Most Popular Books by Lawrence Block

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.

Sometime spy Evan Tanner has accepted impossible assignments for many reasons: money, thrills, to have something to occupy his waking hours (twenty-four of them every day, in fact, since battlefield shrapnel obliterated his brain''s sleep center). But this might be the first time he''s put his life on the line . . . for love. Tanner''s agreed to smuggle a sexy Latvian gymnast—the lost lady love of a heart-sick friend—out of Russia. With the Cold War at its chilliest and the Iron Curtain slammed shut, this will not be easy, especially since everybody in Eastern Europe, it seems, wants to tag along, including a subversive Slav author and the six-year-old heir to the nonexistent Lithuanian throne. But that''s not the biggest hurdle. The gymnast refuses to budge unless Tanner rescues her eleven delightfully limber teammates as well—and that might be raising the bar too lethally high for even the ever-resourceful Evan Tanner to clear.

Offers aspiring novelists guidelines for developing plot ideas, characters, and the story line as well as rewriting the manuscript, finding a literary agent, and getting works published.

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. Featuring: "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. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Complications ensue when Bernie''s second entry into Onderdonk''s apartment finds the Mondrian missing, a dead body in its place, and a voluptuous stranger with designs of her own hiding in the dark.

Bernie Rhodenbarr, bookseller by day and burglar by night, is hired to steal back the letters of a reclusive author from his former agent, who now wishes to sell them at auction. Seems like an easy enough job, until Bernie discovers the letters missing and the agent dead.

The fifteenth Matt Scudder mystery from NEW YORK TIMES bestseller Lawrence Block. Byrne and Susan Hollander stroll home from a concert on a fine summer''s evening in New York. Some hours later, their daughter Kristin arrives home to discover her parents brutally killed and the house ransacked. She also finds she is now a very young millionaire. A few days later the police trace the two killers to an apartment in Coney Island, and both are dead. One killed the other before turning the gun on himself - at least that''s the way it looks. So that''s another case solved. But for Matt Scudder it''s only the beginning. The more he looks into it, the more things look wrong to him. There''s a murderer out there, and he''s just getting started. Pitted in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Scudder is up against the most resourceful and diabolical killer of his career.

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. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

"Matthew Scudder is dying, one bottle at a time. A young prostitute named Kim Dakkinen is dying too, her life measured out in tricks. She wanted out, had asked for Scudder''s help, but suddenly she wasn''t dying anymore, she was just dead. The former cop turned P.I. promised to protect her, but he failed. Now his atonement is to find her killer. But the secrets in the dead hooker''s past are dirtier than her living, and searching for a killer in a city where everyone''s a victim is a good way to make the role permanent"--

A missing person case brings private eye Roy Markham to the remote winter-bound college town of Cliff''s End, New Hampshire. But what began as a routine investigation quickly becomes dark and dangerous. Six pornographic photos and a tidy little blackmail scheme result in a brutal and baffling murder, and no one is safe - especially Markham himself.

Ever since The Burglar on the Prowl climbed the bestseller lists in 2004, fans have been clamoring for a new book featuring the lighthearted and lightfingered Bernie Rhodenbarr. Now everybody''s favorite burglar returns in an eleventh adventure that finds him and his lesbian sidekick Carolyn Kaiser breaking into houses, apartments, and even a museum, in a madcap adventure replete with American Colonial silver, an F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscript, a priceless portrait, and a remarkable array of buttons. And, wouldn''t you know it, there''s a dead body, all stretched out on a Trent Barling carpet...

Here''s CHIP HARRISON--the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES... How can a series predicated on the hero''s sexual innocence survive past a second book? How can our Chip remain the same age forever? Simple, Block decided, and put our Lecher in the Wry to work for a private detective, the remarkable Leo Haig. Haig believes that Nero Wolfe really exists, and that if he distinguishes himself professionally he may one day be invited to dine at the Great Man''s table. And Chip hires on as Haig''s eyes and ears--if not his nose and throat. MAKE OUT WITH MURDER is at once a tightly plotted murder mystery, a Nero Wolfe pastiche, and a wildly funny and erotic romp featuring five beautiful sisters and some rare coins. Trust me, you''ll love it.

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.

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!

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 . . .

A must-have collection of essays on the art and craft of fiction from Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block. Collected here for the first time are writings that illuminate the tricks of the authorial trade, from creating a fresh story and delivering a powerful ending, to adapting books for the screen and deciding when to make the switch to fulltime writer.

It''s not easy to collect, in a single volume, the finest mystery and suspense fiction the world has to offer, but The World''s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: Second Annual Collection rises to that challenge, inviting you to discover what Kirkus Reviews dubs " . . . the year''s anthology of choice." In his Second Annual collection, Ed Gorman once again brings together the year''s most powerful fiction by such outstanding authors as Lawrence Block, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Ed McBain, Joyce Carol Oates, Ian Rankin, and Donald E. Westlake. The volume also abounds with fresh new stories by newer authors, from U. S. publications, and also from sources on other shores, including England, Germany, and the Netherlands. Ed Gorman set benchmark for great mystery and suspense fiction with the First Annual Collection. Overflowing with award-winning authors and terrific stories, The World''s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories: Second Annual Collection also promises to be a treasure for anyone who loves a mystery. More than 200,000 words of superlative mystery and suspense fiction from around the world, with stories by: Lawrence Block Jan Burke Dorothy Cannell Clark Howard Peter Lovesey Joyce Carol Oates Nancy Pickard Bill Pronzini Ian Rankin And many others A Banquet of Mystery and Crime Fiction For those who love outstanding mystery and crime reading, award-winning author and editor, Ed Gorman, has once again collected the best stories of the year from around the world. Immerse yourself in stories that baffle, tantalize, and delight, by the following authors: Miguel Agustí Doug Allyn Noreen Ayres Robert Barnard Lawrence Block Jan Burke Dorothy Cannell Stanley Cohen Mat Coward Peter Crowther Brendan DuBois Jurgen Ehlers Pete Hamill Joseph Hansen Edward D. Hoch Clark Howard Stuart M. Kaminsky Richard Laymon Gillian Linscott Peter Lovesey John Lutz Christine Matthews Ed McBain Bob Mendes Denise Mina Joyce Carol Oates Gary Phillips Nancy Pickard Bill Pronzini Robert J. Randisi Ian Rankin Les Roberts Peter Robinson S. J. Rozan Kristine Kathryn Rusch Donald E. Westlake At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

TWO 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 fatale responsible for splitting them apart. Begun in the last years of his life by noir master Cornell Woolrich, the haunted genius responsible for such classics as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and Phantom Lady, and completed decades later by acclaimed novelist and MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block (A Walk Among the Tombstones, Eight Million Ways to Die), INTO THE NIGHT – available here for the first time in more than 35 years – is a collaboration that extends beyond the grave, echoing the book’s own story of the living taking on and completing the unfinished work of the dead.

With a new wife and a baby on the way, Keller, a.k.a. Nicholas Edwards, is done killing people for money until a phone call from Dot draws him back into the old game, taking him from Dallas to settle a domestic dispute to New York, where people might remember him.

Five-time Edgar winner and MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block wrote a monthly column for Writers Digest Magazine for fourteen years. The Liar''s Bible consists of previously uncollected columns, chosen to illuminate the often dimly-lit path of the writer of fiction. Here''s what one reviewer said on Goodreads: "I am fascinated by the creative process and there are few excellent examples of this that I have found - there is Koestler''s The Act of Creation insightful in a general way- but I have found only two worth their salt about working creators - Trauffaut''s interviews with Hitchcock collected in Trauffaut/Hitchcock and Thomas Hoving''s two interviews with Andrew Wyeth - published as Autobiography and Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth - but reading Lawrence Block''s collected columns on writing from Writer''s Digest I have discovered outstanding examples of this somewhat mysterious creative process. "Now I am anxious to read his other collected columns - Block of course writes so fluidly that, as one Stephen King fan commented, I would probably read his grocery list - but he also asks brilliant questions of himself and does a terrific job answering and commenting on these. "This is a must read for anyone intrigued by writers, artists, the creative process or those eager to write whether already published or hoping to be soon." And here''s another: "What an absolute treat it is to re-read these columns, nearly 30 years after I first read many of them in the pages of Writer''s Digest. I first started reading WD in high school, and subscribed for years, mostly for Lawrence Block''s fiction-writing columns. This book collects all of his pieces from that era. Sure, a few pieces of advice -- mostly related to the marketplace for fiction -- have since become, oh, just slightly dated, but most of the wisdom still applies, not just for fiction writers but for all writers. These columns were, indeed, my bible in the early stages of my writing life. I owe a lot to Block, and I''m glad to have the chance to reflect back on how his writing influenced not just my own wordsmithing but also my life."

A truly unprecedented literary achievement by author and editor Lawrence Block, a newly-commissioned anthology of seventeen superbly-crafted stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper, including Jeffery Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Lee Child, and Robert Olen Butler, among many others. “Edward Hopper is surely the greatest American narrative painter. His work bears special resonance for writers and readers, and yet his paintings never tell a story so much as they invite viewers to find for themselves the untold stories within.” So says Lawrence Block, who has invited seventeen outstanding writers to join him in an unprecedented anthology of brand-new stories: In Sunlight or In Shadow. The results are remarkable and range across all genres, wedding literary excellence to storytelling savvy. Contributors include Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, Craig Ferguson, Nicholas Christopher, Jill D. Block, Joe R. Lansdale, Spider Robinson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Warren Moore, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, and Lawrence Block himself. Even Gail Levin, Hopper’s biographer and compiler of his catalogue raisonée, appears with her own first work of fiction, providing a true account of art theft on a grand scale and told in the voice of the country preacher who perpetrated the crime. In a beautifully produced anthology as befits such a collection of acclaimed authors, each story is illustrated with a quality reproduction of the painting that inspired it.

"Ed London is the kind of private investigator you call to clean up the mess when your mistress turns up dead. But after he dumps a body in Central Park, it appears this case is still alive and kicking. Seems that the dead girl was in possession of something special that some very shady characters want back. Now Ed, along with his actress friend Maddy, will have to crack the case before he ends up dead himself. But there''s more than a murder here; there''s missing jewels, Israeli intelligence, Nazi spies, and a host of double-dealing, backstabbing thieves." Coward''s Kiss started life as a tie-in novel for Belmont Books, linked to the TV series Markham, starring Ray Milland. When a very young Lawrence Block turned in the book, his agent sent it instead to Knox Burger at Gold Medal, who shared the agent''s enthusiasm. Block rewrote the book, changing Roy to Ed and Markham to London, and Gold Medal published the book with the unfortunate title of Death Pulls a Doublecross. After fulfilling his assignment by writing another book for Belmont (You Could Call It Murder, Classic Crime Library #12) Block tried to write a second Ed London novel, but somehow never managed it. He did write three magazine novelettes with London, and you can find them in One Night Stands and Lost Weekends, a collection of his earliest pulp work. The legendary Anthony Boucher gave the book a nice review in the New York Times Book Review, and if Lawrence Block had the sense to hang on to things, we''d reproduce it here. But he doesn''t, so you''ll have to take our word for it. THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block''s early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.

To prove himself innocent of stealing an invaluable baseball card collection, Bernie Rhodenbarr pulls out all his master skills to uncover a scheme he should have been smart enough to avoid.

A deranged derelict, a crazed Vietnam vet, has been arrested for gunning down successful young lawyer Glenn Holtzmann at a corner phone booth on Eleventh Avenue -- and the suspect''s brother wants p.i. Matthew Scudder to prove the madman innocent. But Scudder''s curiosity and dedication are leading him to dark, unexplored places in his own heart...and to passions and secrets that could destroy everything be loves.

Matthew Scudder''s latest case involves a secret Manhattan club whose purpose is to record the passage of time and celebrate. But then the members start to die. By the author of ''The devil knows you''re dead''.

The second in a new series of 7 Lawrence Block titles featuring Evan Micheal Tanner. He is 34 years old and hasn''t slept a wink since a piece of shrapnel destroyed the sleep centre in his brain during the Korean War. Tanner, enlisted by an undercover agency, so secret it doesn''t have a name, heads for Czechoslovakia where he must engineer the kidnap of a dying man. But first he finds himself leaping from a moving train, tangling with an amourous blonde and trying to act convincing as the key speaker at a Nazi rally.

In this reissue, a young girl is killed, the prime suspect is found dead in his cell and the NYPD consider the case closed. Ex-cop Scudder, hired to look into the case by the girl''s father is up to his neck in sleaze, corruption, religious cults and murderous lust. In New York''s underbelly, children pay for their parents'' most unspeakable sins.

Nobody ever called Jerry Broadfield a saint, but he was an (almost) honest cop. Then one day he took off his badge and ratted on nearly every crooked cop on the NYPD. He was a hero--until someone set him up. Now Matt Scudder is on the case and has no idea how dirty it will get. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

When ex-policeman and recovering alcoholic Matthew Scudder is stalked by a psychotic killer who murders, one by one, Scudders'' friends and acquaintances, his fate hinges on the survival of a glamorous call girl