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 fatherhas 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.

"The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke" features Bernie Rhodenbarr, the lighthearted and lightfingered hero of ten mystery novels. When Bernie's not burgling he's running a secondhand bookstore, so there's a bibiophilic element to the story as well, and the body is found in perhaps the ultimate dream library.You'll note that this story bears a joint byline. Lynne Wood Block, my frequent companion, came up with the basic idea and did the requisite research. Then I sat down and wrote the sto...

I began writing about Matthew Scudder in the mid-1970s. The first novel, The Sins of the Fathers, appeared in 1975, and A Drop of the Hard Stuff—the 17th and most recent—was published in 2011. Over the years Scudder has also been featured in 11 short works of fiction; Batman's Helpers is the fourth, first published in Robert J. Randisi's anthology, Justice for Hire, in 1990.A friend, one Jim Thompson, had switched professions, moving from academia to private investigation. His expe...

The criminal defense lawyer. Redefined.Martin H. Ehrengraf, dapper and diabolical, may be Lawrence Block's darkest creation. He's the defense attorney who never sees the inside of a courtroom, because all his clients are innocent - no matter how guilty they may seem. Some even believe themselves to be guilty: They remember pulling the trigger, or wiring the dynamite to their spouse's car, or holding the bloody blade. But things have a way of working out when Martin Ehrengraf is on ...

A "rousing, often comic" series debut featuring a globe-trotting spy with nothing to lose—even sleep—from the New York Times–bestselling author ( Library Journal).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 hund...

Meet the girls who fly the friendly skies:Ali: "All men seem to think that if they've had sex with a girl once they can have her any time they want. They're wrong."Beri: "I know a librarian who makes me feel positively sheltered and stews who've spent years in the air without losing their virginity."Connie: "We see men at their worst, grabby and aggressive. I've never had sex with a man."Donna: "If you're looking to get married, there's no better way--though I ...

In the fall of 1976 I moved back to New York after a brief stretch in L.A. I got a small apartment on Bleecker and Sullivan, in Greenwich Village; my ex-wife and kids lived at Houston and Sixth, just a stone's throw away if you were a major league right fielder. My daughter Alison had just turned seven, and was in the second grade at P.S. 41. Her teacher was Miss Ackerman.Now that was a while ago, and I can't remember whether Alison loved or hated thus particular teacher, and what ...

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 thief finds himself in the wrong place and suspected of the wrong crime in the "unfailingly entertaining" series from bestselling author ( The New York Times).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 supplem...

"REAL NOIR... A GROTESQUELY MEMORABLE RIDE." - WALL STREET JOURNALTWO OF THE GREATEST AUTHORS OF NOIR FICTION IN AN UNFORGETTABLE COLLABORATION.An innocent woman lies dead in the street, felled by a stray bullet. Now it's up to the woman who killed her to investigate the dead woman's life and pick up its cut-short threads, carrying out a mission of vengeance on her behalf against the man she loved and lost – and the nightclub-singing femme ...

From Lawrence Block's introduction to WRITING DRUNK, WRITING SOBER:"Back in 1976 I started writing my column in Writer's Digest, and the following April I got sober, and some six months later I wrote an essay for WD on the subject, which in accordance with AA traditions I published under an ad hoc pen name, Kent Hackett."And gave it no further thought, with the result that it never got into Terry Zobeck's bibliography of my work."A few weeks ago, af...

For this spy, there's no Nazi losing sleep over. An up-all-night thriller from the New York Times–bestselling author and MWA Grand Master.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 h...