people collect.Our protagonist is an ex-cop. He became an ex after he unintentionally killed a seven year old girl while on duty. At the time he quit the force, he also left his wife and two children with whom he is limited contact. He lives in a hotel. He does not present a very pleasant notion of what it is like to be a policeman. There are the bribes and payoffs that are made to seem routine and without any conscience. There is the drinking at the cop hangouts and the fact that Scudder is evidently an alcoholic. There is the petty theft that occurs in the course of a normal day of investigation. Scudder also fairly nonchalantly breaks into an apartment, the murder scene.Scudder is now working informally as an unlicensed private investigator who is paid off the books, under the table and doesn’t do any of the routine administrative tasks of recordkeeping that you might associate with running your own business. He does continue to make significant use of his contacts from his time on the police force.The story of The Sins of the Fathers is that Scudder (people call him Scudder) is hired by the father of a twenty-four year old female murder victim to look into the last part of her life and her murder since he has not been in touch with her for some time. So, he wants to get to know his daughter now that she is dead. The apparent killer committed suicide in jail so Scudder is essentially doing the police investigation of the killing that the police are not going to do since they have closed the case since both the victim and the perpetrator are now dead. He has a good reputation as a cop within the police department. (He definitely seems more like a cop than a policeman.)So we have this retired functional alcoholic cop interviewing a string of people about the closed murder case. The story is told by Scudder who generally displays harmless, boorish behavior. This is his only case at the moment so he is able to focus on it. He does not seem financially dependent on this additional work; the advance cash he gets for this job is passed out in kickbacks, bribes and to church poor boxes. Oh, and a drink here and there at the local bars.One of the most distressing observations by Scudder occurs when he is (via B&E) in the apartment where the killing occurred. There is a good deal of blood. Although this is several days after the murder, cleaning up seems to be a low priority. Hold your stomach for this: I had spent most of my hour wandering through those rooms, sitting on chairs, leaning against walls, trying to rub up against the essence of the two people who had lived here. I looked at the bed Wendy had died on, a double box spring and mattress on a Hollywood frame. They had not yet stripped off the blood-soaked sheets, though there would be little point in doing so; the mattress was sdeeply soaked with her blood, and the whole bed would have to be scrapped. At one point I stood holding a clot of rusty blood in my hand, and my mind reeled with images of a priest offering Communion. I found the bathroom and gagged without bringing anything up. Scudder seems to be something of a touchy-feely kind of guy “trying to rub up against the essence of the two people who had lived here.” But there is a range: murder, sex, gay bars, prostitution. And some humor:The new mayor was having trouble appointing a deputy mayor. His investigative board kept discovering that his prospective appointees were corrupt in any of several uninteresting ways. There was an obvious answer, and he would probably hit on it sooner or later. He was going to have to get rid of the investigative board. Yes, a little bit of humor that also tells you a little bit about Matthew Scudder’s mindset. Hard to call him a straight arrow. In fact, I was wondering what Matthew did about sex for himself since he is a PI. And we all know PIs need some. Bingo, he calls Elaine on the phone and takes a cab over to see her. The short story of that is that alcohol does not always enhance sex like some think. “Relax, honey.”“Not, it’s not going to work,” I said. “Something I should be doing?”I shook my head.“Too much to drink?”It wasn’t that. I was far too completely locked into my own head. “Maybe,” I said.”“It happens.”I will let you find the typesetting mistake in that little exchange for yourself. There do seem to be quite a few of them in this book. I’m not impressed. Maybe that happens with books that have a first printing in paperback only.How did Scudder see his financial arrangements with the people who hired him? He verbalized as if he did them favors and they gave him money gifts. He was not a working stiff. There was only one problem. In a very real sense, my arrangement with Hanniford was more than a dodge around the detective licensing laws and the income tax. The money he gave me was a gift, just as the money I’d given Koehler and Pankow and the postal clerk had been. And in return I was doing him a favor, just as they had done me favors. I was not working for him. But the problem was that although he already had enough information about Hanniford’s daughter to close the deal with him, “there were still a few blank spaces and I wanted to fill them in.” And Scudder is more interested in impressions than facts as strange as that might seem for a private investigator. And he doesn’t have too many pages to work all this out since this is a pretty short book, 179 pages in the 1992 hardcover edition. The investigation that Scudder undertook lasted five days. They were five busy days and nights. He covered a lot of mental territory. He flew from LaGuardia to Utica, NY to give his report to Mr. Hanniford. He didn’t call ahead.Scudder spooling out the story about Wendy that he had put together in five days included some additions by her father (actually her stepfather). It was touching and I got a lump in my throat. He said to Scudder of his daughter: “Earlier you made her sound like a victim. Now she sounds like a villain.”[Scudder responded,] “Everybody’s both.” Scudder says, “I’m just a man who used to be a cop.” His wisdom came from somewhere else, I think. I would guess he is a lapsed Catholic. The hints are throughout the book. I thought the best hint was him saying how he liked the Catholic church because it worked through the week while the other churches took the time off. He liked to sit in an empty quiet church. He liked to put some money in the poor box. He said he tithed. I can’t remember why he said he did that but when Hanniford gave him $2000, he put $200 in the poor box. At the end of the book he gets a second and final payment of $1000, and 10% goes into the poor box.Scudder is philosophical. I wondered whether it was worse for men to do the wrong things for the right reason or the right things for the wrong reason. It wasn’t the first time I wondered, or the last. Theoretically, I give five stars to any book that makes me cry. So this one qualifies. But, on top of that, it deserves five stars. But I don’t get the proofreading. Sure, a mistake in typesetting (or whatever the mechanism for getting the words into print) is not impossible. But what about this: “He fought to catch her breath.” Something like this happens not once, but twice in the book. If somebody can explain that to me, I would appreciate it.
Standing among the crowd of burned out, “ex-cop,” morally suspect private investigators inside the dingy, cluttered, dimly lit literary bar called "Mysteries," Matt Scudder manages to stand out and sparkle shine, despite his seeming overabundance of unassumingness. Well appearances deceive and depth takes time to appreciate. Trust me when I say you haven’t met Matt Scudder before. This guy is an original. Scudder isn’t the macho, “steely-eyed” superior type. He doesn’t gruffly walk around badassing or cracking wise with his personal brand of “I know how the world works” fortune cookie quips. Matt Scudder is an onion (thank you for that analogy SHREK) and his layers are many. So who IS Matt Scudder? Hold that thought while I fill in a little of his personal history, beginning with who he was. Scudder was a police detective and a competent one. True, he was not above a little bribe-taking to help support his family and he had no qualms about framing a suspect he knew to be guilty. However, he tried to make a positive difference and serve his community by taking out the bad guys. Scudder left the force after accidentally shooting a seven year old girl while breaking up an armed robbery. He subsequently abandoned his wife and two boys and began a serious love affair with coffee spiked with bourbon which he now makes time with ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. Now, Scudder works as an unlicensed private investigator, continues to drink his corn-mash and coffee combo and his only real friends are the police captain who sends him referrals (for a fee) and the hooker he spends time with occasionally. Matt refuses to keep written records of any kind and his jobs consist of doing “favors” for “friends” (i.e., clients) in exchange for cash “gifts.”So again, who IS Matt Scudder?Well if the above doesn’t make it clear, he’s one of the good guys. I would even go so far as to say one of the REALLY good guys. Granted, his colorful history would suggest that Matt has a ding or two on his armor and some warts on his soul. Ah, but remember....deceptive appearances and the onion full of layers. Matt is someone who cares, truly and deeply, about right and wrong. He spends more time than most contemplating the nature of good and evil and trying his best to fit into the former while minimizing his contributions to the latter. A few additional facts about Matt might hint at why I feel this way. He gives 10% of everything he earns “anonymously” to the poor. His relationship with his ex wife is respectful and caring (a minor miracle in itself) and he loves his two boys and they seem to think dad walks on water. Oh, and the hooker he spends time with...you know the one that earlier brought out all your “nose-thumbing,” judgmental prudery? Well the friendship/relationship she and Matt have gives off more genuine warmth and mutual respect than many of the more conventional pairings I’ve seen. So again, I think Matt is one of the good guys who is struggling with his own weaknesses and how to make his vision of good fit with the world he sees around him. He is contemplative and caring and flawed and lost and a whole bag full of other. He is most defintely engaging. Lawrence Block has created one of the most unique characters I have come across in the Mystery genre and ranks up there with Hap and Leonard by Joe Lansdale among my favorites.I know, I know....I haven’t told you a thing about the plot of the story. I tend to do that with the first book in a long series because I feel like the character is the real reason why you should check this out. But here you go. BRIEF (BELATED) PLOT SUMMARYA young woman is brutally murdered in her apartment. Her male roommate is found at the scene and arrested. The suspect then hangs himself in his jail cell making further investigation unnecessary and closing the case as far as the police are concerned. Matt is hired by the victim’s estranged step-father to find out “who his daughter was” when she was killed. She had mysteriously dropped out of college and the newspapers were had running stories that she was a prostitute. The step-father wants Matt to investigate to find out the truth about her. There....happy. Anyway, this was a terrifically written mystery with an amazing lead character. The fact that this is only book 1 of a 17 (so far) book series has me so swollen with happy juice that my eye-balls are floating as I write this. 4.5 stars....HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
What do You think about The Sins Of The Fathers (2015)?
I picked up the Kindle version of this for 99c (all of Lawrence Block's back catalog is on sale on Amazon.com).As for my review: I liked it a great deal. It was a quick, compelling read. The main character was a likable rogue, the mystery was complex without being too convoluted, and the solution had some nice twists to it.My only issue is with the title. The Sins of the Fathers. Now, if you hadn't read this yet, like I hadn't, wouldn't you think you knew who the killer was? Well, you would be correct. It was (view spoiler)[the minister that was the father of the suicide victim (hide spoiler)]
—Eric
A pretty young prostitute is found dead, killed by a minister’s son who is found hanging in a prison cell. This case may seem open and shut, considering the boy was found with her blood all over him and he confessed to the murder. But when the father hires private investigator Matthew Scudder to find out more of his daughters life, what will he uncover?Sins of the Fathers is pretty different from normal hard-boiled novels; the crime and case is closed and the PI is hired for something completely different; to learn more of the victims life. The father wants to know more about his estranged daughter, but once you go down the rabbit hole, you never know what you’ll find.Enter Matt Scudder, an ex cop with a huge drinking problem. Scudder is a great character; he has all the hallmarks of a great Hard-Boiled detective but he seems more bitter and jaded that what you normally see. He is riddled with flaws and dark secrets that are waiting to be revealed and while the major one is, there is still a sense of mystery behind the man. But then he does something unexpected; for example, Scudder tithes 10% of all money being made to which ever church he visits (normally the Catholics because they are always open), you never get a sense that he is a church goer but he does believe in something.This was an interesting take on this crime genre, yet it still had that dark plots and shady characters. While it seems like it’s a little lighter than the norm, it ends up packing a huge punch with some very classic noir twists towards the end. I really like Scudder as the protagonist; he was almost borderline anti-hero and sometimes I wish he would head in that direction but he never does.Sins of the Fathers is the first book in Lawrence Block’s series featuring Private Investigator Scudder. I believe there are about 17 books in the series and I can’t wait to read them all. As soon as I finished this book, I dived into In the Midst of Death which most places call book two but Block has stated it is actually book three in the series. I hope when I get to Time to Murder and Create there isn’t much confusion but I’ve been told you can read the first three in any order but for the rest, it’s best to read them in the correct order.This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
—Michael
They tell me the Matt Scudder series starts slow, that it hits its stride with his fifth adventure, Eight Million Ways to Die. I don't know about that—at least not yet—but one thing I can say for sure: The Sins of the Fathers is plenty good enough.Scudder was once a cop. But then a seven year old girl is killed by a ricochet he fired in pursuit of a robber, and, even though he is exonerated—hell, they even give him a commendation—he finds he just doesn't have the heart to be a cop anymore. Now he drinks too much and can't shake the guilt, but he still uses his cop skills to make ends meet. While not technically a private dectective (he has no license), he “does favors for people,” and they give him “gifts.”This particular “favor” is an unusual one. A pretty little hooker living in a nice Greenwich Village apartment has been stabbed to death, and the only suspect—her male roommate—admits his guilt and then hangs himself in the city jail. So the case is closed, and Scudder's client—the dead girl's father—doesn't wanted it reoopened: he just wants to find out what his daughter's life was like. He thought he knew who she was, yet discovers after her death that she had hid her life from him. Now he needs Scudder to uncover a few facts and details so that he may reconstruct a more realistic memory.The book consists of three parts: 1) an investigation into the life of the dead girl, which leads to 2) the discovery of the motive for the crime, and 3) an account of Scudders plan to bring a rough kind of justice to this "open-and-shut" case.
—Bill Kerwin
