Showing results by author "Lawrence Block" in All Categories

Bernie Rhodenbarr is actually trying to earn an honest living. It’s been an entire year since he’s entered anyone’s abode illegally to help himself to their valuables. But now an unscrupulous landlord’s threat to increase Bernie’s rent by 1,000 percent is driving the bookseller and reformed burglar back to a life of crime—though, in all fairness, it’s a very short trip.

Battling the bottle one day at a time, ex-cop, sometime PI Matthew Scudder finds that next to staying sober, staying alive seems easy. But in the mean streets of New York City it never is. Not for the prostitute who wanted out and got her beautiful self slashed to ribbons. Not for a pimp named Chance who is betting his life that the broken-down detective can find her murderer. And not for Matthew Scudder - just trying to stay alive in a city that knows nothing better than how to die.

Nine long years have passed since the killer last struck - nine years since eight helpless young women were brutally slaughtered by an icepick-wielding maniac. The trail grew cold and the book was unofficially closed on a serial killer who stopped killing. But now "The Icepick Prowler" has confessed - but only to seven of the killings. Not only does he deny the eighth, he has an airtight alibi. Barbara Ettinger's family had almost come to accept that the young woman was the victim of a random killing.

Matthew Scudder, a down-but-not-out-detective, is shocked by the apparent suicide of Paula, a waitress at Armstrong’s, one of Scudder’s hangouts. When Paula’s sister shows up and asks Matt to investigate what she believes to be a murder, Scudder agrees to take on the case. A number of clues don’t add up to suicide, and Scudder’s investigation leads him to the dark corners of Paula’s world.

Ever since The Burglar on the Prowl climbed the best seller lists in 2004, fans have been clamoring for a new book featuring the lighthearted and light-fingered Bernie Rhodenbarr. Now everybody's favorite burglar returns in an 11th adventure that finds him and his lesbian sidekick Carolyn Kaiser breaking into houses, apartments, and even a museum, in a madcap adventure replete with American Colonial silver, an F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscript, a priceless portrait, and a remarkable array of buttons. And, wouldn't you know it, there's a dead body, all stretched out on a Trent Barling carpet....

This is a city that seduces dreamers - then eats their dreams. Matthew Scudder understands the futility of his search for a longtime missing Midwestern innocent who wanted to be an actress in the vast meat-grinder called New York City. But her frantic father heard that Scudder is the best, and now the ex-cop turned private investigator is scouring the hell called Hell's Kitchen looking for anything that might resemble a lead. And in this neighborhood of the lost, he's finding love - and death - in the worst possible places.

For all those craving more adventures of their favorite bookseller-by-day and burglar-by-night, The Burglar in Short Order for the first time ever collects all of Bernie Rhodenbarr's short-form appearances in one complete volume. From the story in which a prototype of Bernie first appeared (“A Bad Night for Burglars”) to his appearances in Playboy and (maybe? It's kinda complicated) Cosmopolitan...from an essay discussing Bernie's misadventures in Hollywood to a piece commissioned by a European publisher for a tourist guide to New York....

In the third installment of his acclaimed anthology series, master of crime fiction Lawrence Block has gathered together the best talent from popular fiction to produce an anthology of short stories based on masterpieces of American art. Among the star-studded lineup of writers you'll find Jerome Charyn, Jane Hamilton, Christa Faust, John Sandford, Sara Paretsky, Walter Mosley, Charles Ardai, Barry Malzberg, and Janice Eidus.

Even before Lawrence Block could rest on his laurels from "In Sunlight or In Shadow", a question arose. What would he do for an encore Suppose each author was invited to select a painting from the whole panoply of visual art - from the cave drawings at Lascaux to a contemporary abstract canvas on which the paint has barely dried. And what a dazzling response!

The crime fiction canopy's a broad one, with room to give shelter to writing of all sorts, as editor Lawrence Block shows with At Home in the Dark.

From Ian Rankin to Joe Lansdale, Seanan McGuire to David Morrell, each author reveals the dark truths and buried secrets that make institutions of higher learning such a hotbed of controversy. You'll encounter plagiarism, sexual misconduct, and brutal competition - not to mention secret societies, cover-ups of murder, and one near-future course of study that makes The Handmaid's Tale look like Mother Goose. So: collect your supplies, plan your schedule, and prepare to pull an all-nighter, because The Darkling Halls of Ivy is required listening.

A Writer Prepares, an examination of the first quarter century of one writer's life, is arguably the work of two writers. There's the middle-aged fellow who wrote about half of it at a blistering pace in 1994, and there's the octogenarian who finished the job another quarter century later. The older fellow brought less raw energy to the task, and his memory is a long way from infallible, but one can only hope he's offset these losses with a slight edge in judgment, in perspective, in maturity.

Matthew Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life, one of stability and respectability — even the New York streets don't look so mean anymore. He's married to a woman he loves, and wonder of wonders, he's actually gotten around to becoming an officially licensed private investigator. Then all hell breaks loose. Matthew' s best friend from Hell's Kitchen asks for his help, and Scudder' s world is suddenly turned upside down once again.

So this girl walks into a bar…and when she walks out there’s a man with her. She goes to bed with him, and she likes that part. Then she kills him, and she likes that even better. On her way out, she cleans out his wallet. She keeps moving, and has a new name for each change of address. She’s been doing this for a while, and she’s good at it. And then a chance remark gets her thinking of the men who got away, the lucky ones who survived a night with her.

Matthew Scudder and his wife, Elaine, talk of the night they met while listening to music in various places around their part of New York.

Florida private eye Doak Miller agreed to help the local cops by posing as a hit man to catch a woman looking to get rid of her husband. But then he met the wife - and fell, hard. Now he's plotting with her to commit a murder that could net them millions of dollars and the chance to be together. But to pull it off under the watchful eyes of the police, it'll have to be the perfect crime....

The author of dozens of acclaimed novels including those in the Scudder and Keller series, Lawrence Block has long been recognized as one of the premier crime writers of our time. Now, the breathtaking skill, power, and versatility of this Grand Master are brilliantly displayed once again in a...

The New York Times bestselling author and master of the modern mystery returns with a fierce and poignant new novel featuring his acclaimed killer-for-hire, Keller. John Keller is everyone's favorite hit man. He's cool. Reliable. A real pro: the hit man's hit man. The inconvenient wife, the...

An intense and gripping short story audiobook that delves into the unsettling psyche of a twisted individual, "A Fire at Night" by Lawrence Block narrated by Mike Vendetti is a chilling exploration of the mind of a deranged arsonist.

Imagine being on a date, and your date announces they will turn into a werewolf in half an hour. And as the night unfolds, you find yourself facing the true test of love and acceptance. Or could it be a joke?