All the Flowers Are Dying by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow, 2005
ISBN: 9780060198312
ID: P000500049
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: 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 Burglar in the Rye by Lawrence Block
Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1999
ISBN: 9780525945000
ID: P000500050
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: Lawrence Block is such a gifted writer that even a native New Yorker will be fooled into thinking that the Paddington Hotel, described in the opening pages of "Burglar in the Rye", is a real institution. Block's descriptions of this enclave of artists, writers, and rock musicians is thoroughly convincing--although in actuality, the Paddington is a combination of the real-life Chelsea Hotel and Block's outrageous imagination.
This is Bernie Rhodenbarr's ninth heist. Bernie is a gentleman burglar who runs a used bookstore in between criminal acts, steals mostly from the rich, and only hurts people when it becomes "absolutely" necessary.
The Paddington is where Bernie goes to liberate the letters of a reclusive writer named Gulliver Fairborn from a literary agent. Fairborn's resemblance to J.D. Salinger and, of course, the fact that the woman who hired Bernie to steal the letters had an affair with Fairborn when she was a teenager, no doubt lend the book its title. But by the time Bernie gets to the Paddington, the agent has been shot, the letters already liberated--and a cop in the lobby recognizes our favorite burglar from a previous encounter.
Now all Bernie has to do is find out who else wanted those letters badly enough to kill for them. In typical Rhodenbarr tradition, the plot is less interesting than the trappings: the books Bernie reads, the fascinating objects he picks up along the way. The reader also learns about some mind-expanding facts, such as the existence of a tiny South American fish that swims up a man's urine stream and lodges in his private parts! Or did Block make that up, too?
Other Bernie picks include: "The Burglar in the Closet", "The Burglar in the Library", "The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling", and "The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza". "--Dick Adler"
The Burglar on the Prowl by Lawrence Block
Publisher: "Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.: William Morrow & Co", 2004
ISBN: 0060198303
ID: S00010031
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: 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"
The Burglar on the Prowl by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow, 2004
ISBN: 9780060198305
ID: P000500051
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: 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"
The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian: A Bernie Rhodenbarr Mystery by Lawrence Block
Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1998
ISBN: 9780525943822
ID: S00010451
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: If the only side of Lawrence Block you know is the dark and gloomy Matt Scudder books, such as the "noir" classic "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes", then you might be surprised to hear that he's also one of the most delightfully droll writers in the mystery business.
"I hurried uptown and changed into chinos and a short-sleeved shirt that would have been an Alligator except that the embroidered device on the breast was not that reptile but a bird in flight. I guess it was supposed to be a swallow, either winging its way back to Capistrano or not quite making a summer, because the brand name was Swallowtail. It had never quite caught on and I can understand why." That's Bernie Rhodenbarr, used book dealer and gentleman burglar, making a literary fashion statement in this latest return to print of one of Block's best books about him.
As with the other entries in this admirable series--"The Burglar in the Closet", "The Burglar in the Library", "The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling", "The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza", "The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart", "The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams", "Burglars Can't Be Choosers"--Block manages to be very amusing, moderately suspenseful, and impressively erudite all at the same time. The plot is a complicated tangle of double-cross and deceit surrounding the theft of a valuable painting and two murders. Mondrian isn't the only artist being framed here: Bernie has to use all of his skills--as burglar, lover, and art expert--to prove his (relative) innocence. "--Dick Adler"
The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza by Lawrence Block
Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1997
ISBN: 9780525941804
ID: S00010452
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: Lawrence Block's classic Bernie Rhodenbarr capers continue with this long-unavailable adventure for the Greenwich Village bookseller who can't resist a little breaking-and-entering now and then. Serendipity is a curious thing. It's just good luck that Bernie knows that Hank and Wanda Colcannon's Chelsea apartment is empty while they're out of town. But it's lousy luck that somebody beats him to the job and ransacks the place before he arrives. But then again, it's great luck that Bernie turns up a rare 1913 V-nickel. He knows that it's valuable, but when he takes it to Abel Crowe, his local fence, and finds out that the five-cent piece is worth a cool half a mil, well that's just stupefying. Abel has a soft spot for Bernie, who's always bringing him rare books on philosophy, including the writings of Baruch Spinoza, so he agrees to handle the hot coin. But the next day the cops come looking for Bernie. It seems the Colcannons came home early and surprised an intruder. Hank is badly beaten, and Wanda, unfortunately is dead.
Burglars Can't Be Choosers by Lawrence Block
Publisher: "New York, New York, U.S.A.: E P Dutton", 1995
ISBN: 0525939431
ID: S00010030
"Reissue of Random 1977- First Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery. Hardcover with jacket in Mylar cover, not price clipped, signed by author on custom designed bookplate, 1st ed./1st printing, complete numberline with #1, trade (retail) edition, not bookclub or ex-library. CONDITION: BOOK Fine - tight square, white pages, no markings of any kind. JACKET: Fine - minimal scuffing and edge wear. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for Author's Signature."
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: The latest in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series by multiple-award winner Block has Bernie underestimating the difficulty of breaking into a posh East Side apartment to steal a blue leather-covered box. No box, dead body, bum murder rap. Not so easy. "The New York Times Book Review" has called the Rhodenbarr books, "A witty series. Bernie is incorrigibly adorable. Between his inquiring mind and his sticky fingers, Bernie is the ideal sleuth."
The Devil Knows You're Dead by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1993
ISBN: 9780688121921
ID: S00010453
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: Private detective Matthew Scudder ventures into the dark and dangerous alleys of Hell's Kitchen to track the killer of a yuppie lawyer. By the author of "A Walk Among the Tombstones. "100,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. Tour.
Even the Wicked by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow, 1997
ISBN: 9780688141813
ID: P000500053
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: This is far from the best of Lawrence Block's landmark Scudder series-too little action or suspense, too much domestic bliss--so I'll just use its publication as an excuse to introduce newcomers to some past glories. The best of them all is still When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, definitely on my short list of the 100 Best Mysteries. But close behind are such other Scudder classics as A Long Line of Dead Men, A Dance at the Slaughterhouse, The Devil Knows You're Dead, Eight Million Ways to Die, In the Midst of Death, A Ticket to the Boneyard, and A Walk Among the Tombstones.
Hit List by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow, 2000
ISBN: 9780060198336
ID: P000500054
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. Has a remainder mark and mild smudging to bottom page block. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: When Keller gets off a plane in Louisville, ready to do the job he's been hired for, something about it feels wrong from the start. And when two people are killed in the motel room he's just vacated, he realizes he narrowly missed a setup, but can't figure out why. Then he goes to Boston to do another job, and afterwards dines in a coffee shop where another patron has the misfortune of leaving with Keller's raincoat: The "Globe" didn't have it. But there it was in the "Herald", a small story on a back page, a man found dead on Boston Common, shot twice in the head with a small-caliber weapon. Keller could picture the poor bastard, lying face-down on the grass, the rain washing relentlessly down on him. He could picture the dead man's coat, too. The "Herald" didn't say anything about a coat, but that didn't matter. Keller could picture it all the same. Keller's agent, Dot, puts the pieces--including the death of another contract killer she books occasionally--together and comes up with the seemingly crazy idea that a greedy hit man is knocking off the competition. In between other legit hits, romancing a commitment-shy artist, visiting an astrologer, and a long stint on jury duty, Keller slowly moves closer to the faceless nemesis he and Dot dub "Roger." But it's Dot, the woman of action, who figures out what to do about him. Though "Hit List" is too introspective to be a caper novel, and too funny to be noir, it's bound to find a rapt audience with fans of both subgenres. After two such engaging books, can "Hit Parade" be far behind? "--Barrie Trinkle"
Hope to Die by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow, 2001
ISBN: 9780060198329
ID: P000500055
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: When 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....
One Night Stands: Early Stories by Lawrence Block
Publisher: Crippen & Landru Publishers, 1999
ISBN: 9781885941305
ID: P000500983
Flat Signed! Hardcover Limited Edition first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed and numbered 357 of 450 copies printed on special page with author's signature and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 93.75
Summary:
Small Town: A Novel by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow, 2003
ISBN: 9780060011901
ID: P000500056
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: A solid craftsman with five bestselling series under his belt as well as numerous standalone mysteries and short-story collections to his credit, Lawrence Block breaks new ground with a resonant, compelling thriller about one man's response to the Twin Towers tragedy--an insane yet totally comprehensible, seemingly unconnected string of serial murders, or, as the killer calls them, "sacrifices" to the city he believes will be reborn out of the ashes of destruction. Block, a New Yorker born and bred, has penned a paean to the Manhattan he knows and loves, and created a cast of fascinating characters whose lives are touched by the killings. Among the most interesting are a woman whose sexual obsessions ensnare a former police commissioner who's being groomed for higher political office, a crime novelist uncertain about his own culpability in the so-called Carpenter Killings, and a gay housecleaner whose clients keep ending up dead. This may be Block's best novel to date--it's certainly his most erotic and astonishing one, and it will keep you going until the last extraordinary page. A mesmerizing take on New York after 9/11, this solidly paced, brilliantly executed thriller deserves all the attention it will surely receive. "--Jane Adams"
Ticket to the Boneyard by Lawrence Block
Publisher: Morrow, William Company In, 1990
ISBN: 9780688090708
ID: P000500057
Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on a custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 93.75
Summary: 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 Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block
Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1992
ISBN: 9780688103507
ID: P000500058
Flat Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on the title page and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: When a heroin kingpin's wife is kidnapped by some bad hombres, he haggles over the ransom and receives her back in pieces, leaving Scudder to track down the killers. By the author of "A Dance at the Slaughterhouse." 100,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. Tour.
A week as Andrea Benstock: A novel by Lawrence Block
Publisher: Arbor House,
ISBN: 9780877951001
ID: P000500059
BCE. Signed! Hardcover bookclub edition. Very good book in very good jacket. Signed on the custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. White borads have disscoloration along edges. Spine bumped. Jacket has bit of edge wear and a couple of closed small tears. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 337.5
Summary: The author's second book under this pseudonymm has been compared to Diary of a Mad Housewife
a non-mystery novel about a woman's self-awareness which the publisher compares to Diary of a Mad Housewife and Up the Sandbox!
An exceptionally scarce title.
WHEN THE SACRED GINMILL CLOSES by Lawrence Block
Publisher: Arbor House, 1968
ISBN: 05602
ID: P000500060
BCE. Signed! Hardcover bookclub edition. Fine book in fine jacket, Signed on the custom designed bookplate and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 281.25
Summary: Settled into married life, sober, and finally a legit private eye (the state granted his license), Scudder is prepared to become a respectable high-priced detective working for New York City lawyers. But when his old buddy, Mick Ballou, comes to him because two of his runners end up murdered, Scudder finds himself sinking back into the muck of the underworld. While dodging thugs who are out to put a stop to his investigation, Scudder must figure out who has it in for Ballou.
