Lawrence Block Books In Order

Bernie Rhodenbarr Books In Publication Order

  1. Burglars Can’t Be Choosers (1977)
  2. The Burglar in the Closet (1978)
  3. The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979)
  4. The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (1980)
  5. The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (1983)
  6. Like a Thief in the Night (1983)
  7. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994)
  8. The Burglar Takes a Cat (1994)
  9. The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995)
  10. The Burglar in the Library (1997)
  11. The Burglar in the Rye (1998)
  12. The Burglar Who Dropped in on Elvis (1999)
  13. The Burglar on the Prowl (2001)
  14. The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke (2011)
  15. A Bad Night for Burglars (2011)
  16. The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (2013)
  17. The Burglar in Short Order (2020)

Chip Harrison Books In Publication Order

  1. No Score (1970)
  2. Chip Harrison Scores Again (1971)
  3. Make Out with Murder (1974)
  4. The Topless Tulip Caper (1975)
  5. As Dark as Christmas Gets (2011)

Evan Tanner Books In Publication Order

  1. The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep (1966)
  2. The Canceled Czech (1966)
  3. Tanner’s Twelve Swingers (1967)
  4. Here Comes a Hero / Tanner’s Virgin (1968)
  5. The Scoreless Thai / Two for Tanner (1968)
  6. Tanner’s Tiger (1968)
  7. Me Tanner, You Jane (1986)
  8. Tanner on Ice (1998)

Fearless Jones Books In Publication Order

  1. The Plot Thickens (With: Janet Evanovich,Linda Fairstein,Nelson DeMille,Donald E Westlake,Mary Higgins Clark,Carol Higgins Clark,Nancy Pickard,Walter Mosley,Edna Buchanan,Ann Rule) (1997)
  2. Fearless Jones (By:Walter Mosley) (2001)
  3. Fear Itself (By:Walter Mosley) (2003)
  4. Fear of the Dark (By:Walter Mosley) (2006)

Hard Case Crime Books In Publication Order

  1. Shooting Star/Spiderweb (By:) (1958)
  2. Shooting Star / Spiderweb (By:Robert Bloch) (1958)
  3. The Mercenaries (By:) (1960)
  4. Two for the Money (By:Max Allan Collins) (1973)
  5. Deadly Beloved (By:Max Allan Collins) (2007)
  6. Gun Work (By:) (2011)
  7. Catch and Release (2011)

Hot Blood Books In Publication Order

  1. Hot Blood (1989)
  2. Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror (1991)
  3. Hottest Blood (1993)
  4. Deadly After Dark (1994)
  5. Seeds of Fear (1995)
  6. Stranger by Night (1995)
  7. Fear the Fever (1996)
  8. Kiss and Kill (1997)
  9. Crimes of Passion (1997)
  10. Hot Blood X (1998)
  11. Fatal Attractions (2003)
  12. Strange Bedfellows (2004)
  13. Dark Passions (2007)

Jill Emerson Books In Publication Order

  1. A Madwoman’s Diary / Sensuous (1972)
  2. Getting Off (2011)
  3. The Trouble with Eden (2016)
  4. Shadows (2016)
  5. Enough of Sorrow (2016)
  6. Threesome (2016)
  7. Warm and Willing (2016)
  8. Thirty (2016)

John Keller Books In Publication Order

  1. Hit Man (1998)
  2. Hit List (2000)
  3. Hit Parade (2006)
  4. Hit and Run (2008)
  5. Keller in Dallas (2009)
  6. Hit Me (2012)
  7. Keller’s Adjustment (2012)
  8. Keller on the Spot (2013)
  9. Keller’s Therapy (2013)
  10. Keller’s Horoscope (2013)
  11. Keller’s Fedora (2016)
  12. Keller’s Homecoming (2016)
  13. Keller’s Designated Hitter (2016)
  14. Keller the Dogkiller (2016)
  15. Keller in Des Moines (2016)
  16. Quotidian Keller (2017)

Kit Tolliver Books In Publication Order

  1. If You Can’t Stand the Heat (2013)
  2. Rude Awakening (2013)
  3. You Can Call Me Lucky (2013)
  4. Clean Slate (2013)
  5. Waitress Wanted (2013)
  6. Jilling (2013)
  7. Conjugal Rites (2013)
  8. One Kind Favor I Ask of You (2013)
  9. Don’t Get in the Car (2013)
  10. Fun with Brady and Angelica (2013)
  11. Zeroing In (2013)
  12. Unfinished Business (2013)

Lou Largo Books In Publication Order

  1. Babe in the Woods (1960)

Manhattan Noir Books In Publication Order

  1. Manhattan Noir (2006)
  2. Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics (2008)

Matthew Scudder Books In Publication Order

  1. The Sins of the Fathers (1976)
  2. In the Midst of Death (1976)
  3. Time to Murder and Create (1977)
  4. A Stab in the Dark (1981)
  5. Eight Million Ways to Die (1982)
  6. When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (1986)
  7. Out on the Cutting Edge (1989)
  8. A Ticket to the Boneyard (1990)
  9. A Dance at the Slaughterhouse (1991)
  10. A Walk Among the Tombstones (1992)
  11. The Devil Knows You’re Dead (1993)
  12. A Long Line of Dead Men (1994)
  13. Even the Wicked (1996)
  14. Out the Window (1997)
  15. Everybody Dies (1998)
  16. Hope to Die (2001)
  17. A Moment of Wrong Thinking (2002)
  18. All the Flowers are Dying (2005)
  19. A Drop of the Hard Stuff (2011)
  20. Let’s Get Lost (2011)
  21. A Candle for the Bag Lady (2012)
  22. A Time to Scatter Stones (2018)

Murderous Christmas Stories Books In Publication Order

  1. Murder under the Christmas Tree: Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season (2016)
  2. Murder on Christmas Eve (2017)
  3. A Very Murderous Christmas: Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season (2018)

Paul Kavanagh Books In Publication Order

  1. Such Men are Dangerous (1969)
  2. The Triumph of Evil (1972)
  3. Not Comin’ Home to You (1974)

Seven Deadly Sins Books In Publication Order

  1. Speaking of Lust: Stories of Forbidden Desire (2001)
  2. Speaking of Greed: Stories of Envious Desire (2001)
  3. Speaking of Wrath (2002)

Transgressions Books In Publication Order

  1. Transgressions (By:Ed McBain) (2006)
  2. Transgressions, Vol. 2 (With: Stephen King,Ed McBain,John Farris) (2006)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Carla (1958)
  2. Into the Night (With: Cornell Woolrich) (1959)
  3. 69 Barrow Street (1959)
  4. Campus Tramp (1959)
  5. Candy (1960)
  6. A Girl Called Honey (1960)
  7. Kept (1960)
  8. A Strange Kind of Love (1960)
  9. Grifter’s Game / Mona / Sweet Slow Death (1961)
  10. A Diet of Treacle (1961)
  11. Cinderella Sims (1961)
  12. Killing Castro (1961)
  13. Coward’s Kiss / Death Pulls a Doublecross (1961)
  14. $20 Lust / Cinderella Sims (1961)
  15. Borderline (1962)
  16. The Case of the Po*rnographic Photos / Markham / You Could Call it Murder (1962)
  17. Strange Embrace (1962)
  18. Sin Hellcat (1962)
  19. Lucky at Cards (1964)
  20. The Girl with the Long Green Heart (1965)
  21. Deadly Honeymoon (1967)
  22. After the First Death (1969)
  23. The Specialists (1969)
  24. Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man (1971)
  25. A Week as Andrea Benstock (1975)
  26. Ariel (1979)
  27. Code of Arms (With: ) (1981)
  28. Random Walk (1988)
  29. The Lost Cases of Ed London (2001)
  30. Small Town (2002)
  31. Community of Women (2010)
  32. The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes (2015)
  33. Passport to Peril (With: Anne Campbell Clark) (2016)
  34. Sinner Man (2016)
  35. April North (2019)
  36. Dead Girl Blues (2020)

Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order

  1. Collecting Ackermans (1979)
  2. A Chance to Get Even (2011)
  3. Dolly’s Trash & Treasures (2011)
  4. Welcome to the Real World (2011)
  5. Who Knows Where It Goes (2011)
  6. Scenarios (2011)
  7. Headaches and Bad Dreams (2011)
  8. Sweet Little Hands (2011)
  9. You Don’t Even Feel It (2011)
  10. In For a Penny (2011)
  11. Three in the Side Pocket (2011)
  12. Like a Bone in the Throat (2011)
  13. Nothing Short of Highway Robbery (2013)
  14. I Know How to Pick ‘Em (2014)
  15. Resume Speed (2016)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Like a Lamb to Slaughter (1984)
  2. Sometimes They Bite (1984)
  3. Some Days You Get the Bear (1993)
  4. By the Dawn’s Early Light: And Other Stories (1994)
  5. The Collected Mystery Stories (1999)
  6. Enough Rope (2002)
  7. The Crazy Years (2004)
  8. Catch and Release (2011)
  9. Defender of the Innocent: The Casebook of Martin Ehrengraf (2014)
  10. Resume Speed and Other Stories (2018)
  11. From Sea to Stormy Sea (2019)

Plays In Publication Order

  1. How Far (2011)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. The Wife-Swap Report (1970)
  2. 3 is Not a Crowd (1971)
  3. Sex and the Stewardess (1972)
  4. The Sex Therapists (1972)
  5. Different Strokes (1974)
  6. Total Sexuality (1974)
  7. Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel (1979)
  8. Telling Lies for Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers (1981)
  9. Write for Your Life (1986)
  10. Spider, Spin Me A Web: A Handbook for Fiction Writers (1988)
  11. After Hours: Conversations With Lawrence Block (1995)
  12. Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves: The Lives and Crimes of Fifty American Villains (2004)
  13. Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir (2009)
  14. The Liar’s Bible (2011)
  15. The Liar’s Companion (2011)
  16. The Male Hustler (2012)
  17. Wide Open (2012)
  18. Doing It! – Going Beyond the Sexual Revolution (2012)
  19. Come Fly With Us (2012)
  20. Beyond Group Sex (2012)
  21. The Crime of Our Lives (2015)
  22. Afterthoughts: Version 2.0 (2021)

Matthew Scudder Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. One Night Stands and Lost Weekends (1999)
  2. The Night and the Music (2011)

World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories Books In Publication Order

  1. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 1 (2000)
  2. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 2 (2000)
  3. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 3 (2002)
  4. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 4 (2003)
  5. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 5 (2004)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Chapter and Hearse (1985)
  2. The Perfect Murder (1991)
  3. The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories (1992)
  4. Bad Behavior (1995)
  5. Win, Lose or Die (1996)
  6. The Plot Thickens (1997)
  7. The Best of the Best (1998)
  8. Hot Blood X (1998)
  9. The Best American Mystery Stories 1998 (1998)
  10. Death Cruise: Crime Stories on the Open Seas (1999)
  11. The Best American Mystery Stories 1999 (1999)
  12. Master’s Choice: Mystery Stories by Today\’s Top Writers and the Masters Who Inspired Them (2000)
  13. The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century (2000)
  14. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 1 (2000)
  15. Opening Shots: Great Mystery and Crime Writers Share Their First Published Stories (2000)
  16. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 2 (2000)
  17. The Best American Mystery Stories 2001 (2001)
  18. Opening Shots, Vol. II (2001)
  19. The Mighty Johns (2002)
  20. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 3 (2002)
  21. Blood on Their Hands (2003)
  22. The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 4 (2003)
  23. In the Shadow of the Master (2003)
  24. Greatest Hits (2005)
  25. Transgressions (2005)
  26. These Guns for Hire (2006)
  27. Transgressions, Vol. 2 (2006)
  28. The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 (2007)
  29. The Dark End of the Street (2010)
  30. Masters of Noir (2010)
  31. The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 (2011)
  32. In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero (2012)
  33. Inherit the Dead (2013)
  34. Dangerous Women (2013)
  35. Have a NYC 3: New York Short Stories (2014)
  36. Dark City Lights: New York Stories (Have a NYC) (2015)
  37. Mostly Murder (2016)
  38. In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper (2016)
  39. Gym Rat & Murder Club (2016)
  40. Alive in Shape and Color (2017)
  41. At Home in the Dark (2019)
  42. The Darkling Halls of Ivy (2020)
  43. Collectibles (2021)
  44. Jewish Noir II: Tales of Crime and Other Dark Deeds (2021)

Bernie Rhodenbarr Book Covers

Chip Harrison Book Covers

Evan Tanner Book Covers

Fearless Jones Book Covers

Hard Case Crime Book Covers

Hot Blood Book Covers

Jill Emerson Book Covers

John Keller Book Covers

Kit Tolliver Book Covers

Lou Largo Book Covers

Manhattan Noir Book Covers

Matthew Scudder Book Covers

Murderous Christmas Stories Book Covers

Paul Kavanagh Book Covers

Seven Deadly Sins Book Covers

Transgressions Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Stories/Novellas Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Plays Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Matthew Scudder Short Story Collections Book Covers

World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Lawrence Block Books Overview

Burglars Can’t Be Choosers

Bernie Rhodenbarr is a personable chap, a good neighbor, a passable poker player. His chosen profession, however, might not sit well with some. Bernie is a burglar, a good one, effortlessly lifting valuables from the not so well protected abodes of well to do New Yorkers like a modern day Robin Hood. The poor, as Bernie would be the first to tell you, alas, have nothing worth stealing.

He’s not perfect, however; he occasionally makes mistakes. Like accepting a paid assignment from a total stranger to retrieve a particular item from a rich man’s apartment. Like still being there when the cops arrive. Like having a freshly slain corpse lying in the next room, and no proof that Bernie isn’t the killer.

Now he’s really got his hands full, having to locate the true perpetrator while somehow eluding the police a dirty job indeed, but if Bernie doesn’t do it, who will?

The Burglar in the Closet

It’s hard to ignore someone with his hands in your mouth. Bernie Rhodenbarr’s all ears when Dr. Sheldrake, his dentist, starts complaining about his detestable, soon to be ex wife, and happens to mention the valuable diamonds she keeps lying around the apartment. Since Bernie’s been known to supplement his income as a bookstore owner with the not so occasional bout of high rise burglary, a couple of nights later he’s in the Sheldrake apartment with larceny on his mind and has to duck into a closet when the lady of the house makes an unexpected entrance. Unfortunately he’s still there when an unseen assailant does Mrs. Sheldrake in…
and then vanishes with the jewels. Bernie’s got to come out of the closet some time. But when he does, he’ll be facing a rap for a murder he didn’t commit and for a burglary he certainly attempted unless he can hunt down the killer who left him hanging.

The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling

Bernie Rhodenbarr has gone legit almost as the new owner of a used bookstore in New York’s Greenwich Village. Of course, dusty old tomes don’t always turn a profit, so to make ends meet, Bernie’s forced, on occasion, to indulge in his previous occupation: burglary. Besides which, he likes it. Now a collector is offering Bernie an opportunity to combine his twin passions by stealing a very rare and very bad book length poem from a rich man’s library. The heist goes off without a hitch. The delivery of the ill gotten volume, however, is a different story. Drugged by the client’s female go between, Bernie wakes up in her apartment to find the book gone, the lady dead, a smoking gun in his hand, and the cops at the door. And suddenly he’s got to extricate himself from a rather sticky real life murder mystery and find a killer before he’s booked for Murder One.

The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza

Bookselling burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr doesn’t generally get philosophical about his criminal career. He’s good at it, it’s addictively exciting-and it pays a whole lot better than pushing old tomes. He steals therefore he is, period.

He might well ponder, however, the deeper meaning of events at the luxurious Chelsea brownstone of Herb and Wanda Colcannon, which is apparently burgled three times on the night Bernie breaks in: once before his visit and once after. Fortunately he still manages to lift some fair jewelry and an extremely valuable coin. Unfortunately burglar or burglars number three leave Herb unconscious and Wanda dead…
and the cops think Rhodenbarr dunnit.

There’s no time to get all existential about it-especially after the coin vanishes and the fence fencing it meets with a most severe end. But Bernie is going to have to do some deep thinking to find a way out of this homicidal conundrum.

The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian

It’s not that used bookstore owner and part time burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr believes the less legal of his two professions is particularly ethical. It is, however, a rush, and he is very good at it. He just thinks it’s unfair to face a prison term for his legitimate activities. After appraising the worth of a rich man’s library conveniently leaving his fingerprints everywhere in the process Bernie finds he’s the cops’ prime suspect when his client is murdered. Someone has framed Bernie Rhodenbarr better than they do it at the Whitney. And if he wants to get out of this corner he’s been masterfully painted into, he’ll have to get to the bottom of a rather artful if multiply murderous scam.

The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams

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 is driving the bookseller and reformed burglar back to a life of crime though, in all fairness, it’s a very short trip. And when the cops wrongly accuse him of stealing a priceless collection of baseball cards, Bernie’s stuck with a worthless alibi since he was busy burgling a different apartment at the time…
one that happened to contain a dead body locked inside a bathroom. So Bernie has a dilemma. He can trade a burglary charge for a murder rap. Or he can shuffle all the cards himself and try to find the joker in the deck someone, perhaps, who believes that homicide is the real Great American Pastime.

The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart

Bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr’s in love with an exotic Eastern European beauty who shares his obsession with Humphrey Bogart movies. He’s in heaven, munching popcorn with his new amour every night at a Bogart Film Festival until their Casablanca esque idyll is cut short by his other secret passion: burglary. When he’s hired to pilfer a portfolio of valuable documents from a Park Avenue apartment, Bernie can hardly refuse. But the occupant’s early return forces Bernie to flee empty handed and he soon finds himself implicated in a murder. Before you can say ‘who stole the strawberries?’ he’s hunting for a killer, up to his neck in the outrageous intrigues of a tiny Balkan nation…
and menaced by more sinister fat men and unsavory toadies than the great Bogie himself butted heads with in pursuit of that darn bird!

The Burglar in the Library

Bookseller and New Yorker to the bone, Bernie Rhodenbarr rarely ventures out of Manhattan, but he’s excited about the romantic getaway he has planned for himself and current lady love Lettice at the Cuttleford House, a remote upstate b&b. Unfortunately, Lettice has a prior engagement she’s getting married…
and not to Bernie so he decides to take best buddy Carolyn instead. A restful respite from the big city’s bustle would be too good to waste. Besides, there’s a very valuable first edition shelved in the Cuttleford’s library that Bernie’s just itching to get his hands on. Did we neglect to mention that Bernie’s a burglar? But first he’s got to get around a very dead body on the library floor. The plot’s thickened by an isolating snowstorm, downed phone lines, the surprise arrival of Lettice and her reprehensible new hubby, and a steadily increasing corpse count. And it’s Bernie who’ll have to figure out whodunit…
or die.

The Burglar in the Rye

Gulliver Fairborn’s novel, Nobody’s Baby, changed Bernie Rhodenbarr’s life. And now pretty Alice Cottrell, Fairborn’s one time paramour, wants the bookselling, book loving burglar to break into a room in New York’s teeth achingly charming Paddington Hotel and purloin some of the writer’s very personal letters before an unscrupulous agent can sell them. Here’s an opportunity to use his unique talents in the service of the revered, famously reclusive author. But when Bernie gets there, the agent is dead…
and Bernie’s wanted for murder. He really hates when that happens! Perhaps it’s karmic payback; Bernie did help himself to a ruby necklace on his way out. But it was lying there. And he is a burglar. Now he’s in even hotter water. And he’ll need to use every trick in the book maybe going so far as to entice the hermitic Fairborn himself out of seclusion to bring this increasingly twisted plot to a satisfying denouement.

The Burglar on the Prowl

Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Block returns with one of his most inspired and popular characters: the extraordinary Bernie Rhodenbarr.

Sophisticated yet down to earth, philosophical yet practical, Bernie is a gentleman who knows and loves his territory, the gloriously diverse and electric streets of Manhattan. He is minding his own business when he’s asked for a favor a neat, uncomplicated bit of vengeful larceny that will reap a tidy profit an offer the intrepid thief can’t refuse.

But with a few days to go before the crime, Bernie gets restless. So what does a burglar do to change his mood? Go on the prowl, of course. This bit of prowling lands Bernie in a pile of trouble that includes four murders and the burglary of his own home. Caught in the center of a deadly mystery, Bernie must use his wits and wiles to connect the dots and add up the coincidences. Because if he doesn’t catch a killer, he’ll lose not only his freedom but his life.

/Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Bernie Rhodenbarr, burglar with a heart of gold, returns for this 10th installment in a reliable series from the versatile and prolific Lawrence Block 70 plus books to date. In Burglar on the Prowl, Bernie is recruited by an old friend to burgle the home of a crooked plastic surgeon, removing some off the books cash from a wall safe. A simple enough job, but Bernie complicates matters by going ‘on the prowl’ one restless evening randomly cruising for an easy job. While he’s pawing through a woman’s empty apartment, she returns home; Bernie hides hastily, only to overhear an act of violence that draws him into a hunt for the perpetrator and a deepening role in the victim’s life.

Lawrence Block’s prose is merely serviceable, but his plotting and storytelling are first rate. He constructs a complex puzzle, yet weaves in each new development so seamlessly that you almost don’t see it happen. Like its Bernie predecessors, The Burglar on the Prowl is droll and charming, and at times you can feel Block trying a bit too hard with the charm. However, a few truly horrific bad guys and some ugly violence keep the sweetness from cloying. And it’s impossible not to like Bernie, a gentleman criminal with few peers in contemporary fiction. Nicholas H. Allison

No Score

Hoping to win over the beautiful Francine, Chip Harrison is astonished when an attempt is made on his life, an event that places him at the forefront of a fast paced investigation.

Chip Harrison Scores Again

The devilish Chip Harrison young, broke, and girlless stumbles on a discarded bus ticket and finds himself in South Carolina, where he becomes the local sheriff’s protege a7 and falls in love with a preacher’s daughter.

Make Out with Murder

A previously published mystery follows New York City sleuth for hire Chip Harrison as he confronts his first case, in which five beautiful sisters one of them a former flame are hunted down by their wicked relatives.’

The Topless Tulip Caper

Edgar Award winning author Lawrence Block returns with another outrageous caper featuring Chip Harrison…
a sleuth who always seems to get into trouble with a capital T! Now a man about town working for a famous detective, Chip Harrison finds himselfat a Times Square Club waiting for his latest client, a stripper, to finish a night’s work. When she completes her set, she introduces him toher roommate, a dancer who’s targeted for murder…
and killed in the club right before their very eyes! The list of suspects is as long as the line outside the club, and now it will take all of Chip’s street smarts to trap a killer! Lawrence Block is one of the most respected and bestselling authors ofmystery fiction Lawrence Block has won the Edgar Award three times, the Shamus Award four times, the Maltese Falcon Award twice, and was named Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America Previously published under pseudonyms and in omnibus collections, this isthe first time the Chip Harrison novels are being individually published under Lawrence Block’s name The Chip Harrison mystery series also includes Make Out With Murder,Chip Harrison Scores Again, and No Score

The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep

Evan Michael Tanner hasn’t slept in more than a decade not since a small piece of battlefield shrapnel invaded his skull and obliterated his brain’s sleep center. Still, he’s managed to find numerous inventive ways to occupy his waking hours. Tanner is a card carrying member of hundreds of international organizations, from the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Order to the Flat Earth Society not because he believes in their myriad lost causes, he’s simply a joiner by nature. Besides, it gives him something to do. The Russians think Tanner is a CIA operative on a covert mission. The CIA is certain he’s a Soviet agent. Actually, he’s in Turkey pursuing a fortune in hidden Armenian gold. But Tanner’s up for anything, including a little spycraft, if it helps him reach his big payday. And if need be, he’ll even start a small revolution…

The Canceled Czech

Evan Tanner ran head first into a piece of shrapnel in Korea, and now he can’t sleep. Ever. Which can be an asset for a dedicated linguist, term paper forger, thief, lost cause enthusiast…
Spy. Tanner takes on jobs for a covert intelligence organization so secret that even those who work for it have no idea who they’re working for. Now his nameless supervisor wants him to sneak behind the Iron Curtain, storm an impregnable castle in Prague alone!, and rescue an old Slovak who’s got a pressing date with a hangman’s noose. The trouble is the prisoner is an unrepentant Na*zi who makes Goering look like Mister Rogers. Tanner hates Na*zis. If he’s caught which is likely the U.S. will deny that they know him. And Tanner will be executed. After being tortured, no doubt. All in all, there are many excellent reasons why Tanner should refuse this assignment. So, naturally, he says yes.

Tanner’s Twelve Swingers

Lawrence Block’s third book in his hilarious Tanner series is back…
And this time the intrepid spy is up to his neck in a dozen leggy beauties and a life and death smuggling assignment out of the cold corners of Russia. Praise for the Tanner series:’Reminiscent of the tongue in cheek novels of Donald Hamilton or even Ian Fleming’s classic James Bond stories.’ BookPageLawrence Block is’A Master.’ People’The thoughtful reader’s answer to the slapstick antics of the Austin Powers movie.’ Rocky Mountain News’One of our best authors.’ San Diego Union Tribune’A writer of wit and skill.’ Detroit Free Press Block was named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America Four time winner of the Edgar Award, four time winner of the Shamus Award, and the first recipient of the Nero Wolfe Award Other Tanner novels from Signet: The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep, The Cancelled Czech, and Tanner on Ice Signet also publishes the Bernie Rhodenbarr and Chip Harrison series by Block, including 1999’s The Burglar in the Rye

Here Comes a Hero / Tanner’s Virgin

The CIA, the FBI, the KGB, Interpol not one of the world’s premier intelligence organizations knows quite what to make of Evan Michael Tanner. Is he a spy, a mercenary, a footloose adventurer, or simply a screwball sucker for hopeless causes?

Actually he’s a little bit of all of the above. Plus he never sleeps. Ever.

One thing’s for sure: Tanner’s a true romantic, which is why he can’t refuse a distraught mother who begs him to rescue her lost, pure as driven snow daughter. Phaedra Harrow nee Deborah Horowitz once shared Tanner’s apartment but not his bed. And now the virginal beauty’s been abducted by white slavers in the Afghan wilderness.

Finding Phaedra will be difficult enough. Bringing her back alive and unmolested may be impossible. And first Tanner will have to swim the English Channel, survive trigger happy Russian terrorists…
and maybe pull off a timely assassination or two.

The Scoreless Thai / Two for Tanner

Evan Tanner can’t sleep. Ever. Which gives him plenty of free time to get involved in lots of interesting endeavors in all sorts of exotic locales. Now Tanner’s in Thailand with a partially baked plan and a butterfly net, hoping to snare a beautiful missing chanteuse who’s metamorphosed into an international jewel thief. Tanner hopes everyone will buy his disguise as a rare butterfly researcher. And everyone does…
Except the guerilla band holding him captive. They intend to remove his head when the sun rises, so Tanner must put his fate in the hands of a randy Thai youth who will do anything for a woman, even set a suspected spy free. Soon they’re running through the jungle together, chased by bandits, soldiers, and yellow fever, and racing headlong into the heart of darkness and into the flames of war.

Tanner’s Tiger

The Cold War’s boiling over. Global tensions are near the breaking point. So what’s the perfect assignment for a super spy who hasn’t slept since the Korean conflict? A fun filled trip to the Montreal World’s Fair! The adorable little girl he’s escorting who, under different circumstances, would be sitting on the Lithuanian throne can hardly contain her excitement, but it isn’t all playtime for Evan Tanner. Some mysterious disappearances, apparently linked to the fair’s Cuban exhibition, need to be looked into. Keeping his mind on business, however, won’t be easy after an insatiable lovely in a tiger skin falls into Tanner’s arms, and a mother lode of dangerous drugs falls into his lap. But the biggest, deadliest suprise is the terrorist plot Tanner’s tumbling into, and he’ll have to think and act quickly to prevent the visiting queen of England from being blown to smithereens.

Me Tanner, You Jane

It’s a jungle out there. Literally. At least for Evan Tanner, 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. Tanner’s always been a sucker for a pretty face and a curvaceous body, especially one that’s wrapped in leopard skin. But this red hot renegade daughter of a local missionary is a maneater. Which means this time Tanner’s goose is well and truly cooked.

Tanner on Ice

Cold War superspy Evan Tanner lost the ability to sleep on a battlefield in Korea. So where the heck has he been since the ’70s? Frozen. Cryogenically. A Tanner sicle. Which he never thought would happen when he walked into a baseme*nt in Union City, New Jersey, more than a quarter century ago. Now he’s unthawed and ready to rumble, and his somewhat addled, former super secret boss, ‘the Chief,’ is glad his favorite operative’s active again. Tanner awoke to a different world, though some bad things have remained the same…
or gotten worse. Even before he can fully acclimate himself to this perplexing future, Tanner’s off to Burma which isn’t really Burma anymore to pose as a monk, destabilize the government, dodge a lethal double cross, and rescue a beautiful prisoner. The world’s still full of conspiracy, corruption, greed, political chicanery and beautiful women. So Tanner’s back with a vengeance, with a lot of lost time to make up for.

The Plot Thickens (With: Janet Evanovich,Linda Fairstein,Nelson DeMille,Donald E Westlake,Mary Higgins Clark,Carol Higgins Clark,Nancy Pickard,Walter Mosley,Edna Buchanan,Ann Rule)

Joining together for a good cause brings out the best in today’s top mystery and suspense writers! For this marvelously entertaining anthology, these outstanding contributors rose to a unique literary challenge: each penned a tale that ingeniously features a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak. The result is a collection of wonderfully imaginative tales that both chill the spine and warm the heart: proceeds from The Plot Thickens will help bring the gift of reading to millions of disadvantaged Americans.

Fearless Jones (By:Walter Mosley)

Penzler Pick, June 2001: Those of us who have been waiting for Walter Mosley to return to mystery writing and there are many of us have cause to rejoice. Not only has Mosley written a mystery, he is introducing a new character who could turn out to be as popular as Easy Rawlins. Fearless Jones has a lot in common with Easy, but he also has some characteristics reminiscent of Socrates Fortlow, the ‘hero’ of Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. When the story begins, the reader is transported to the Los Angeles of the 1950s, a dangerous place and time for a black man. But Paris Minton seems to have beaten the odds. He owns a moderately successful and very satisfying business a used book store. He spends the time he’s not in the store scouring libraries for discarded books and selling them in just enough quantity to be independent and happy. Yes, he is visited on a regular basis by members of the LAPD who want him to prove to them that he did not steal the books, but that is a small price to pay for independence. Minton’s peaceful life is interrupted one day when a beautiful woman walks into his store and asks for the Reverend William Grove. In no time flat, Paris has been beaten into unconsciousness by a man following her and has been rewarded by the woman with sex. The lovely Elana Love is obviously trouble, but Paris jumps in feet first and, as a consequence, his store is burned to the ground. It is obviously time to call in Fearless Jones, a man well named. Jones is afraid of nothing, but there is a little matter to be taken care of before he can help. He’s in jail and Paris must raise bail to get him out. Once he does that, the pair embark on a wild ride through Los Angeles on behalf of Elana Love. As always, Mosley depicts the hard boiled L.A. in a powerful and distinctive way, and we can only hope that this is the first of a series. Otto Penzler

Fear Itself (By:Walter Mosley)

Paris Minton doesn’t want any trouble. He minds his used bookstore and his own business. But in 1950s Los Angeles, sometimes trouble finds him, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it. When the nephew of the wealthiest woman in L.A. is missing and wanted for murder, she has to get involved no matter if she can’t stand him. What will her church think? She hires Jefferson T. Hill, a former sheriff of Dawson, Texas, and a tough customer, to track him down and prove his innocence. When Hill goes missing too, she tricks his friend Fearless Jones and Paris Minton into picking up the case. Paris steps inside the world of the black bourgeoisie, and it turns out to be filled with deceit and corruption. It takes everything he has just to stay alive through a case filled with twists and turns and dead ends like he never imagined. Written with the voice and vision that have made Walter Mosley one of the most entertaining writers in America, FEAR ITSELF marks the return of a master at the top of his form.

Fear of the Dark (By:Walter Mosley)

Fearless Jones and Paris Minton, stars of the bestsellers Fearless Jones and Fear Itself, return in a fast paced thriller about family and revenge. For Paris Minton, a knock on his door is often the first sign of trouble. So when he finds his lowlife cousin, Ulysses S. Grant, or Useless, on the other side of his front door, Paris keeps it firmly closed. With family like Useless, who needs enemies? Yet trouble always finds an open window, and when Useless’s mother, Three Hearts, shows up to look for her son, Paris has no choice but to track down his wayward cousin. Turns out that Useless is involved in some high stakes blackmailing. Now, he and a briefcase full of money and incriminating photos are missing, and Paris is not the only one looking for him. Paris enlists the help of his invincible friend Fearless Jones, but mysterious women, desperate blackmail victims, and cheating business partners are all they encounter not to mention the dead bodies found along the way. With the sheer nerve plotting and brilliant characterizations that have made him one of the great stars of crime fiction, Fear of the Dark is masterful Mosley.

Shooting Star / Spiderweb (By:Robert Bloch)

A one-eyed detective and a blackmailer find themselves neck-deep in murder and deception when they explore the seamy underbelly of Hollywood. Two complete novels – both published for the first time in 50+ years!

The Mercenaries (By:)

SOME PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR MONEY

Mavis St. Paul had been a rich man’s mistress. Now she was a corpse. And every cop in New York City was hunting for the two-bit punk accused of putting a knife in her.

But the punk was innocent. He’d been set up to take the fall by some cutie who was too clever by half. My job? Find that cutie – before the cutie found me.

Two for the Money (By:Max Allan Collins)

AFTER 16 YEARS ON THE RUN, WOULD NOLAN BURY THE HATCHET WITH THE MOB OR WOULD THEY BURY HIM FIRST? They don t come tougher than Nolan but even a hardened professional thief can t fight off the entire Chicago mafia. So when an old friend offers to broker a truce, Nolan accepts the terms. All he has to do is pull off one last heist and trust the Mob not to double cross him. Fortunately, Nolan has a couple of things going for him: an uncanny knack for survival and an unmatched hunger for revenge

Deadly Beloved (By:Max Allan Collins)

TILL DEATH DO US PART…
Marcy Addwatter killed her husband there’s no question about that. Shot him dead in the motel room where he was trysting with a blonde hooker. Shot the hooker, too. But where the cops might see an open and shut case, private eye Michael Tree Ms. Michael Tree sees a conspiracy. For Ms. Tree, digging into it could mean digging her own grave…
and digging up her own murdered husband’s. Based on the longest running private eye comic book series of all time, DEADLY BELOVED brings you an all new adventure of the legendary Ms. Tree the groundbreaking female P.I. who put the ‘graphic’ into graphic novel…

Gun Work (By:)

POINT AND SHOOT. Life isn’t always cheap south of the border some lives are worth a million dollars. That’s what the Mexican kidnapping cartel was demanding for Carl Ledbetter s wife. So Carl reached out to the one person he knew with a chance in hell of saving her, a deadly man whose own life he d saved in the sands of Iraq. It was time to call in some favors. Because some situations call for negotiation, but some call for gun work.

Hot Blood

Robert R. McCammon, Graham Masterton, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell and other masters of the macabre take readers into their private world of fear, fantasy, and fatal attraction in 24 tales of dread and debauchery, riveting stories of sex and terror…
the fresh fusion that is fast becoming America’s obsession. Reissue.

Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

In Hotter Blood, sex and horror are coupled to an ecstatic effect. This is the second in the provocative anthology series that defined a genre and spanned a generation. Grant Morrison’s Bram Stoker nominated The Braille Encyclopedia spearheads a collection of 24 original stories, with additional contributions from horror stars like Richard Laymon and Nancy Collins, comic book talents Kurt Busiek and John Byrne, and superstar horror director Mick Garris. Explore the dark side of having your lover in The Tub with you, find out when Confession isn t good for the soul, and feed your hunger for erotic horror with this delectable collection Cemetery Dance called Hotter Blood outstanding, Gauntlet labeled it aggressive and riveting, a virtual Who s Who of modern horror, and to 2AM Magazine, it s Amazing highly recommended.

Hottest Blood

A collection of erotic tales of horror features stories by Graham Masterton, Bentley Little, Rex Miller, Elizabeth Massie, David J. Schow, Matthew Costello, John Shirley, Thomas Tessier, Grant Morrison, and other established masters.

Deadly After Dark

The fourth sizzling collection in the Hot Blood series, no longer available in retail book stores. Here is terror and passion beyond the last taboo in an all new collection of erotic horror from today’s fright masters Jack Ketchum, Graham Masterton, Lucy Taylor and more.

Seeds of Fear

This is the original erotic horror anthology including works by Rex Miller, Bentley Little, J.N. Williamson, Billie Sue Mosiman, Edward Lee, Ronald Kelly, Kathryn Ptacek, P.D. Cacek and Stephen R. George, just to name a few. These top name horror writers bring you the freshest works guaranteed to raise goosebumps and scald the blood.

Stranger by Night

Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Graham Masterton, Brinke Stevens, Brian Hodge, Edward Lee, Lucy Taylor, Mike Newton, and other conjurers of the darkest demons of the human id bring new stories to this series. Here are sex driven, horro laced, tales from master writers who follow no rules, except one hold back nothing.

Fear the Fever

An erotic horror anthology includes the works of such popular writers as Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Graham Masterton, Lucy Taylor, Bruce Jones, J. N. Williamson, P. D. Cacek, and Alan Brennert.

Kiss and Kill

Sixteen erotic horror stories include the tales of fantasy fulfilling cheerleaders, a modern den of sin and its centuries old acts of debauchery, and a competition over sexual conquest by two wives.

Crimes of Passion

This exciting installment in the erotic horror series takes readers into an underworld of provocative delights and painful demises, with bone chilling stories by such authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, and Ramsey Campbell.

Dark Passions

Not all love is innocent. Some desires swallow you whole…
There’s more than meets the eye to the twenty twisted pleasures collected here, with death and desire lying in wait behind every corner. One goth girl finds the man whose love can make her beautiful and whose body can bring her ecstasy if she can stomach the price…
A zombie apocalypse destroys a man’s family, but ’til death do us part’ is a vow his wife won’t forget even if she’s now more on the undead side. A vampire hunter wakes up the morning after and has to discover what forbidden pleasures he indulged in the night before he suspects they might involve the drop dead gorgeous bloodsucker next door…
These and many more tales of sinister passion lie inside if you aren’t afraid of the dark…
.

Hit Man

Keller is an assassin he is paid by the job and works for a mysterious man who nominates hits and pas*ses on commissions from elsewhere. Keller goes in, does the job, gets out: usually at a few hours notice…
Often Keller’s work takes him out of New York to other cities, to pretty provincial towns that almost tempt him into moving to the woods and the lakeshores. Almost but not quite. But then one job goes wrong in a way Keller has never imagined and it leaves him with a big problem. Finding himself with an orphan on his hands, Keller’s job begins to interfere with his carefully guarded life. And once you let someone in to your life, they tend to want to know what you do when you’re away. And killing for a living, lucrative though it is, just doesn’t find favour with some folks.

Hit List

Keller is a regular guy, a solid citizen. Call him for jury duty and he serves without complaint. He goes to the movies, watches the tube, browses the art galleries, and works diligently on his stamp collection. But every now and then a call from the breezily efficient Dot sends him off to kill a total stranger. He takes a plane, rents a car, finds a hotel room, and gets back before the body is cold. He’s a real pro, cool and dispassionate and very good at what he does. Until one day when Dot breaks her own rule and books him for a hit in New York, his home base. She sends him to an art gallery opening, and the girl he gets lucky with steers him to an astrologer. He’s a Gemini, his moon’s in Taurus…
and he’s got a murderer’s thumb. Then the jobs start to go wrong. Targets die before he can draw a bead on them. The realization is slow in coming, but there’s no getting around it: Somebody out there is trying to hit the hit man. Keller, God help him, has found his way on to somebody else’s Hit List. Darker than Keller’s conscience, and as riveting, surprising, and wickedly funny as his sensational New York Times bestselling debut, Hit Man, Lawrence Block’s Hit List only serves to confirm the Wall Street Journal’s estimation of the multiple award winning author as ‘one of the very best writers now working the beat.’

Hit Parade

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: a new kind of hero for a new, uncertain age. He’s cool. Reliable. A real pro: the hit man’s hit man. The inconvenient wife, the aging sports star, the business partner, the retiree with a substantial legacy. He’s taken care of them all, quietly and efficiently. Keller’s got a code of honor, though he’d never call it that. And he keeps the job strictly business. ‘What happens is you wind up thinking of each subject not as a person to be killed but as a problem to be solved. Now there are guys doing this who cope with it by making it personal. They find a reason to hate the guy they have to kill. I don’t know what’s a sin and what isn’t, or if one person deserves to go on living and another deserves to have his life ended. Sometimes I think about stuff like that, but as far as working it all out in my mind, well, I never seem to get anywhere.’ But while Keller might be a pragmatic and crack assassin, he’s also prone to doubts and loneliness just like everybody else. There was a psychotherapist once. A dog. Even a woman. And though he’s got Dot, his wisecracking contact and sometimes confidante, and his precious stamp collection, these days, it doesn’t seem to be enough. Keller’s been at this business a long while. Just maybe it’s time to pack it in and find a nice little house in the desert. Only problem is, retirement takes money. And to get money, he’s got to go to work…
. Hit Parade, the third novel featuring the fascinating Keller, displays the hallmarks that distinguish Lawrence Block’s award winning fiction: the intelligence, the clever plotting, the humor, the tricky twists and ironic turns, the darkness and emotional complexity and, above all else, the humanity.

Hit and Run

Keller’s a hit man. For years now he’s had places to go and people to kill. But enough is enough. He’s got money in the bank and just one last job standing between him and retirement. So he carries it out with his usual professionalism, and he heads home, and guess what? One more job. Paid in advance, so what’s he going to do? Give the money back? In Des Moines, Keller stalks his designated target and waits for the client to give him the go ahead. And one fine morning he’s picking out stamps for his collection Sweden 1 5, the official reprints at a shop in Urbandale when somebody guns down the charismatic governor of Ohio. Back at his motel, Keller’s watching TV when they show the killer’s face. And there’s something all too familiar about that face…
. Keller calls his associate Dot in White Plains, but there is no answer. He’s stranded halfway across the country, every cop in America’s just seen his picture, his ID and credit cards are no longer good, and he just spent almost all of his cash on the stamps. Now what?

Manhattan Noir

Brand new stories by: Jeffery Deaver, Lawrence Block, Charles Ardai, Carol Lea Benjamin, Thomas H. Cook, Jim Fusilli, Robert Knightly, John Lutz, Liz Mart nez, Maan Meyers, Martin Meyers, S.J. Rozan, Justin Scott, C.J. Sullivan, and Xu Xi.

Lawrence Block has won most of the major mystery awards, and has been called the quintessential New York writer, although he insists the city’s far too big to have a quintessential writer. His series characters Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner, Chip Harrison, and Keller all live in Manhattan; like their creator, they wouldn’t really be happy anywhere else.

Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics

Classic reprints from: Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Irwin Shaw, Jerome Weidman, Damon Runyon, Evan Hunter, Jerrold Mundis, Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Gregory, Geoffrey Bartholomew, Cornell Woolrich, Barry N. Malzberg, Clark Howard, Jerome Charyn, Donald E. Westlake, Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Susan Isaacs, and others. Lawrence Block has won most of the major mystery awards and has been called the quintessential New York writer. His series characters Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner, Chip Harrison, and Keller all live in Manhattan; like their creator, they would not really be happy anywhere else.

The Sins of the Fathers

The pretty young prostitute is dead. Her alleged murderer-a minister’s son-hanged himself in his jail cell. The case is closed. But the dead girl’s father has come to Matthew Scudder for answers, sending the unlicensed private investigator in search of terrible truths about a life that was lived and lost in a sordid world of perversion and pleasures.

In the Midst of Death

Bad cop Jerry Broadfield didn’t make any friends on the force when he volunteered to squeal to an ambitious d.a. about police corruption. Now he’saccused of murdering a call girl. Matthew Scudder doesn’t think Broadfield’s a killer, but the cops aren’t about to help the unlicensed p.i. prove it and they may do a lot worse than just get in his way.

Time to Murder and Create

Small time stoolie, Jake ‘ The Spinner’ Jablon, made a lot of new enemies when he switched careers, from informer to blackmailer. And the more ‘clients’, he figured, the more money and more people eager to see him dead. So no one is surprised when the pigeon is found floating in the East River with his skull bashed in. And what’s worse, no one cares except Matthew Scudder. The ex cop turned private eye is no conscientious avenging angel. But he’s willing to risk his own life and limb to confront Spinner’s most murderously aggressive marks. A job’s a job after all and Scudder’s been paid to find a killer by the victim…
in advance.

A Stab in the Dark

Louis Pinell, the recently apprehended ‘Icepick Prowler,’ freely admits to having slain seven young women nine years ago but be swears it was a copycat who killed Barbara Ettinger Matthew Scudder believes him. But the trail to Ettinger’s true murderer is twisted, dark and dangerous…
and even colder than the almost decade old corpse the p.i. is determined to avenge.

Eight Million Ways to Die

Nobody knows better than Matthew Scudder how far down a person can sink in the city of New York. Except a young prostitute named Kim and she wanted out. Maybe Kim didn’t deserve the life fate had dealt her. She surely didn’t deserve her death.

The alcoholic ex cop turned P.I. was supposed to protect her, but someone slashed her to ribbons in a seedy hotel room. Now, finding Kim’s killer will be Scudder’s penance. But there are lethal secrets hiding in the slain hooker’s past that are far dirtier than her trade. And there are many ways of dying in this cruel and dangerous town some quick and brutal…
and some agonizingly slow.

With this book, which won the Shamus Award and was short listed for the Edgar, Lawrence Block elevated the Matthew Scudder series to the top tier of American detective fiction. This special hardcover edition features an afterword by the author. Read Eight Million Ways to Die, the novel that proves Block to be one of the best mystery writers working today.

When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

In the dark days, in a sad and lonely place, ex cop Matt Scudder is drinking his life away and doing ‘favors’ for pay for his ginmill cronies. But when three such assignments flow together in dangerous and disturbing ways, he’ll need to change his priorities from boozing to surviving.

Out on the Cutting Edge

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 Schudder is the best and now the ex cop turned p.i. 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.

A Ticket to the Boneyard

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 p.i. 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.

A Dance at the Slaughterhouse

There is no accolade or major mystery award that has not already been bestowed upon Lawrence Block. His acclaimed crime novels are asintelligent, provocative, and emotionally complex as they are nerve tighteningly intense. And perhaps the most respected of his myriad works are the Matthew Scudder books masterworks of suspenseful invention featuring a remarkable protagonist rich in conscience and character, with all the flaws that his humanity entails. This is the detective novel as high art.A Dance at the SlaughterhouseIn Matt Scudder’s mind, money, power, and position elevate nobody above morality and the law. Now the ex cop and unlicensed p.i. has been hired to prove that socialite Richard Thurman orchestrated the brutal murder of his beautiful, pregnant wife. During Scudder’s hard drinking years, he left a piece of his soul on every seedy corner of the Big Apple. But this case is more depraved and more potentially devastating than anything he experienced while floundering in the urban depths. Because this investigation is leading Scudder on a frightening grand tour of New York’s sex for sale underworld where an innocent young life is simply a commodity to be bought and perverted…
and then destroyed.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

Perhaps more than any other author in the field, Lawrence Block has reinvented contemporary noir fiction instilling the classic private eye novel with new life and literary depth, while retaining its raw power, grit, suspense, and surprise. For his efforts he has received multiple Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon Awards wining virtually every honor the genre has to bestow and has been named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America P.I. Matthew Scudder remains among Block’s most memorable and exquisitely developed creations a flawed and complex protagonist whose stark, unassailable humanity is both his greatest weakness and strength. A new breed of entrepreneurial monster has set up shop in the big city. Ruthless, ingenious murderers, they prey on the loved ones of those who live outside the law knowing full well that criminals will never run to the police no matter how brutal the threat. So other avenues for justice must be explored which is where ex cop turned p.i. Matthew Scudder comes in. Scudder has no love for the drug dealers and poison peddlers who now need his help. Nevertheless, he is determined to do whatever it takes to put an elusive pair of thrill kill extortionists our of business. For they are using the innocent to fuel their terrible enterprise.

The Devil Knows You’re Dead

In this city, there is little sense and no rules. Those who fly the highest often come crashing down the hardest like successful young Glenn Holtzmann, randomly blown away by a deranged derelict at a corner phone booth on Eleventh Avenue. Unlicensed p.i. Matt Scudder thinks Holtzmann was simply in the wrong place at the worst time. Others think differently like Thomas Sadecki, brother of the crazed Vietnam vet accused of the murder, who wants Scudder to prove the madman innocent. But no one is truly innocent in this unmerciful metropolis including Matther Scudder, whose curiosity and dedication are leading him to dark, unexplored places in his own heart…
and to passions and revelations that could destroy everything he loves.

A Long Line of Dead Men

The winner of multiple Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon Awards, Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block has elevated the detective novel to high art combining grit with intelligence, suspense with stunning emotional complexity and power. And in unlicensed private investigator Matthew Scudder, he has created a character whose depth and stark humanity is unrivalled in contemporary fiction.

An ancient brotherhood meets annually in the back room of a swank Manhattan restaurant a fraternity created in secret to celebrate life by celebrating its dead. But the past three decades have not been kind to the Club of 31. Matthew Scudder ex cop, ex boozer has known death in all its guises. Which is why he has been asked to investigate a baffling, thirty year run of suicides and suspiciously random accidents that has thinned the ranks of this very select group of gentlemen. But Scudder has mortality problems of his own. For this is a city that feeds mercilessly on the unsuspecting and even thepowerful and those who serve them are easy prey. There are too many secrets here and too many places for a maddeningly patient serial killer to hide…
and wait…
and strike.

Even the Wicked

Matthew Scudder knows that justice is an elusive commodity in the big city, where a harmless man can be shot dead in a public place criminals fly free through holes in a tattered legal system. But now a vigilante is roaming among the millions, executing those he fees deserve to die. He calls himself ‘The Will of the People’ an ingenious serial killer who announces his specific murderous intentions to the media before carrying through on his threats. A child molester, a Mafia don, a violent anti abortionist even the protected and untouchable are being ruthlessly erased by New York’s latest celebrity avenger. Scudder knows that no one is innocent but who among us has the right to play God? It is a question that will haunt the licensed p.i. on his journey through the bleak city grays, as he searches for the sanity in urban madness…
and for a frighteningly efficient killer who can do the impossible.

Everybody Dies

Matt Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life. The crime rate’s down and the stock market’s up. Gentrification’s prettying up the old neighborhood. The New York streets don’t look so mean anymore. Then all hell breaks loose. Scudder quickly discovers the spruced up sidewalks are as mean as ever, dark and gritty and stained with blood. He’s living in a world where the past is a minefield, the present is a war zone, and the future’s an open question. It’s a world where nothing is certain and nobody’s safe, a random universe where no one’s survival can be taken for granted. Not even his own. A world where Everybody Dies.

Hope to Die

Twenty five years ago Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block introduced his acclaimed unlicensed private investigator to the New York crime scene. Today Matthew Scudder remains one of the most complex, richly human protagonists in noir fiction as he pursues a faceless adversary with a unique talent and taste for murder. Hope to DieWhen Byrne and Susan Hollander are killed in a brutal home invasion, the whole city catches its collective breath. A few days later the killers turn up dead behind a locked door in Brooklyn. One has killed his partner, then himself. The city sighs with relief. The cops close the case. Matt and Elaine Scudder were in the same room with the Hollanders hours before their deaths. In spite of himself, Scudder is drawn to the Hollander case. The closer he looks, the more he senses the presence of a third man, a puppet master who manipulated his two accomplices, then cut their strings when he was done with them. The villain who looms in the shadows is one of Block’s most inspired creations, cold and diabolical, murdering for pleasure and profit. Nobody but Scudder even suspects he exists and he’s not done killing. He’s just getting started…
. The prolific author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, a four time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, and the recipient of literary prizes from France, Germany, and Japan. Block is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.

All the Flowers are Dying

In his sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel, All the Flowers are Dying, New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Block takes the award winning series to a new level of suspense and a new depth of characterization. Building on the critical and commercial success of Hope to Die, Block puts Scudder and the reader at the very edge of the abyss. Scudder, a complex character who has grown and aged in real time, confronts the implacable challenge of mortality. But he must also tackle a determined, relentless, and icily inhuman adversary, perhaps the most unforgettable villain Block has ever created. A man in a Virginia prison awaits execution for three hideous murders he swears, in the face of irrefutable evidence, he did not commit. A psychologist who claims to believe the convict spends hours with the man in his death row cell, and ultimately watches in the gallery as the lethal injection is administered. His work completed, the psychologist heads back to New York City to attend to unfinished business. Meanwhile, Scudder has just agreed to investigate the ostensibly suspicious online lover of an acquaintance. It seems simple enough. At first. But when people start dying and the victims are increasingly closer to home, it becomes clear that a vicious killer is at work. And the final targets may be Matt and Elaine Scudder. The suspense is breathtaking, the outcome never certain. A series that has garnered no end of awards the Edgar, the Shamus, the Philip Marlowe, the MalteseFalcon has ascended to a dizzying new height. With this novel, Lawrence Block, who recently received the Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom, is at the very top of his form.

A Drop of the Hard Stuff

‘The Matthew Scudder novels are among the finest detective novels penned in this century.’ Jonathan KellermanMatthew Scudder is facing his demons. Forced out of the NYPD, he’s given up the drink. He’s thinking seriously about his relationship with sometime girlfriend Jan. Then he runs into ‘High Low’ Jack Ellery, a childhood friend from the Bronx. They’re two sides of the same coin: Scudder once solved crimes as a detective. Ellery committed them. In Scudder, Ellery sees the moral man he might have become. In Ellery, Scudder sees the hard won sobriety he hopes to achieve. Then Ellery is killed, shot once in the mouth and once between the eyes, presumably while attempting to atone for past sins. Is it what he saw or what he said that got him killed? Ellery had no family, no friends to press for justice. Scudder reluctantly begins his own investigation, with just one lead Ellery’s Alcoholics Annonymous list of people he wronged. One of them may be a murderer, but that’s not necessarily Scudder’s greatest danger. Immersing himself in Ellery’s world may lead him right back to the bar stool. Exploring themes of loss, nostalgia, and redemption, for Lawrence Block, A Drop of the Hard Stuff circles back to how it all began, reestablishing why the Matthew Scudder series is widely regarded as one of the pinnacles of American detective fiction.

Not Comin’ Home to You

He is Jimmie John Hall, ‘free and white and 22’. Her name is Betty Dienhardt, plain, friendless, and oppressed by a bleak home life. In each other, they find a chance for love and fulfillment. But they are doomed. For Jimmie John has already embarked on a killing spree on the backroads of the Southwest that will leave 14 innocent people dead.

Speaking of Lust: Stories of Forbidden Desire

This first volume in the Seven Deadly Sins Series, ‘Speaking of Lust’ is a collection of outstanding short stories on that exceedingly deadly sin we call lust. In addition to being the title of this anthology, ‘Speaking of Lust’ is also the title of Lawrence Block’s original novella that finishes this unique collection.

Speaking of Greed: Stories of Envious Desire

The second volume in the Seven Deadly Sins series, Speaking of Greed is a collection of short stories on the destructive deadly sin known as greed. In addition to being the title of this anthology, ‘Speaking of Greed’ is also the title of Lawrence Block’s original novella that leads off this unique collection. ‘My task as an anthologist in this series,’ Block write in the introduction, ‘is threefold: first, I have to pick the stories; then I have to write a longish novella with my four series characters, whom we know only as the priest, the doctor, the soldier, and the policeman; finally, I have to hammer out an introduction.’ The stories Block has chosen are delightful. His novella delivers what he promises. And the introduction is a heads up plea for authors to ensure that their work will continue to be read after they are no longer around to write any more. Included in this stellar anthology are the following stories and authors: ‘Speaking of Greed’ by Lawrence Block ‘The Word’ by F. Paul Wilson ‘Hitler, Elvis, and Me’ by Doug Allyn ‘One Hit Wonder’ by Gabrielle Kraft ‘The $5,000 Getaway’ by Jack Ritchie ‘Rotten to the Core’ by Jeremiah Healy ‘Front Man’ by David Morrell ‘Water’s Edge’ by Robert Bloch ‘A Taste of Paradise’ by Bill Pronzini ‘Bits’ by Mat Coward ‘Come Down From The Hills’ by John F. Suter ‘The Wrong Hands’ by Peter Robinson ‘The High Cost of Living’ by Dorothy Cannell ‘My Heart Cries For You’ by Bill Crider ‘Inside Job’ by Ed Gorman ‘Deadly Fantasies’ by Marcia Muller ‘Death Scene’ by Helen Nielsen ‘Good bye, Sue Ellen’ by Gillian Roberts ‘Death and Diamonds’ by Sue Dunlap ‘A Ticket Out’ by Brenda DuBois

Transgressions (By:Ed McBain)

New York Times bestsellers Ed McBain, Walter Mosely, and Donald Westlake each provided a brand new, never before published tale for this unique collection of stories edited by bestselling author and mystery legend Ed McBain.’Merely Hate’ by Ed McBain: When a string of Muslim cabdrivers are killed, and the evidence points to another ethnic group, the detectives of the 87th Precinct must hunt down a killer before the city explodes in violence.’Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large: Walking the Line’ by Walter Mosley: Felix Orlean is a New York City journalism student who needs a job to cover his rent. An ad in the paper leads him to Archibald Lawless, and a descent into a shadow world where no one and nothing is as it first seems.’Walking Around Money’ by Donald E. Westlake: The master of the comic mystery is back with an all new novella featuring hapless crook John Dortmunder, who gets involved in a crime that supposedly no one will ever know happened. Naturally, when something it too good to be true, it usually is, and Dortmunder is going to get to the bottom of this caper before he’s left holding the bag.

Transgressions, Vol. 2 (With: Stephen King,Ed McBain,John Farris)

New York Times bestsellers and thriller legends John Farris and Stephen King each provided a brand new, never before published tale for this unique collection of stories edited by New York Times bestselling author and mystery legend Ed McBain. The Ransome Women by John Farris: A psychological thriller that questions the role beauty plays in society and the cult of celebrity. A young and beautiful, starving artist catches a break when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome offers her a lucrative modeling contract. But how long will her excitement last when she discovers the fate shared by all Ransome’s past subjects? The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King: A hauntingly moving tale of survival guilt in New York City after 9/11. Scott Staley called in sick for his job at the World Trade Center that Tuesday morning. Now in the aftermath of 9/11, he must face his guilty conscience as he begins to find the things his deceased coworkers left behind.

Grifter’s Game / Mona / Sweet Slow Death

DID HE WANT HER BADLY ENOUGH TO KILL FOR HER? As a con man, Joe Marlin was used to scoring easy cash off gullible women. But that was before he met Mona Brassard and found himself holding a stolen stash of raw hero*in. Now Joe’s got to pull off the most dangerous con of his career, one that will leave him either a killer or a corpse. No one but multiple Edgar Award winner Lawrence Block could tell this story of dangerous men and wicked women, of greed and desire and nail biting suspense. It will grab you by the throat on the first page and won t let go till the breathless, unforgettable climax.

A Diet of Treacle

A vintage tale of lust and drugs in old Greenwich Village roaring back after fifty years out of print Sick of living respectably with her grandmother, Anita Carbone hops a downtown train. She finds Greenwich Village the Village of Kerouac and Dylan, but also of Joe and Shank, two small time dope peddlers more than happy to welcome a square into their midst. But after a few weeks in Joe’s bed, she finds that with sex, drugs, and grime come danger, and that it s harder to get back uptown than it was to come down. Lawrence Block is the master of the thriller, and this early novel is a wild tour of a vanished scene: an authentic trip that burns with the slow intensity of a roach s last drag. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lawrence Block, including rare photos and never before seen documents from his personal collection, and a new afterword written by the author.

Killing Castro

BECAUSE IN 1961, NO ONE WOULD HAVE CALLED FIDEL CASTRO THE RETIRING TYPE. There were five of them, each prepared to kill, each with his own reasons for accepting what might well be a suicide mission. The pay? $20,000 apiece. The mission? Find a way into Cuba and kill Castro. This breathtaking thriller, originally published the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis under a pen name Lawrence Block never used before or since, is the rarest of Block’s books and still a work of chilling relevance all these years later, with Castro and Cuba once again commanding headlines.

Coward’s Kiss / Death Pulls a Doublecross

A New York Times Bestselling Author New York City private investigator Ed London has a problem or rather, the problem is his brother in law’s. Jack Enright’s mistress, a woman with secrets of her own, has been shot to death in the apartment that he pays for. But when the body, moved by London to Central Park, is finally identified, London knows he must act quickly to find her killer before the killer and the police find him.

Lucky at Cards

AT CARDS AND WITH WOMEN, BILL MAYNARD KNEW HOW TO CHEAT

On the mend after getting run out of Chicago, professional cardsharp Bill Maynard is hungry for some action – but not nearly as hungry as Joyce Rogers, the tantalizing wife of Bill’s latest mark. Together they hatch an ingenious scheme to get rid of her husband. But in life as in poker, the other player sometimes has an ace up his sleeve…

The Girl with the Long Green Heart

SHE WAS EVERY MAN S DREAM AND ONE MAN S NIGHTMARE Johnny Hayden and Doug Rance had a scheme to take real estate entrepreneur Wallace Gunderman for all he was worth. But they needed a girl on the inside to make it work. Enter Evelyn Stone: Gunderman’s secretary, his lover and his worst enemy. Gunderman had promised to marry her, but never came through. Now she s ready to make him pay

Deadly Honeymoon

The Third in a Series of ibooks Reissues of Mysteries by Multi Award Winning Author, LAWRENCE BLOCK! It was a perfect setting for a honeymoon a charming little cabin in the isolated Pennsylvania woods. It should have been the perfect beginning to a long and happy marriage. Then five shots rang out in the quiet woods and shattered Dave and Jill Wade’s perfect honeymoon. Terror had come crashing through their cabin door, snuffing out all thoughts of love. Now all that Dave and Jill Wade felt was haste hate and the overwhelming desire for revenge.

After the First Death

Lawrence Block weaves his spell in this suspenseful tale of a man haunted by murders he hopes he hasn t committed…
It was all too frighteningly familiar. For the second time in his life, Alex Penn wakes up in an alcoholic daze in a cheap hotel room off Times Square and finds himself lying next to the savagely mutilated body of a young woman. After the First Death, he was convicted of murder and imprisoned, then released on a technicality. But this time he has to find out what happened during the blackout and why? before the police do.

The Specialists

I suppose it’s fair to say that I m most often identified as the creator of series characters. My two active series, concerning a bookselling burglar named Rhodenbarr and a sober drunk named Scudder, are the ones people are most likely to know about. Readers with a wider range may be familiar as well with a series of seven novels about an insomniac named Tanner. And there have been four novels each about a horn*y kid named Harrison and an introspective killer named Keller. Hardly anybody, asked to name all of my series, would come up with The Specialists. A fat lot they know. As far as I m concerned, The Specialists is unequivocally a series novel. As it happens, the series is only one book long. But I figure it s a series just the same. In the spring of 1966 I moved into a big old house on a small old lot smack in the middle of New Brunswick, New Jersey. I set up an office for myself on the third floor. I had a massive old desk, and the movers couldn t get the thing up the last flight of stairs. It wouldn t fit. Most desks of that vintage disassemble, but not this sucker. They had to cut the hind legs off it. I propped up the back of the desk with two short stacks of paperback novels, plopped a typewriter on the top of it, and went to work. Three and a half years later, when we moved to a place in the country, I left the desk right there, and I left the books to keep it from tilting. By that time the desk didn t owe me a dime, because I d sat at it and written a whole slew of books. I d already written the first Tanner book in Racine, Wisconsin, but I wrote the other six in New Brunswick, along with After the First Death and Such Men Are Dangerous and more pseudonymous work than I ll admit to at the moment. I also wrote The Specialists at that desk. My then agent and still friend Henry Morrison suggested I might try to come up with a series, and he liked the idea of a troupe of guys working together, in the tried and true manner of A League of Gentlemen. I hadn t read the book in question, but I got the idea. And I wrote a couple of chapters and an outline and pitched the idea as a series to an editor at I think Dell. Whoever she was, and wherever she was, she thought it sounded good, and I went home to my desk to finish the first book. I finished the book without a problem, and Henry liked it, and he sent it over to Dell. While I d been breezing along on the book, the editor who d liked the idea had gone somewhere else, and her replacement didn t like the idea, or the book, either. Henry took it back and sent it to Knox Burger at Gold Medal, who liked it just fine. I signed a contract, and then I got a call from Henry. Knox was wondering, he said, if The Specialists is the first volume of a series. Shall I tell him yes, and that you re already hard at work on the next installment? God, no, I said. Huh? Tell him it s complete in and of itself, I said. But I thought So did I, I said, and it turns out we were both wrong. Because I like the book, and I sort of enjoyed writing it, but when I finished it I realized something. I don t want to write about those guys again, ever. I liked them as characters, and it s the kind of book I like to read, but it turns out it s not the kind of book I like to write. There was a pause. Then Henry said, That s really strange. I know it is. I was sure it was going to turn out to be a series. So was I, and we were right. It s a series. But it s a very short series. Just one book long. Just one book long, I agreed. But a series nonetheless. And that s what it is. I hope you enjoy it. And who knows? Maybe someday I will want to write about these guys again…

Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man

Somewhere around 1969 I began to grow dissatisfied with the underlying principle of most novels that a disembodied voice in the first or third person was telling us a story. I liked the idea of novels passing themselves off as documents, and drew inspiration from Mark Harris’s WAKE UP, STUPID, and Sue Kaufman’s DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE, the first ostensibly a collection of letters, the second, duh, a diary. One could, of course, go back further, to the very beginnings of the English novel in the works of Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson.I also found myself interested in writing with greater candor about sexual topics. I had knocked out dozens of soft core paperbacks, and wanted to try anew with greater freedom and more realism.I wrote three paperback original novels for Berkley under the pen name Jill Emerson, two of them in diary form, the third a presumed collaborative novel written in concert by the three viewpoint characters. These were fun to do and worked out well, and they led to Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man. Some of the circumstances of the book’s emergence are covered in an introduction to a special 1995 limited edition, which I’ve included at here the end of the text. I wrote the book thinking it would be another pseudonymous paperback, and that no doubt gave me the freedom to write it as I did; after it was written, the friends who read it liked it so much that I was persuaded to publish it as a hardcover novel, and under my own name.I sent an early copy to Isaac Asimov, who wrote me that it was either the funniest dirty book or the dirtiest funny book ever written. I told him that would be a wonderful blurb, and he said ‘over my dead body,’ or words to that effect. Well, Isaac’s been gone over fifteen years now, so I feel free to use it. Thanks, Isaac!Enjoy! Lawrence Block

Ariel

Ariel Jardell, an adopted 12 year old girl, is possessed, her mother thinks, by jealousy and by forces far more bizarre. An unnerving tale woven together with a fascinating, terrifying child at the center of each twist and turn it takes, this book gives new definition to the old conflict of good versus evil, sane versus insane.

Random Walk

‘Every now and then someone comes up to me at a speech or signing and says one of two things. ‘I’ve liked all your books,’ I’ll be told, ‘but there was one I couldn’t make heads or tails out of.’ Or just the opposite: ‘I’ve read most of your books, but there was one that really knocked me for a loop, and I’ve read it seventeen times now, and it’s completely changed my life.’ ‘It’s always the same book. Random Walk.’ I wrote the book in the spring of 1987, and never was a book more eager to be written. Paradoxically, never was a book less eager to be read the advance sale was light, the reviews were venomous, and most readers never even knew the book existed. Now it’s getting a new lease on life, and I’m delighted. I don’t know that it’s time has come it’s just as possible it’s time has come and gone. But I do know Random Walk has enormous impact on some of the people who read it, and I hope that now they’ll have a chance to find it.’ Lawrence Block

The Lost Cases of Ed London

SIGNED, NUMBERED EDITION Lawrence Block, creator of private eye Matthew Scudder and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, is one of the major figures in the modern mystery story, and a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. But back in 1960, when he was still in his 20’s, Block was trying to invent a series character. He had been hired to write a TV tie in for a series called Markham, but he decided that the story was too good to waste on someone else’s characters, and he turned the novel into the first of a series of Ed London, private eye. Or at least he hoped it would be the first of a series. Block never completed another book about Ed London, but during 1962 and 1963 he published three novelettes about the character for Man’s Magazine. Given the magazine that published them, the tales were filled not only with gunmen but also with stag party girls and Larry Block’s expert storytelling. When Block’s early stories were collected as One Night Stands, the Ed London tales could not be found. In fact, the author was certainly that he had written one of them, thought that he might have done a second, and forgotten all about the third. Here then, for the first time in book form, are the lost cases of Lawrence Block’s first private eye pipe smoking, courvoisier drinking, Mozart loving but ultra tough operative, Ed London. FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION

Small Town

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 mesmerizing new thriller set on the streets of the city he knows and loves so well.

That was the thing about New York if you loved it, if it worked for you, it ruined you for anyplace else in the world.

In this dazzlingly constructed novel, Lawrence Block reveals the secret at the heart of the Big Apple. His glorious metropolis is really a Small Town, filled with men and women from all walks of life whose aspirations, fears, disappointments, and triumphs are interconnected by bonds as unbreakable as they are unseen. Pulsating with the lives of its denizens bartenders and hookers, power brokers and politicos, cops and secretaries, editors and dreamers the city inspires a passion that is universal yet unique in each of its eight million inhabitants, including:

John Blair Creighton, a writer on the verge of a breakthrough;

Francis Buckram, a charismatic ex police commissioner and the inside choice for the next mayor on the verge of a breakdown;

Susan Pomerance, a beautiful, sophisticated folk art dealer plumbing the depths of her own fierce sexuality;

Maury Winters, a defense attorney who prefers murder trials because there’s one less witness;

Jerry Pankow, an ex addict who has turned being clean into a living, mopping up after New York’s nightlife;

And, in the shadows of a city reeling from tragedy, an unlikely killing machine who wages a one man war against them all.

Infused with the raw cadence, stark beauty, and relentless pace of New York City, Small Town is a tour de force Block fans old and new will celebrate.

Like a Lamb to Slaughter

They are poor little lambs who have lost their way: a murderous madman feigning madness; a beautiful woman, dangerous to look at and lethal to touch; a shy little boy quietly testing his newfound power to destroy. In this ingenious collection, multiple award winning mystery author Lawrence Block leads us into dark, unprotected fields, where human sheep gather in terror of predatory wolves. And we follow willingly through a hayseed’s bloody mid life crisis, into the explosive heart of a vengeful CPA:s account balancing…
and onto the streets with p.i. Matthew Scudder, as he spends an inheritance from a baglady to hunt down the old woman’s killer.

Sometimes They Bite

A collection of eighteen new stories by the Edgar Award winning author offers a darkly comic vision of a world inhabited by drifters, grafters, and assassins.

Some Days You Get the Bear

The bear is on the prowl in many different guises. He may be the master thief stealing into Graceland, an intense young passenger experimenting in terror, or a psychiatrist haunted by his patient’s nightmare. Or maybe he’s beautiful, lethal woman in a blood red scarf. So beware of the this huge, dangerous beast. Because first he will enthrall you.. and then he will strike.

The Collected Mystery Stories

Grandmaster and Edgar award winning author Lawrence Block has brought together 71 of his best stories featuring his most popular series characters. From Matt Scudder in ‘The Merciful Angel of Death’ to Bernie Rhodenbarr in ‘Like a Thief in the Night’ and Keller’s ‘Answers to Soldier’, The Collected Mystery Stories is the ultimate collection from ‘one of the best authors now working the beat’ Wall Street Journal

Enough Rope

Lawrence Block’s novels win awards, grace bestseller lists, and get made into films. His short fiction is every bit as outstanding, and this complete collection of his short stories establishes the extraordinary skill, power, and versatility of this contemporary Grand Master. Block’s beloved series characters are on hand, including ex cop Matt Scudder, bookselling burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, and the disarming duo of Chip Harrison and Leo Haig. Here, too, are Keller, the wistful hit man, and the natty attorney Martin Ehrengraf, who takes criminal cases on a contingency basis and whose clients always turn out to be innocent. Keeping them company are dozens of other refugees from Block’s dazzling imagination all caught up in more ingenious plots than you can shake a blunt instrument at. Half a dozen of Block’s stories have been shortlisted for the Edgar Award, and three have won it outright. Other stories have been read aloud on BBC Radio, dramatized on American and British television, and adapted for the stage and screen. All the tales in Block’s three previous collections are here, along with two dozen new stories. Some will keep you on the edge of the chair. Others will make you roll on the floor laughing. And more than a few of them will give you something to think about. Enough Rope is an essential volume for Lawrence Block fans, and a dazzling introduction for others to the wonderful world of…
Block magic!

The Crazy Years

A collection of witty, irreverent essays on subjects running the gamut from the space program to airport bans on smoking are included in this anthology. Written by Spider Robinson, The Crazy Years takes its name from Robert A. Heinlein’s designation of the last years of the 20th century and contains essays from Robinson’s tenure as op ed columnist for The Globe and Mail and from Galaxy Online. Environmentalists that place the survival of earth before the survival of humanity, the idiocy of computer designs, and the downsides of the Internet are among the subjects Robinson uses to take the world to task.

Telling Lies for Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers

‘I would urge other writers, at whatever point in their careers, to take the time to read this indispensable handbook…
. Telling Lies for Fun & Profit should be a permanent part of every writer’s library.’ From the Introduction by Sue Grafton Characters refusing to talk? Plot plodding along? Where do good ideas come from anyway? In this wonderfully practical volume, two time Edgar Award winning novelist Lawrence Block takes an inside look at writing as a craft and as a career. From studying the market, to mastering self discipline and ‘creative procrastination,’ through coping with rejections, Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is an invaluable sourcebook of information. It is a must read for anyone serious about writing or understanding how the process works.

Write for Your Life

Based on Lawrence Block’s extremely popular seminar for writers. Discover Block’s tips for overcoming writer’s block and unleashing your creativity.

Spider, Spin Me A Web: A Handbook for Fiction Writers

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 Bloock’s expert advice, you can learn this art of entrapping your reader in a maze of facinating 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.’ As helpful and supportive as always, Block shares what he’s learned over the course of writing over one hundred published books: techniques to help you to write a solid piece of fiction; strategies for getting a reader or editor to reaad and buy your book; ideas for increasing your creativity and developing an environment that will nourish you and your craft. Spider, Spin Me a Web is a complete guide to achieving your full potential as awriter.

After Hours: Conversations With Lawrence Block

Whether you are a fan of Matt Scudder or Bernie Rhodenbarr, whether you know Lawrence Block as the best living writer about New York or the most versatile of crime novelists, this is the book you have been waiting for. Block talks to mystery connoisseur Ernie Bulow about his apprenticeship writing for pulp magazines and working at a leading literary agency, about his love of New York and his fondness for travel. He gives brief, tantalizing glimpses into his literary and personal ups and downs. His wit and his insights into life and literature will captivate not just Block’s many fans but anyone interested in the literary life. Included in this book are Block’s first published short story, four previously uncollected essays, and a Block bibliography.

Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves: The Lives and Crimes of Fifty American Villains

Drawing on his experience in creating fictional bad guys, crime novelist Lawrence Block surveys the underside of American history through fifty of its most infamous characters. Some, like Jesse James, Bonnie Parker, and Joe Colombo, led a life of crime; others, like John Wilkes Booth and John White Webster, committed one notorious act. Some, like Pretty Boy Floyd or the elusive thief Railroad Bill, have become folk heroes, whether or not the real details of their lives matched the myths they inspired. Others, like Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, will be forever reviled. Block introduces each biography with a writer’s eye for character and a good story. He begins the book with a short essay that considers how Americans have defined and regarded villains through history. The biographies, culled from the pages of the American National Biography and illustrated with archival photographs, describe each villain’s background, exploits, and eventual fate often with unexpected details. The convicted killer Nathan Leopold, for example, became the administrator of a leprosy hospital after his parole. The gangster Dutch Schultz was known not only for his bootlegging expertise but also for his cheap, ill fitting clothes. The stagecoach bandit Black Bart fancied himself a poet or, as he put it, ‘PO8’. And when outlaw Bill Doolin finally met his end, only a rusting buggy axle marked his grave. Ideal for readers of true crime, crime fiction, and history, Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves brings a fresh perspective to American’s fascination with crime and its perpetrators.

Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir

From the revered New York Times bestselling author comes a touching, insightful, and humorous memoir of an unlikely racewalker and world traveler Before Lawrence Block was the author of bestselling novels featuring unforgettable characters such as the hit man Keller, private investigator Matthew Scudder, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, and time traveler Evan Tanner, he was a walker. As a child, he walked home from school mostly because he couldn’t ride a bike. As a col lege student, he walked until he was able to buy his first car a deep blue 1950 Chevrolet coupe named Pamela, after the Samuel Richardson novel. As an adult, he ran marathons until he discovered what would become a lifelong obsession never mind if some people didn’t think it was a real sport racewalking. By that time Block had already spent plenty of time walking through the city of New York. But racewalking ended up taking him all over the country, from New Orleans to Anchorage, from marathons in the punishing heat to marathons in the pouring rain. And along the way, as he began to pen the books that would make him a household name among suspense fans all over the world, he found that in life, as in writing, you just need to take one step after the other. Through the lens of his adventures while walking in twenty four hour races, on a pilgrimage through Spain, and just about everywhere you can imagine Lawrence Block shares his heartwarming personal story about life’s trials and tribulations, discomforts and successes, which truly lets readers walk a mile in the master of mystery’s shoes.

One Night Stands and Lost Weekends

In the era before he created moody private investigator Matthew Scudder, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, sleepless spy Evan Tanner, and the amiable hit man Keller and years before his first Edgar Award a young writer named Lawrence Block submitted a story titled ‘You Can’t Lose’ to Manhunt magazine. It was published, and the rest is history. One Night Stands and Lost Weekends is a sterling collection of short crime fiction and suspense novelettes penned between 1958 and 1962 by a budding young master and soon to be Grand Master an essential slice of genre history, and more fun than a high speed police chase following a bank job gone bad.

The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 1

More than 200,000 words of great crime and suspense fictionEach year, Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors of The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, have reached farther past the boundaries of the United States to find the very best suspense from the world over. In this third volume of their series they have included stories from Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom as well as, of course, a number of fine stories from the U.S.A. Among these tales are winners of the Edgar Award, the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers, and other major awards in the field. In addition, here are reports on the field of mystery and crime writing from correspondents in the U.S. Jon L. Breen, England Maxim Jakubowski, Canada Edo Van Belkom, Australia David Honeybone, and Germany Thomas Woertche. Altogether, with nearly 250,000 words of the best short suspense published in 2001, this bounteous volume is, as the Wall Street Journal said of the previous year s compilation, the best value for money of any such anthology. The A to Z of the authors should excite the interest of any mystery reader:Robert Barnard Lawrence Block Jon L. Breen Wolfgang Burger Lillian Stewart Carl Margaret Coel Max Allan Collins Bill Crider Jeffery Deaver Brendan DuBois Susanna Gregory Joseph Hansen Carolyn G. Hart Lauren Henderson Edward D. Hoch Clark Howard Tatjana Kruse Paul Lascaux Dick Lochte Peter Lovesey Mary Jane Maffini Ed McBain Val McDermid Marcia Muller Joyce Carol Oates Anne Perry Nancy Pickard Bill Pronzini Ruth Rendell S. J. Rozan Billie Rubin Kristine Kathryn Rusch Stephan Rykena David B. Silva Nancy Springer Jac. Toes John Vermeulen Donald E. Westlake Carolyn Wheat.

The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 2

More than 200,000 words of great crime and suspense fictionEach year, Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors of The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, have reached farther past the boundaries of the United States to find the very best suspense from the world over. In this third volume of their series they have included stories from Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom as well as, of course, a number of fine stories from the U.S.A. Among these tales are winners of the Edgar Award, the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers, and other major awards in the field. In addition, here are reports on the field of mystery and crime writing from correspondents in the U.S. Jon L. Breen, England Maxim Jakubowski, Canada Edo Van Belkom, Australia David Honeybone, and Germany Thomas Woertche. Altogether, with nearly 250,000 words of the best short suspense published in 2001, this bounteous volume is, as the Wall Street Journal said of the previous year s compilation, the best value for money of any such anthology. The A to Z of the authors should excite the interest of any mystery reader:Robert Barnard Lawrence Block Jon L. Breen Wolfgang Burger Lillian Stewart Carl Margaret Coel Max Allan Collins Bill Crider Jeffery Deaver Brendan DuBois Susanna Gregory Joseph Hansen Carolyn G. Hart Lauren Henderson Edward D. Hoch Clark Howard Tatjana Kruse Paul Lascaux Dick Lochte Peter Lovesey Mary Jane Maffini Ed McBain Val McDermid Marcia Muller Joyce Carol Oates Anne Perry Nancy Pickard Bill Pronzini Ruth Rendell S. J. Rozan Billie Rubin Kristine Kathryn Rusch Stephan Rykena David B. Silva Nancy Springer Jac. Toes John Vermeulen Donald E. Westlake Carolyn Wheat.

The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 3

More than 200,000 words of great crime and suspense fictionEach year, Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors of The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, have reached farther past the boundaries of the United States to find the very best suspense from the world over. In this third volume of their series they have included stories from Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom as well as, of course, a number of fine stories from the U.S.A. Among these tales are winners of the Edgar Award, the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers, and other major awards in the field. In addition, here are reports on the field of mystery and crime writing from correspondents in the U.S. Jon L. Breen, England Maxim Jakubowski, Canada Edo Van Belkom, Australia David Honeybone, and Germany Thomas Woertche. Altogether, with nearly 250,000 words of the best short suspense published in 2001, this bounteous volume is, as the Wall Street Journal said of the previous year s compilation, the best value for money of any such anthology. The A to Z of the authors should excite the interest of any mystery reader:Robert Barnard Lawrence Block Jon L. Breen Wolfgang Burger Lillian Stewart Carl Margaret Coel Max Allan Collins Bill Crider Jeffery Deaver Brendan DuBois Susanna Gregory Joseph Hansen Carolyn G. Hart Lauren Henderson Edward D. Hoch Clark Howard Tatjana Kruse Paul Lascaux Dick Lochte Peter Lovesey Mary Jane Maffini Ed McBain Val McDermid Marcia Muller Joyce Carol Oates Anne Perry Nancy Pickard Bill Pronzini Ruth Rendell S. J. Rozan Billie Rubin Kristine Kathryn Rusch Stephan Rykena David B. Silva Nancy Springer Jac. Toes John Vermeulen Donald E. Westlake Carolyn Wheat.

The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 4

More than 200,000 words of great crime and suspense fictionEach year, Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors of The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, have reached farther past the boundaries of the United States to find the very best suspense from the world over. In this third volume of their series they have included stories from Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom as well as, of course, a number of fine stories from the U.S.A. Among these tales are winners of the Edgar Award, the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers, and other major awards in the field. In addition, here are reports on the field of mystery and crime writing from correspondents in the U.S. Jon L. Breen, England Maxim Jakubowski, Canada Edo Van Belkom, Australia David Honeybone, and Germany Thomas Woertche. Altogether, with nearly 250,000 words of the best short suspense published in 2001, this bounteous volume is, as the Wall Street Journal said of the previous year s compilation, the best value for money of any such anthology. The A to Z of the authors should excite the interest of any mystery reader:Robert Barnard Lawrence Block Jon L. Breen Wolfgang Burger Lillian Stewart Carl Margaret Coel Max Allan Collins Bill Crider Jeffery Deaver Brendan DuBois Susanna Gregory Joseph Hansen Carolyn G. Hart Lauren Henderson Edward D. Hoch Clark Howard Tatjana Kruse Paul Lascaux Dick Lochte Peter Lovesey Mary Jane Maffini Ed McBain Val McDermid Marcia Muller Joyce Carol Oates Anne Perry Nancy Pickard Bill Pronzini Ruth Rendell S. J. Rozan Billie Rubin Kristine Kathryn Rusch Stephan Rykena David B. Silva Nancy Springer Jac. Toes John Vermeulen Donald E. Westlake Carolyn Wheat.

The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories 5

More than 200,000 words of great crime and suspense fictionEach year, Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors of The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, have reached farther past the boundaries of the United States to find the very best suspense from the world over. In this third volume of their series they have included stories from Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom as well as, of course, a number of fine stories from the U.S.A. Among these tales are winners of the Edgar Award, the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers, and other major awards in the field. In addition, here are reports on the field of mystery and crime writing from correspondents in the U.S. Jon L. Breen, England Maxim Jakubowski, Canada Edo Van Belkom, Australia David Honeybone, and Germany Thomas Woertche. Altogether, with nearly 250,000 words of the best short suspense published in 2001, this bounteous volume is, as the Wall Street Journal said of the previous year s compilation, the best value for money of any such anthology. The A to Z of the authors should excite the interest of any mystery reader:Robert Barnard Lawrence Block Jon L. Breen Wolfgang Burger Lillian Stewart Carl Margaret Coel Max Allan Collins Bill Crider Jeffery Deaver Brendan DuBois Susanna Gregory Joseph Hansen Carolyn G. Hart Lauren Henderson Edward D. Hoch Clark Howard Tatjana Kruse Paul Lascaux Dick Lochte Peter Lovesey Mary Jane Maffini Ed McBain Val McDermid Marcia Muller Joyce Carol Oates Anne Perry Nancy Pickard Bill Pronzini Ruth Rendell S. J. Rozan Billie Rubin Kristine Kathryn Rusch Stephan Rykena David B. Silva Nancy Springer Jac. Toes John Vermeulen Donald E. Westlake Carolyn Wheat.

The Perfect Murder

John Cotton was a simple man with one desire: to write the greatest story of his life and have enough life left to read all about it. Reporter John Cotton knows what to do when he finds a great story, but he is a little afraid when a big story begins to find him. It starts when a fellow reporter is murdered and his notebook, filled with information about a tax scam, ends up in John’s hands. Not long afterwards, a body is discovered in John’s car. Then John’s car ends up in the river, a bomb is found in his apartment, and his girlfriend drops out of sight. It’s up to John to unravel the mystery of the notebook and why anyone would kill for the information it contains.

The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories

The stories by the mystery genre’s best writers, such as Tony Hillerman, Lawrence Block, P. D James, Ruth Rendell and Ray Bradbury, are compiled into an anthology of twenty five of the year’s most suspenseful stories.

The Best of the Best

Stephen King Joyce Carol Oates Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Sharyn McCrumb Joy Fielding Lisa Alther Erica Jong Lawrence Block Ed McBain Eileen Goudge Tabitha King Larry Collins Stephen Frey Joan Hess Wendy Hornsby Jeffery Deaver Linda Lay Shuler E.L Doctorow. To commemorate its 50th anniversary, Signet is proud to present The Best of the Best a one of a kind collection of all original stories by some of the biggest names in publishing! From gripping tales of suspense to powerful stories of human triumph, this special hardcover focuses on the broad range of genres and authors that continues to define the Signet name!

The Best American Mystery Stories 1998

Bestselling writers such as Mary Higgins Clark, Walter Mosley, Lawrence Block, Jay McInerney, and Donald E. Westlake stand alongside an impressive array of new talent. As guest editor Sue Grafton writes in her Introduction, ‘Nowhere is iniquity, wrongdoing, and reparation more satisfying to behold than in the well crafted yarns spun by the writers represented here’.

Death Cruise: Crime Stories on the Open Seas

‘Death Cruise’: Crime Stories on the Open Sea, edited by Lawrence Block, is a collection of murder mysteries with settings aboard cruise ships and written by several members of the International Association of Crime Writers, including Agatha Christie, Nancy Pickard, Piet Teigeler, Edward D. Hoch, Ralph McInerny, John Mortimer, and Carolyn Wheat.

The Best American Mystery Stories 1999

In its brief existence, THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES has established itself as a peerless suspense anthology. Compiled by the best selling mystery novelist Ed McBain, this year’s edition boasts nineteen outstanding tales by such masters as John Updike, Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, and Joyce Carol Oates as well as stories by rising stars such as Edgar Award winners Tom Franklin and Thomas H. Cook. The 1999 volume is a spectacular showcase for the high quality and broad diversity of the year’s finest suspense, crime, and mystery writing. ‘Keller’s Last Refuge’ by Lawrence Block, ‘Safe’ by Gary A. Braunbeck, ‘Fatherhood’ by Thomas H. Cook, ‘Wrong Time, Wrong Place’ by Jeffery Deaver, ‘Netmail’ by Brendan DuBois, ‘Redneck’ by Loren D. Estleman, ‘And Maybe the Horse Will Learn to Sing’ by Gregory Fallis, ‘Poachers’ by Tom Franklin, ‘Hitting Rufus’ by Victor Gischler, ‘Out There in the Darkness’ by Ed Gorman, ‘Survival’ by Joseph Hansen, ‘A Death on the Ho Chi Minh Trail’ by David K. Harford, ‘An Innocent Bystander’ by Gary Krist, ‘The Jailhouse Lawyer’ by Phillip M. Margolin, ‘Secret, Silent’ by Joyce Carol Oates, ‘In Flanders Fields’ by Peter Robinson, ‘Dry Whiskey’ by David B. Silva, ‘Sacrifice’ by L. L. Thrasher, ‘Bech Noir’ by John Updike

The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century

In The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, best selling author Tony Hillerman and mystery expert Otto Penzler present an unparalleled treasury of American suspense fiction that every fan will cherish. Offering the finest examples from all reaches of the genre, this collection charts the mystery’s eminent history from the turn of the century puzzles of Futrelle, to the seminal pulp fiction of Hammett and Chandler, to the mystery story’s rise to legitimacy in the popular mind, a trend that has benefited masterly writers like Westlake, Hunter, and Grafton. Nowhere else can readers find a more thorough, more engaging, more essential distillation of American crime fiction. Penzler, BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES series editor, and Hillerman, whose Leaphorn/Chee novels have won him multiple Edgar Awards and millions of devotees, winnowed this select group out of a thousand stories, drawing on sources as diverse as ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE and ESQUIRE, COLLIER’S and THE NEW YORKER. Giants of the genre abound Raymond Chandler, Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, Lawrence Block, Ellery Queen, Sara Paretsky, and others but the editors also unearthed gems by luminaries rarely found in suspense anthologies: William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Damon Runyon, Harlan Ellison, James Thurber, and Joyce Carol Oates. Mystery buffs and newcomers alike will delight in the thrilling stories and top notch writing of a hundred years’ worth of the finest suspense, crime, and mystery writing.

Opening Shots: Great Mystery and Crime Writers Share Their First Published Stories

‘Opening Shots’ is a collection of incredible short fiction stories that began the published careers of 19 now prominent mystery and crime writers. Their aptitude for short fiction and the delight they take in writing it are unmistakably evident in this anthology.

The Best American Mystery Stories 2001

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads hundreds of pieces from dozens of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected and most popular of its kind. The Best American Mystery Stories 2001 will thrill fans of all reaches of the genre. The legendary mystery writer Lawrence Block offers chilling tales from best selling writers as well as talented up and comers. Ranging from traditional detective cases to psychological studies to atmospheric scene setters, these stories illustrate the variety and broad range of styles, plots, and characters Block admires in the genre. With Block as guest editor and a stellar roster of suspense veterans and rising stars, the 2001 edition will delight mystery afcionados and all lovers of great fiction.

Opening Shots, Vol. II

This second volume of Opening Shots is a collection of twenty three first stories published by prominent mystery and crime writers. Some of these offerings are remarkably mature, professional work. Others are more obviously early works, before the writers’ skills reached full maturity. But every one of them is a pleasure to read, and in each can be seen the seed of the writer’s craft. ‘Each writer has included an introduction worth the price of admission all by themselves,’ observes Block. ‘Writers, it seems to me, are never more eloquent or more interesting that when they reminisce about their early days, and recalling one’s first success seems a spur of anecdotage for most of us.’ Following on the heels of the successful first volume of this series, the stories in this stellar field include: ‘Final Rites’ by Doug Allyn ‘Don’t Kill a Karate Fighter’ by William Chambers ‘Entrapped’ by Harlan Coben ‘Yellow Gal’ by Michael Collins ‘Together’ by Jeffrey Deaver ‘The Rough Boys’ by Harlan Ellison ‘Tole My Cap’n’ by Joe Gores ‘Layover’ by Ed Gorman ‘A Bunch of Mumbo Jumbo’ by Jan Grape ‘The Cure’ by David Handler ‘Till Tuesday’ by Jeremiah Healy ‘Village of the Dead’ by Edward D. Hoch ‘Chalk’ by Evan Hunter ‘It’s a Wise Child Who Knows’ by Stuart Kaminsky ‘Who Killed Co*ck Robin?’ by H. R. F. Keating ‘Medford & Son’ by Dick Lochte ‘Thieves’ Honor’ by John Lutz ‘Not All Brides Are Beautiful’ by Sharyn McCrumb ‘Manslaughter’ by Joyce Carol Oates ‘You Don’t Know What It’s Like’ by Bill Pronzini ‘The Disappearance of Penny’ by Robert J. Randisi ‘A Victim Must Be Found’ by Henry Slesar ‘Blue Rose’ by Peter Straub ‘A Bad Night For Burglars’ by Lawrence Block

The Mighty Johns

Additional stories include: The Ehrengraf Reverse by Lawrence Block Semi Pro by James Crumley A Sunday in January by Brendan DuBois Whatever it Takes to Win by Tim Green Good Seats by Colin Harrison Gone Down to Corpus by Dennis Lehane No Thing by Mike Lupica The Empire Strikes Back by Brad Meltzer The Arcane Receiver by Carol O’Connell The End of Innocence by Anne Perry Hollywood Spring and Axle by Gary Phillips Gone to the Dawgs by Peter Robinson Rumors of Gravity by John Westermann These tales of football and in one case European football, rugby include macabre deaths, ultimate suspense, theft, drugs, big money and football. Tales of Super Bowl Sunday, NFL teams, has been players, great fans, and final plays are a collection like no other. All the best writers in one book, edited by the famous Otto Penzler, founder of The Mysterious Press.

Blood on Their Hands

What could drive you over the edge? Maybe if you or someone you love had been victimized? Or if your spouse was having an affair? Or your life just wasn’t turning out the way you always dreamed it would? You want justice. You want to make things right. But you’re out of luck. You have to live with it. There just aren’t any options. Or are there? In this Mystery Writers of America anthology, New York Times bestselling author Lawrence Block has collected nineteen suspense stories exploring such scenarios, by some of mystery’s most popular authors…
Brendan DuBois Noreen Ayres Shelly Costa Tom Savage Tracy Knight Aileen Schumacher Elaine Viets G. Miki Hayden Elaine Togneri Henry Sleasar William E. Chambers Stefanie Matteson Charlotte Hinger Dan Crawford Rhys Bowen Mat Coward Marcia Talley Elizabeth Foxwell Jeremiah Healy

In the Shadow of the Master

Few have crafted stories as haunting as those by Edgar Allan Poe. Collected here to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth are sixteen of his best tales accompanied by twenty essays from beloved authors, including T. Jefferson Parker, Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, and Joseph Wambaugh, among others, on how Poe has changed their life and work. Michael Connelly recounts the inspiration he drew from Poe’s poetry while researching one of his books. Stephen King reflects on Poe’s insight into humanity’s dark side in ‘The Genius of ‘The Tell Tale Heart.” Jan Burke recalls her childhood terror during late night reading sessions. Tess Gerritsen, Nelson DeMille, and others remember the classic B movie adaptations of Poe’s tales. And in ‘The Thief,’ Laurie R. King complains about how Poe stole all the good ideas…
or maybe he just thought of them first. Powerful and timeless, In the Shadow of the Master is a celebration of one of the greatest literary minds of all time. The Mystery Writers of America, founded in 1945, is the foremost organization for mystery writers and other professionals dedicated to the field of crime writing.

Greatest Hits

Featuring standout writers of mystery and suspense like Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, James W. Hall, Jeff Abbott, Max Allan Collins, and Lee Child all of them best selling authors, most of them winners of Edgar or Shamus awards or both this anthology comes with a chamberful of surefire stories. Loaded with tension, charged with uncertainty, these taut tales bring their unsuspecting or hunted and fearful marks into the deadly sight of a hired killer’s gun. The hit men, or women, meanwhile match their criminal wits with police detectives, seasoned private eyes, the resolute everyguy, or amateur sleuths to often unexpected and frequently startling ends. Every one of the stories here is a hit. Each of them is craftily calibrated and written expressly for this collection, They include new work by the popular, award winning Ed Gorman, the versatile writer editor Robert J. Randisi, and the recipient of the first ever Sherlock Award for best detective, John Harvey. Cunning inventive hit list authors such as Christine Matthews, Barbara Seranella, Marcus Pelagrimas, and Kevin Wignall further ratchet up the suspense to keep Greatest Hits true to its name, and aim.

Transgressions

Forge Books is proud to present an amazing collection of novellas, compiled by New York Times bestselling author Ed McBain. Transgressions is a quintessential classic of never before published tales from today’s very best novelists. Faeturing: ‘Walking Around Money’ by Donald E. Westlake: The master of the comic mystery is back with an all new novella featuring hapless crook John Dortmunder, who gets involved in a crime that supposedly no one will ever know happened. Naturally, when something it too good to be true, it usually is, and Dortmunder is going to get to the bottom of this caper before he’s left holding the bag.’Hostages’ by Anne Perry: The bestselling historical mystery author has written a tale of beautiful yet still savage Ireland today. In their eternal struggle for freedom, there is about to be a changing of the guard in the Irish Republican Army. Yet for some, old habits and honor still die hard, even at gunpoint.’The Corn Maiden’ by Joyce Carol Oates: When a fourteen year old girl is abducted in a small New York town, the crime starts a spiral of destruction and despair as only this master of psychological suspense could write it.’Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large: Walking the Line’ by Walter Mosley: Felix Orlean is a New York City journalism student who needs a job to cover his rent. An ad in the paper leads him to Archibald Lawless, and a descent into a shadow world where no one and nothing is as it first seems.’The Resurrection Man’ by Sharyn McCrumb’: During America’s first century, doctors used any means necessary to advance their craft including dissecting corpses. Sharyn McCrumb brings the South of the 1850s to life in this story of a man who is assigned to dig up bodies to help those that are still alive.’Merely Hate’ by Ed McBain: When a string of Muslim cabdrivers are killed, and the evidence points to another ethnic group, the detectives of the 87th Precinct must hunt down a killer before the city explodes in violence.’The Things They Left Behind’ by Stephen King: In the wake of the worst disaster on American soil, one man is coming to terms with the aftermath of the Twin Towers when he begins finding the things they left behind.’The Ransome Women’ by John Farris: A young and beautiful starving artist is looking to catch a break when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome offers her a lucrative year long modeling contract. But how long will her excitement last when she discovers the fate shared by all Ransome’s past subjects? ‘Forever’ by Jeffery Deaver: Talbot Simms is an unusual cop he’s a statistician with the Westbrook County Sheriff Department. When two wealthy couples in the county commit suicide one right after the other, he thinks that it isn’t suicide it’s murder, and he’s going to find how who was behind it, and how the did it.’Keller’s Adjustment’ by Lawrence Block: Everyone’s favorite hit man is back in MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block’s novella, where the philosophical Keller deals out philosophy and murder on a meandering road trip from one end of the America to the other.

These Guns for Hire

They have a combined total of 500 million book sales, and have won every possible award in the mystery, thriller, and dark fiction genres.


Thirty original hitman stories by today’s modern masters. Noir. Wise guys. Sex. Freelance assassins. Humor. Violence. Femme fatales. Amateurs. Horror. Surprise twists. Hardboiled.


Get ready for some wet work!

The Best American Mystery Stories 2007

The best selling author Carl Hiaasen takes the reins for the eleventh edition of this series, featuring twenty of the past year’s most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense. Laura Lippman introduces us to a suburban soccer mom who moonlights as a call girl and who has a fateful encounter with a former client at her son s soccer game. Ridley Pearson traces a famous author of horror tales who becomes trapped in a real one after his wife vanishes while jogging. Joyce Carol Oates travels to a New Jersey racetrack where the animals that break down are of the two legged type. Lawrence Block tells the story of Keller, a hitman for hire who happens to live in Greenwich Village, loves spicy food, and collects stamps as a hobby. And Scott Wolven plunges us into the world of an ex con who takes a job at a private and very illegal Nevada racetrack where each day millions are won and lost. Mostly lost. As Carl Hiaasen notes in his introduction, The stories in this collection would do honor to any anthology of short literature. More than transcending the genre of crime, they blow away its nebulous boundaries. The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 is a powerful collection certain to delight mystery aficionados and all lovers of great fiction.

The Dark End of the Street

In one fast paced story, a strong and aggravated man considers the pretty woman at the bar while he fingers the knife in his pocket. But what becomes of his prey when they move to the bedroom? In another tale, a man remembers the victim of a ghastly murder who visited the same hair salon as he does. And a Don Juan of a protagonist has a hobby of marrying vulnerable women, getting access to their bank accounts, and then robbing them blind. But there is much more to this collection than dark haired vixens and crimes of passion. Some stories are brooding, some twisted; some bring righteous satisfaction, some linger in the back of your mind. What is truly on display is an impressive collection of literary talent: a group of some of the best writers we have, weaving fresh and memorable stories from a pair of classic themes. Taken as a whole, they are a rare treat for fans of great fiction, whether it’s high literature, good old fashioned suspense, or anything in between. Original black and white art by artist/author Jonathan Santlofer completes this innovative, exciting, and irresistibly intriguing book a true literary gem.

The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

Best selling novelist Harlan Coben, a master of suspense and creator of the critically acclaimed Myron Bolitar series, edits this latest collection of the must reads in mysteries from the past year.

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