Showing results by author "Lawrence Block" in All Categories

"Readers of Brooklyn Noir will recall that its contents were labeled by neighborhood - Bay Ridge, Canarsie, Greenpoint, etc. We have chosen the same principle here, and the book's contents do a good job of covering the island, from C.J. Sullivan's Inwood and Charles Ardai's Upper East Side, to Justin Scott's Chelsea and Carol Lea Benjamin's Greenwich Village."

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.

The craft of writing is a lot like spinning a web: You take threads and weave them skillfully together, and only you know where this intricate network of twists and turns begin and how it will end. Now, with Lawrence Block's expert advice, you can learn this art of entrapping your reader in a maze of fascinating fiction. Spider, Spin Me a Web is the perfect companion volume to Block's previous book on writing, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, which Sue Grafton noted "should be a permanent part of every writer's library".

Winner of multiple Edgar and Shamus Awards, Lawrence Block keeps fans guessing to the end with his rollicking Bernie Rhodenbarr mysteries. In this diverting caper, full-time bookstore owner and part-time burglar Bernie tries to do the right thing for a new friend, only to find himself accused of some terrible wrongs.

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 Burglar Who Studied Spinoza, Bernie applies philosophy to match wits with a wily murderer and a few too many burglars. Bernie and his dog-grooming partner in crime, Carolyn, are planning the perfect crime. Tonight, they will rob a brownstone while the well-heeled owners are out of town with their vicious watch dog. But when Bernie painstakingly picks the lock, they discover somebody has already emptied the house - except for a valuable coin almost too hot to handle.

Lawrence Block's new collection assembles seven works of fiction produced over a period of 60 years.

Matt Scudder is well and truly off the booze, but he still spends time with some of his old drinking pals, including Mick Ballou. Mick is worried - a garage full of bourbon has been ripped off and two of his henchman killed in cold blood. Mick wants Scudder to look into it - he reluctantly agrees. The following weekend Matt's mentor from AA is shot dead at point blank range - Matt knows it should have been him. Now the case is personal.

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.

The Greatest Mysteries of All Time, Volume 4 is the fourth in a series featuring the finest short story mystery fiction by the most acclaimed writers, past and present. From Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, Georges Simenon, Edward D. Hoch and everyone in between, this unique collection, edited by multi-award-winning mystery connoisseur Otto Penzler, is a delightful mixture of mystery and suspense.

In this brand-new novella, Keller, everyone's favorite assassin for hire, is Chicago-bound on Amtrak's City of New Orleans, ready to do what he does best. But it's complicated. Usually there's someone ready to point him toward the target. Or he'll have a photo, say. Or, bare minimum, a name and address. Not this time. When he gets to Baker's Bluff, Illinois, he'll have to play private detective before he can get down to business. Well, okay. He knows how it works. So before he even packs his suitcase, Keller buys a fedora.

A deranged, derelict, crazed Vietnam vet has been arrested for gunning down successful young lawyer Glenn Holtzmann at a corner phone booth on 11th Avenue—and the suspect's brother wants unlicensed private investigator Matthew Scudder to prove the madman innocent. But Scudder's curiosity and dedication are leading him to dark, unexplored places in his own heart…and to passions and secrets that could destroy everything he loves. In this unmerciful metropolis, no one is truly innocent—including Matthew Scudder.

Matthew Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life—and then all hell breaks loose. Scudder discovers he's living in a world where the past is a minefield, the present a war zone—and that he's not so respectable after all.

By day, Bernie Rhodenbarr runs a respectable used book store in New York City. But by night, he gets his kicks gaining illegal entry into the posh residences of the wealthy. In this wacky mystery, the incorrigible burglar pulls off a low-risk burglary, only to find himself up against an eccentric kidnapper with a taste for abstract Dutch art. When Bernie is offered the chance to appraise a Manhattan millionaire's private library, he jumps at the opportunity.

Hollywood vs. The Author is a collection of non-fiction anecdotes by authors who’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the development room firsthand - some who have successfully managed to straddle the two worlds, seeing their works morph into the kinds of feature films and TV shows that make them proud, and others who stepped blindsided into that room after selling their first or second novels. All the stories in this collection illustrate the great divide between the world of literature and the big or small screen.

Matthew Scudder gets hired by a fellow bar patron to prove his innocence. Salesman Tommy Tillary is a 45-year-old philanderer with a Manhattan girlfriend and a Brooklyn wife. So when Tommy becomes a suspect in the murder of his wife, it's up to Matt to find the real killer.

It's a jungle out there. Literally. At least for Evan Tanner, an eternally sleepless, sometime superspy, who finds himself in Africa on the trail of the AWOL ruler of tiny Modonoland. It seems the petty despot's gone missing, and he's taken the state treasury along with him. No stranger to impossible missions and international peril, Tanner's been in over his head before. This time, however, he's in imminent danger of being buried alive. And it all has to do with the CIA, white supremacists, moderate revolutionaries...and a blond jungle bombshell named (no joke!) Sheena.

Step into the shoes of Matthew Scudder, one of the titular Batman’s Helpers. And how does he help Batman? He’s part of a group of people hired by Warner Brothers to confiscate pirated Batman products from vendors selling them on the streets of New York.

Matthew Scudder is about to face every cop's worst nightmare: James Leo Motley, psychopath extraordinaire. Twelve years ago Matthew Scudder lied to a jury to put James Leo Motley behind bars. Now the ingenious psychopath is free, and the alcoholic ex-cop turned private investigator must pay dearly for his sins. Friends and former lovers - even strangers unfortunate enough to share Scudder's name - are turning up dead because a vengeful maniac is determined not to rest until he's driven his nemesis back to the bottle…and then to the boneyard.

Ever since a shred of shrapnel did a number on his brain's sleep center, Even Tanner has been awake 24/7. This gives him more time than your average underachiever. Time to learn the world's languages (he's fluent in Basque, but has trouble with Chinese). Time to embrace the world's lost causes and irredentist movements (The Flat Earth Society, the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia, the Society of the Left Hand). Time to write term papers theses for students with more money than knowledge.