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.
In 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.
[5] 1992's A Walk Among the Tombstones sees him struggling with Elaine's role as a prostitute (as well as a pair of violent kidnappers),[6] while 1994's A Long Line of Dead Men ends with the two marrying.
[9] The novella A Time to Scatter Stones was published in 2019, featuring an aging Scudder helping friends of his wife Elaine who want to escape sex work.