The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (Bernie Rhodenbarr Seri...

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.

From Publishers Weekly

Those who long for another new exploit of the immortal Bernie Rhodenbarr, Greenwich Village bookseller by profession and burglar by avocation, should be warned that their wait must be extended. For this is a reissue, after 17 years, of what was originally the third in the series. It's therefore likely to be a new pleasure to Rhodenbarr fans won over by his recent rebirth (The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart) and to fans of Block's Matt Scudder novels. In it, Bernie has just opened Barnegat Books, has just got to know his deeply endearing friend, the lesbian dog groomer Carolyn, and is pressed into service to steal a rare book, allegedly a lost anti-Semitic work of Rudyard Kipling. As usual, he finds himself saddled with a dead body and a maze of twisted motives. And also as usual, Block's stylish narrative flow, humor and pitch-perfect feeling for New York life make getting to the end much more fun than the ultimate solution of the mystery. Until then, it's unalloyed pleasure?and, yes, we're ready for another new one. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Block seems to relish the chance to write about the other side of the law when he's not detailing the straight-and-narrow exploits of investigator Matthew Scudder (e.g., A Long Line of Dead Men, Morrow, 1994). Here, the literature-loving burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr (e.g., The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, Dutton, 1995) is framed for murder after pilfering a Kipling manuscript.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover

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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Burglar Who Liked to Quote KiplingA Bernie Rhodenbarr MysteryBy Lawrence BlockPenguin AudiobooksCopyright © 1996 Lawrence BlockAll right reserved.ISBN: 9780140863451Chapter OneI suppose he must have been in his early twenties. It was hard to be sure of his age because there was so little of his face available for study. His redbrown beard began just below his eyes, which in turn lurked behind thick-lensed horn-rims. He wore a khaki army shirt, unbuttoned, and beneathit his T-shirt advertised the year's fashionable beer, a South Dakota brand reputedly brewed with organic water. His pants were brown corduroy, hisrunning shoes blue with a gold stripe. He was toting a Braniff Airlines flight bag in one illmanicured hand and the Everyman's Library edition of The Poems of William Cowper in the other.He set the book down next to the cash register, reached into a pocket, found two quarters, and placed them on the counter alongside the book."Ah, poor Cowper," I said, picking up the book. Its binding was shaky, which was why it had found its way to my bargain table. "My favorite's 'TheRetired Cat.' I'm pretty sure it's in this edition." He shifted his weight from foot to foot while I scanned the table of contents. "Here it is. Page one-fifty. You know the poem?""I don't think so.""You'll love it. The bargain books are forty cents or three for a dollar, which is even more of a bargain. You just want the one?""That's right." He pushed the two quarters an inch or so closer to me. "Just the one.""Fine," I said. I looked at his face. All I could really see was his brow, and it looked untroubled, and I would have to do something about that. "Forty cents for the Cowper, and three cents for the Governor in Albany, mustn't forget him, and what does that come to?" I leaned over the counter and dazzled him with my pearly-whites. "I make it thirty-two dollars and seventy cents," I said."Huh?""That copy of Byron. Full morocco, marbled endpapers, and I believe it's marked fifteen dollars. The Wallace Stevens is a first edition and it's a bargainat twelve. The novel you took was only three dollars or so, and I suppose you just wanted to read it because you couldn't get anything much resellingit.""I don't know what you're talking about."I moved out from behind the counter, positioning myself between him and the door. He didn't look as though he intended to sprint but he waswearing running shoes and you never can tell. Thieves are an unpredictable lot."In the flight bag," I said. "I assume you'll want to pay for what you took.""This?" He looked down at the flight bag as if astonished to find it dangling from his fingers. "This is just my gym stuff. You know -- sweatsocks, a towel, like that.""Suppose you open it."Perspiration was beading on his forehead but he was trying to tough it out. "You can't make me," he said. "You've got no authority.""I can call a policeman. He can't make you open it, either, but he can walk you over to the station house and book you, and then he can open it, and do you really want that to happen? Open the bag."He opened the bag. It contained sweat socks, a towel, a pair of lemon-yellow gym shorts, and the three books I had mentioned along with a nice clean first edition of Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus, complete with dust wrapper. It was marked $17.50, which seemed a teensy bit high."I didn't get that here," he said."You have a bill of sale for it?""No, but -- "I scribbled briefly, then gave him another smile."Let's call it fifty dollars even," I said, "and let's have it.""You're charging me for the Steinbeck?""Uh-huh.""But I had it with me when I came in.""Fifty dollars," I said."Look, I don't want to buy these books." He rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "Oh God, why did I have to come in here in the first place? Look, I don't want any trouble.""Neither do I.""And the last thing I want is to buy anything. Look, keep the books, keep the Steinbeck too, the hell with it. Just let me get out of here, huh?""I think you should buy the books.""I don't have the money. I got fifty cents. Look, keep the fifty cents too, okay? Keep the shorts and the towel, keep the sweat socks, okay? Just let meget the hell out of here, okay?""You don't have any money?""No, nothing. Just the fifty cents. Look -- ""Let's see your wallet.""What are you -- I don't have a wallet.""Right hip pocket. Take it out and hand it to me.""I don't believe this is happening."I snapped my fingers. "The wallet."It was a nice enough black pinseal billfold, complete with the telltale outline of a rolled condom to recall my own lost adolescence. There was almost a hundred dollars in the currency compartment. I counted out fifty dollars in fives and tens, replaced the rest, and returned the wallet to its owner."That's my money," he said."You just bought books with it," I told him. "Want a receipt?""I don't even want the books, dammit." His eyes were watering behind the thick glasses. "What am I going to do with them, anyway?""I suppose reading them is out. What did you plan to do with them originally?"He stared at his track shoes. "I was going to sell them.""To whom?""I don't know. Some store.""How much were you going to get for them?""I don't know. Fifteen, twenty dollars.""You'd wind up taking ten.""I suppose so.""Fine," I said. I peeled off one of his tens and pressed it into his palm. "Sell them to me."Continues...Excerpted from The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kiplingby Lawrence Block Copyright © 1996 by Lawrence Block. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

From AudioFile

Bernie Rhondenbarr is back. The loveable guy, who is an antiquarian bookseller by day and a sometimes burglar at night, makes his fifth appearance on audio with this reading by his creator, mystery writer Lawrence Block. As with all the Bernie audiobooks, the plot matters little. Bernie pilfers an itemÐin this case, a rare edition of a Kipling book once owned by a well-known person (who shall remain nameless so as not to spoil the fun)Ðand ends up being charged with murder. After the first three sides, Bernie, wryly performed by Block with the perfect New York accent, rounds up all the suspects. This is the fourth Burglar book Block has read. In a brief interview the author explained that he records his own books "because I'm a ham. I enjoy doing readings on promotional tours." Block also explained that he doesn't write the condensed versions but touches them up before the recordings are made. As to how much of Bernie is really Block himself, the author said, "Not too much. I haven't knocked off any apartments lately." What's up next for Bernie? Block would only reveal that in the next book "Bernie leaves the city and winds up in a country house outside New York." S.I.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author

Lawrence Block is a four-time winner of the Edgar Award and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. He has also won four Shamus Awards, and was the first recipient of the Nero Wolfe Award. He is the author of over 40 books, many of which feature the characters Bernie Rhodenbarr, Matthew Scudder, Chip Harrison, and Evan Tanner. He lives in New York City with his wife Lynne.

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