I know that people are generally advised to "write about what you know", but surely no-one can have failed to have groaned when a Jeffrey Archer protagonist wrote a prison diary. Nor when the same protagonist starts armed forces training. Nor when his first book sells well in North America, allowing a lucrative deal to be sealed for its UK distribution. Nor when a character becomes an MP. Nor when the plot moves to the House of Lords. It's as though Archer has taken Private Eye's Jeremy Longbow as inspiration rather than ridicule. Scudder follows the slim leads he has and over a few days of searching out and questioning people who knew her, he develops a sharp idea of the life of the deceased roommates. God is completely free to govern his universe. There is nothing that is outside of his sovereign will. But God grants free agency to his creatures. We are moral beings given choices to make. It is our nature that is bound in sin. One whose disposition is sinful will, quite naturally, follow the “north star” of such a nature. Conversely, one who has been redeemed from sin by the grace of God in His Son our Savior Jesus Christ has the opportunity to choose what is good and what is right.

Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014. Of all the great empires the world has known, ours will be the shortest. Two hundred years of chasing the Godalmighty Dollar, and what do we produce? The A-Bomb and I Love Lucy. This book had much to say about women's right, how much thinking about women is still very narrowed, untrue and unfair. 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.) I’ve now reached the point where I don’t hate anyone. Hatred makes things worse. Hatred stops one coming to terms with all the horror and grief. And one must come to terms with it. Somehow.’

Ancient References and Origin 

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. Additionally, I learn about American primitive art. There is something very compelling in these paintings. 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. Scudder is an ex-cop who left the force for very personal reasons. He now works as an unlicensed P.I. Clients don't hire him in any traditional sense, but occasionally he does a favor for someone and they show their appreciation by giving him monetary gifts.

The other thing I love is the way she shifts from one character to another so that you get told a part of the story from a completely different perspective PLUS getting a different view on a character, as we slip behind his or her mask, who may have been represented quite differently when someone else was the narrator. And they are ALL complex psychological studies, just like real people are. 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. Past sins, present values, forgiveness and redemption all inform this subtle modern morality tale. But it is the sheer human misery and lifelong damage done by abuse – so often belittled when churches speak only of “historic cases” – that are most harrowing and make The Choice such a compelling read. Think about it. If you don’t take money when somebody puts it in your hand, you’re going to make a lot of people very nervous. You don’t have to be a crook. Certain kinds of money you can turn down. And you don’t have to walk the streets with your hand out. But you’ve got to play the game with the cards they give you. Take the money.”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. LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller. But his ship is sunk in the Atlantic by a German U-boat, drowning almost the entire crew. An American cruise liner, the SS Kansas Star, rescues a handful of sailors, among them Harry and the third officer, an American named Tom Bradshaw. When Bradshaw dies in the night, Harry seizes on the chance to escape his tangled past and assumes his identity. Summarizing, it was a gripping historical fiction, written by a very educated author. Definitely worth trying. But considering what I have written at the beginning and that I had many times enough of those revenge, fighting for power, and comparing it to two other books by Howatch I give it 4 stars. Yet, again, compared to most pieces of the genre it is more like 5 stars-novel.

Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them. The Sins of the Father is the second book in Jeffrey Archer’s highly acclaimed The Clifton Chronicles, Archer’s most ambitious work in four decades as an international bestselling author. there's a kind of calm sadness in this book, in the fate of the characters, in Scudder. An inevitability." This is a really great book. I sympathise with those on here who found it long-winded and I agree with respect to certain parts, but I'm used to reading huge tomes so it didn't bother me. What I particularly like about Susan Howatch's family sagas is her narrative style where six of the main characters each write a section in the first person. This gives several different angles on the person concerned, so that characters whom other narrators find disagreeable are shown in a completely new light and in fact turn out to be fairly normal likeable human beings. The only exceptions to this (in my own view) are Steven Sullivan, a character in the prequel The Rich are Different, and his son Scott. Even after reading their own narratives I was totally unable to dredge up any liking for or even sympathy with these two characters. Scudder accepts the job and begins investigating in his usual methodical way, turning up one thing after another, asking one question after another, and in the process learning things about both Wendy and Vanderpoel that no parent might ever want to know.

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Harry clifton , Giles Barrington and Emma and Maise and surely Sir walter barrington maybe the most regal and awesome characters created EVER. It is sad how all the friends who help these characters die =( but someone has to die in the was right? :P His writing is sparse and crisp (def. marked by clarity, conciseness, and briskness) with no needless words all of which I love in writing. Why say in 20 words what can be said effectively in 10? The police have closed the case and Hanniford accepts their obvious conclusion that Vanderpoel killed his daughter. But he wants to know why. Hanniford and Wendy had been estranged for several years and he knows nothing of her life during that period. He now knows that she was living in an expensive apartment with no visible means of support, which suggests the obvious to everyone involved. Still, no matter how sordid the details, Hanniford wants Matt to dig into Wendy's life so that he will know how she came to such a tragic end.

Father and son, Father and daughter all have a dark past and all weigh up in the play of good and evil.Well that's enough about me, what about the book? The mystery is very secondary here; in fact, I didn't think the mystery seemed all that important. Much more vital to the story is our introduction to weary, troubled, lonesome ex-cop Matt Scudder and his booze-soaked life in the Big Apple. Scudder has had a very bad thing happen that's driven him out of the force and away from his wife and sons into a solitary life of unlicensed private investigating. People come to Scudder with questions they want answered. For a variable fee, he'll try to help them out. 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: The storyline itself is simply one of the best I’ve read in many, many books. A young man, Richie, who is bloodied all over, is screaming obscenities in the streets that he murdered someone. A beat cop handcuffs him and takes him to his nearby apartment only to find his roommate, Wendy, murdered and mutilated. The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation” ( Numbers 14:18).