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Mike's Reviews > The Sins of the Fathers
The Sins of the Fathers (Matthew Scudder, #1)
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Reading these Matt Scudder mysteries in my own nonsensical order (I started with #5, then #4 and now #1), The Sins of the Fathers has a slight first-episode feel compared to the two I read previously; but it's only slight, and Scudder's world is already pretty well-established and interesting. He's an ex-cop, he lives alone in a hotel in New York near Columbus Circle, he drinks coffee spiked with bourbon (I actually decided to give this a try recently, in the spirit of the books, and...it's disgusting) around the corner at a place called Armstrong's, and for a fee he sometimes helps people solve certain problems. It's not that complicated but it works, dammit. It's also probably got my favorite actual mystery of the three I've read so far. A minister's son is apprehended in the street covered with blood, and the woman he'd been living with (platonically?) is found dead in their apartment. Why would he kill her, Scudder wonders.
"Well", another character suggests, "he was a minister's son."
"So?"
"They're all crazy. Aren't they?"
The mystery takes Scudder upstate, to a weird church congregation, and to some of the local gay bars, where as a former cop he naturally has contacts. Just as in Eight Million Ways to Die, I imagined that if he had simply turned a corner he would have walked into the movie Cruising, and blown Al Pacino's cover. Anyway, the identity of the killer was a little obvious in retrospect, but I still didn't guess it. I'm never right about who the killer is, which someday, when I'm snowed-in at an isolated ski lodge, will probably have fatal consequences (I've never skied, but I'll be there for some godforsaken reason, I know it). The killer will keep leaving us little notes (or will they be group texts?), as we know those psychos just love to do, things like “now there are only four of us, hee hee, but who am I?”- or maybe it'll be lines of obscure poetry. Regardless, that's why I need to keep reading one of these books every month or so, on the off-chance I'll get better at it.
by
Mike's review
bookshelves: 2022, crime, murder-bloody-murder, new-york-is-hell, the-70s, 2020s
Jun 07, 2022
bookshelves: 2022, crime, murder-bloody-murder, new-york-is-hell, the-70s, 2020s
Reading these Matt Scudder mysteries in my own nonsensical order (I started with #5, then #4 and now #1), The Sins of the Fathers has a slight first-episode feel compared to the two I read previously; but it's only slight, and Scudder's world is already pretty well-established and interesting. He's an ex-cop, he lives alone in a hotel in New York near Columbus Circle, he drinks coffee spiked with bourbon (I actually decided to give this a try recently, in the spirit of the books, and...it's disgusting) around the corner at a place called Armstrong's, and for a fee he sometimes helps people solve certain problems. It's not that complicated but it works, dammit. It's also probably got my favorite actual mystery of the three I've read so far. A minister's son is apprehended in the street covered with blood, and the woman he'd been living with (platonically?) is found dead in their apartment. Why would he kill her, Scudder wonders.
"Well", another character suggests, "he was a minister's son."
"So?"
"They're all crazy. Aren't they?"
The mystery takes Scudder upstate, to a weird church congregation, and to some of the local gay bars, where as a former cop he naturally has contacts. Just as in Eight Million Ways to Die, I imagined that if he had simply turned a corner he would have walked into the movie Cruising, and blown Al Pacino's cover. Anyway, the identity of the killer was a little obvious in retrospect, but I still didn't guess it. I'm never right about who the killer is, which someday, when I'm snowed-in at an isolated ski lodge, will probably have fatal consequences (I've never skied, but I'll be there for some godforsaken reason, I know it). The killer will keep leaving us little notes (or will they be group texts?), as we know those psychos just love to do, things like “now there are only four of us, hee hee, but who am I?”- or maybe it'll be lines of obscure poetry. Regardless, that's why I need to keep reading one of these books every month or so, on the off-chance I'll get better at it.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May, 2022
–
Finished Reading
June 7, 2022
– Shelved
June 7, 2022
– Shelved as:
2022
June 7, 2022
– Shelved as:
crime
June 7, 2022
– Shelved as:
murder-bloody-murder
June 7, 2022
– Shelved as:
new-york-is-hell
June 7, 2022
– Shelved as:
the-70s
November 6, 2022
– Shelved as:
2020s
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mark
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Jun 10, 2022 09:58AM
I just watched a movie version (thanks to you) on Netflix. "A walk among the tombstones". It was good. Liam Nelson played Scudder. He's in AA now, lot's of 12 Step stuff.
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mark wrote: "I just watched a movie version (thanks to you) on Netflix. "A walk among the tombstones". It was good. Liam Nelson played Scudder. He's in AA now, lot's of 12 Step stuff."Cool, Mark, I enjoyed that one, too. I haven't read that particular book it was based on, but it felt pretty faithful to the spirit and tone of the series. Stark contrast to the 80s movie with Jeff Bridges that put Scudder in LA- can you believe it?
I didn't/don't know of the Bridges' movie. It's quite a common trope - ex cop turned PI after trouble with alcohol and/or women, and always THE SYSTEM. Michael Connelly's series BOSCH currently. Robert Parker's SPENSER books, and also the JESSE STONE books. (and movies)I've read most all of the SPENSER novels. Was my Dad's favorite. Takes place in Boston. Parker wrote 30+ of them, one a year, and died at his desk writing. (my phantasy wish).
Oh yeah, definitely, this series hits every cliche. But Block kind of embraces those cliches and then makes his own thing with them, I think. Boston sounds like an interesting setting for PI/mystery. You enjoyed those?
Oh yes. Spenser haas has a psych girl friend & a buddy named Hawk. Black dude with a big gun. 1st person narrator with much of the story told in dialogue.
