Product Description
All the stories contained in DEATH CRUISE are set aborad cruise ships. Written by members of the International Association of Crime Writers, these compelling stories come from authors such as Agatha Christie, Nancy Pickard, Erik Amdrup, Arnaldo Correa, and John Lutz.--This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

UP WITH RUMPOLE --- DOWN WITH HONEYMOON
DEATH CRUISE, is made up of 22 short mystery stories that, as you would expect, center about cruises.Each story is written by a different author, each using the cruise theme as a common thread to tie the stories together.The styles and entertainment values vary widely, as do the periods in which they were written.These vary from Agatha Christie's story written in 1936, to the bulk of the rest that were evidently written in 1999, the year this collection was copyrighted.

I wish that I could say that they were uniformly good, but I'm afraid that I can't because, at least in my opinion, they're not.In fact, they're all over the place.

Let's start with Agatha Christie's "Problem at Sea."I don't think that it has held up very well with the passage of time.I can't reveal what it is about the key premise of the solution of the murder that bothers me so much, as it would ruin the mystery for the reader, but, in light of what is fairly common knowledge now, it just doesn't work today.

Now for the bright side.As always, I enjoyed John Mortimer's Rumpole and his wife, "She Who Must Be Obeyed," who are on a cruise ship on their second honeymoon.for fans of the "Rumpole of the Bailey" series, it is amusing to even imagine Rumpole aboard a cruise ship where one must dress for dinner and if "She Wo Must . . . " has her way, go dancing in the evenings, drink fine liquers, hob-nob with fellow passengers, etc., etc.This story, "Rumpole at Sea,"combines most of the elements that go into a highly entertaining story.As there should be because this is meant to be a mystery, there is a bit of a mystery.There is, however, even more tongue-in-cheek British dry humor.There are people you really care about, and a few that you don't.All in all, it's hard not to be charmed by Mortimer's take on Rumpole, his wife, and a moderately unpleasant judge or two.

In "Honeymoon Cruise," I couldn't find a single character I really cared about, so I just didn't care who was planning to kill whom.

But, on the positive side (again),we have "Mutiny of the Bounty Hunter," which has people that grew on me, and by the end of the story, I really did care about what happened to them.Even in a story this short, the author managed to give us real people who changed as the situation warranted it, not the unidimesnsional ones like those in "Honeymoon Cruise."

In summary:For me, DEATH CRUISE was really a mixed bag, with just enough entertainment value for me that I, like certain movie critics, can give it a "reluctant tumbs up." ... Read more

Product Description
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 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Avid Reader
Every story in this book was good.I highly recommend it and I can hardly wait for the third entry to the deadly sins series.Speaking of Greed wasn't as gory as Speaking of Lust.Another must read by Lawrence Block: Hitman. ... Read more

Product Description
A New York Times Bestselling Author

A gripping account of the actual murders that inspired the highly acclaimed film Badlands. . . . He is Jimmie John Hall, "free and white and twenty-two." She 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 fourteen innocent people dead. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Get a good grip on your chair....
This is another book that is excellently done but one that I could do without.Few Americans even remember the real-life misadventures of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate.In the late 1950s the duet, one a James Dean dittohead and the other, a misguided 14-year old girl, went on a killing spree across the midwest.Lawrence Block's book is somewhat loosely patterned after the real killers and their pointless crimes.

The novel's plot is gripping enough, certainly:one brutal murder after another.The characters are well limned, idiotic as they are.The atmosphere is real if somewhat detached in time.The dialogue is excellent, even without Block's usual comic asides.Nonetheless, this is no pleasant work of art.The sane reader just wants to kick the characters behinds at the outset and tell them not to use their unhappiness with life in killing innocent people, e.g., a man who stops to help the duo on the highway.

I am not saying that such people do not exist in real life.There are too many examples, Bonnie and Clyde, Starkweather and Fugate, etc.And there are others yet unborn.It is just that I am reluctant to wallow with them in their woe is me excuses.

Lawrence Block is, to my thinking, the very best American writer of crime fiction.This is one of his earlier works, penned before he discovered the Burglar, Tanner, and Keller.The talent here is obvious, but I am glad that he let more sunshine into his plots as he continued to publish.

As a footnote, the best book on the real Starkweather is a book of the same name by William Allen.

Long ride to nowhere
The Charles Starkweather crime spree that left 14 people dead in 1958 spawned, among other things, an excellent feature film, Terrence Malick's "Badlands"; a so-so TV film, and this book.Lawrence Block, who originally published this book under the pseudonym Paul Kavanaugh, brings us Jimmie John Hall, 22 years old, a drifter and loser who appears in the story's opening pages by hitching a ride with a friendly stranger and killing him for his Oldsmobile Toronado.Cut to Grand Island, Nebraska, where we meet Betty Dienhardt, a 15 year old nonentity, so mediocre she's practically invisible, living with her cold, unloving father, her submissive and equally unloving mother, and her flatulent grandmother whose malodorous gas explosions make the house almost uninhabitable.Betty hates her home and wants to run away to her older sister Judy, who ran away from home years ago after a tempestuous fight with their father and has made a life for herself that her younger sister can only dream about; she fantasizes that Judy is a glamorous Hollywood actress who will drive up in a gleaming car and rescue her from this sink of despair she lives in.Jimmie John's route takes him through Grand Island and when he runs into Betty, they each sense something in each other that they vibrate to.Betty runs off with Jimmie John after he shoots her parents dead (and puts Grandma out of her misery as well), and from there it's a flight across the Southwest, leaving a trail of dead bodies in their wake.We learn about Jimmie John and Betty mainly from flashbacks told by people who knew them; a former lover of Jimmie John's mother, one of Betty's teachers who says that aside from excelling in Spanish she was so ordinary that she faded into the woodwork, and the sister Betty idolized, who says that she hardly remembers her, and they were never close anyway.Block shows us who Betty and Jimmie John are, but we don't really get a sense of how they feel and where they are coming from, or why Betty chose not to escape from Jimmie John when she had a chance to, an act that ultimately dooms her.It's an interesting book in its own right, though, and shows us two rebels without a cause in a mindless quest for something they themselves are unaware of and could never reach anyway.Block wrote this book from the viewpoint of a news reporter giving a voiceover narrative, and we finally see Jimmie John meeting his end as Starkweather himself did, as the scene fades slowly to black. ... Read more

Product Description
From the author's afterword:

. . .Now my agent informed me that a new publisher, one Bill Hamling, was starting a company to be called Nightstand Books, and that I’d been chosen to write for them.Midwood had been paying me $600 a book, and Hamling would pay $750.
I decided a college novel might be just the ticket.I’d been trying to figure out what to try for Fawcett/Crest–––they, after all, had paid me $2000 for that lesbian novel.But on some level I didn’t really believe I was good enough to write for that good a house, and that kept me from trying.I’d been thinking my second book for Crest might be set on a campus, and when Nightstand came along I took that idea and aimed it at them.
And wrote Campus Tramp in a couple of weeks.
The only college with which I was familiar was Antioch, so it was an easy decision to set the book there–––or at its fictional equivalent, which I called Clifton.And, to amuse myself and any other Antiochianwho might read the thing, I gave every character in the book the name of an actual Antioch dormitory as a surname.Since most of the dorms were named after people, guaranteeing them the immortality of, say, Louis J. Bennett, it wasn’t a stretch to fasten their names to human beings, albeit fictional ones.
And, while I was at it, I named the buildings on Clifton’s campus after some Antioch people.
I finished the book, walked a block and a half to Fifth Avenue, and turned in the manuscript to my agent, who dutifully sent it to Hamling, who thought it was just fine, even if it didn’t have anybody screwing in a grease pit.I was invited to pick a new pen name, and chose Andrew Shaw.And Mr. Shaw now had an assignment to produce regularly for Nightstand, even as Mr. Lord was still very much in demand at Midwood.The only place that didn’t want me, it turned out, was Antioch.
It was not long after I turned in Campus Tramp and started writing something else that a letter from Antioch’s Student Personnel Committee reached me at the Rio, informing me that a review of my performance the preceding year left them with the sense that I might be happier elsewhere.
I thought that was damned perceptive of them.I would indeed be happier elsewhere, no question about it, and wasn’t it considerate of them to point that out to me?I’d already tried to drop out once, had been talked out of it by my parents, but now I had the perfect excuse.I’d been, as the British say, sent down.(It sounds much nicer than expelled, doesn’t it?)And, having been sent down, I could stay down.I was free.
I think–––and thought at the time–––that I could have talked my way back in.The tone of the letter suggested as much.But why would I want to do that?I had books to write.
#
And then a curious thing happened.Campus Tramp was published, and word got around Yellow Springs that it was my revenge on the school, that I’d savaged the place as a way of getting even.
Getting even for what, for God’s sake?
For expelling me?That was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.For schooling me for several years?I can’t think where I might have more enjoyably or profitably spent those particular years.I had no quarrel with the place, and if it was anything vis–à–vis Antioch, the book was a wink and a nod, a veritable homage.
Besides, when I wrote it I still fully expected to return to Yellow Springs in the fall.I had a year to go, and then I was scheduled to graduate.I didn’t much want to go back, but I’d planned to do it anyway, so I certainly didn’t think of myself as burning any bridges with Campus Tramp.
Go figure.
#
Over the years, the story of Linda Shepard became a part of campus folklore.I’ve heard of copies commanding unlikely prices at Senior Sales. A young woman I know---she’s since become a Facebook Friend---has been known to give dramatic readings at alumni gatherings. . .
... Read more

Product Description
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 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Another great book from a great author
Laurence Block has become a recent obsession of mine.I love all of his books I have read, and in the week and a half I have been working on them, I have read somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 books.This was anothergreat Chip.Everyone should read this.

Unbelieveably Boring
I'm a Lawrence Block/Matt Scudder fan.Can't get enough of that Matt Scudder.

So, I thought Block's other stuff might be just as good: not so.Hit man was a dissapointment and so was this.

Lame jokes: boring story. Too many characters who are alike -- how many men can we stand?Blatantlycrude gratuitous "sex" scene.Sad

Final book in Chip Harrison series...
"The Topless Tulip Caper," by Lawrence Block is the fourth and final book (as of this date) in a series of novels about Chip Harrison, the teen-age assistant to Leon Haig, who billed himself the world famousdetective in "Five Little Rich Girls." (Which was alsorepublished under the title, "Make Out With Murder." Now Haigagrees author's Rex Stout's famous detective, Nero Wolfe is the world'sgreatest detective. The novel is short, under 200 pages. In this storyTulip Willing is a topless dancer, hence the title. She's a tropical fishfancier and a biologist who call upon Haig in his capacity as a detectivebecause he too is a tropical fish expert. Tulip's fish are poisoned andthis leads to the murder of her roommate, Cherry Bounce on the stage of theTreasure Chest. Chip is sent out to investigate for his boss Haig. This Chip Harrison novels has the same brand of wit as the others andsimilar to Block's "The Burglar Who...." Series featuring BernieRhodenbarr. Both series light reading but certainly not as deep as the MattScudder mystery novels. Block is a very good writer. I have read most ofseries books, with the exception of the Evan Turner books which are on myto find and read list.

It was a struggle to finish this book....
I have read Lawrence Block novels before so I had an idea on what to expect.Imagine my surprise when I tried to read this one!It was totally predictable and it failed to keep my attention for long.I would notrecommend this book to anyone unless they had trouble sleeping at night. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Adolescent Detective
I have been a big fan of Lawrence Block's for quite some time, He has written a large number of books in a number of series each starring a different "hero" (usually a detective). My favorite series are the "Bernie Rhodenbarr Mysteries" (Bernie is a totally likable burglar who also runs a second-hand bookstore), "Keller's Greatest Hits" with Keller, who is also totally likable even though he is a hit man and murders for a living and "The Affairs of Chip Harrison" . The first two volumes of this last series are biographical and we follow Chip on his adventure-ridden way to New York where in the later volumes he is the assistent of that very eccentric detective Leo Haig. All of the Chip Harrison books are well constructed, well- written, and - in the Block tradition - witty enough to make you snort out loud on occasion. When the "Affairs" appeared in an omnibus version I decided that this was the perfect Christmas for certain of my relatives and it turned out that I was right. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (13)

A Nice Thick Collection
Most people will purchase Transgressions simply to read a novella by one of their favourite authors. I myself picked this up just for the Westlake novella inside.I don't think anyone, no matter which author motivated them to buy this, will put down this collection only satisfied by one story.Yes like any various author anthology the quality varies as do the stories fitting into your personal tastes, but I doubt there will be anyone that either doesn't find a new author to check out or at the very least is reminded of the talent of an author they've maybe only read one or two books of a long time ago in the past.Some novellas such as Walking Around Money can only be found in these pages and others such as The Things They Left Behind you may well have already read before (Just After Sunset).

Keller's Adjustment in my opinion is the best of the lot.I've read a few of Block's other books containing stamp collecting hit man Keller, and this is easily the best story.You don't need to have read any previous ones to follow or get the most out of Keller's Adjustment.It reads like a standalone novel with no plots of previous novels given away.Keller a man who used to have no problems getting on a plane in New York and flying anywhere in the US without any serious searching by security for weapons he would take with him to commit the crime or validating his fake ID has had his world suddenly change. The post September 11 2001 demand for the airlines and airports to wake up and take security seriously for domestic flights now means a lot of complications if there's someone that needs to be killed on the other side of the continent.On a road trip across America in a rental car to get to his next victim Keller starts talking to himself out loud, something he's never done before which consequently freaks him out.His target also lives in a high security gated retirement community causing quite the challenge for Keller as well as plenty of time to ponder if a post 9/11 world is really a world where you can have a satisfying career as a hit man.

Walking Around Money although not Westlake's best story or even best Dortmunder novel is an important find for any fan of the late grandmaster's work.You won't find Walking Around Money published anywhere else as it was written after Thieves' Dozen (Westlake's collection of the Dortmunder short stories) was published.In fact it is actually the third last Dortmunder adventure written before Westlake's death and takes place time wise between Watch Your Back and What's So Funny.Important for fans of the series as you find out if repulsive fencer of stolen items Arnie Albright sticks to his rehabilitation.In this adventure Andy Kelp and Dortmunder meet through a friend of a criminal friend an old man named Querk. Querk's angry and bored with his life as a forklift driver, working for a rural printing company who shattered his dreams of using his printing skills he learnt behind bars, which they told him are now obsolete in this computer designed modern world. Querk has plans for counterfeiting currency for a South American country during a night the plant is shut down, however he needs a couple of fellow criminals who don't live in his small town to help with the heavy work and to get it done in time.Like any Dortmunder novel, outside factors and Murphy's Law always play a part in a should be smooth caper not turning out quite that way.

Anne Perry's Hostages about a rural cottage holding a couple and their adult son at gunpoint is interesting, however the husband of the main character is such a racist, bully and just in general not bright or nice guy that you are actually hoping he will be killed and/or the objectives of the Protestant extreme group hoping to replace him as leader will actually come off.

Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large was a bit disappointing for me.I've read and enjoyed other Mosley stories and was enjoying this one to begin with about a young guy from the country who moves to New York and notices a weird advertisement for a job in a few different papers so decides to apply. He then meets a very strange man who gives him a list of people and tells him to go visit them and talk to them if he can.When one dies before his eyes he becomes a suspect. However then the story just got a little stupid.

The other stories Corn Maidern by Joyce Carol Oates, Resurrection man by Sharyn McCrumb, Merely Hate by Ed McBain, The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King, Ransome Women by John Farris or Forever by Jeffery Deaver were no stand outs to what those authors normally produce.However I did find McBain's intro to this collection to be a really interesting read.

Fun Anthology
This anthology includes ten crime novellas.

EXCELLENT
Lawrence Block "Keller's Adjustment" -- Block is a master. In this one hitman Keller ponders his future after September 11. Great writing especially dialogue.

Sharyn McCrumb "Resurrection Man" -- This is less crime and more literary. It's about a black graverobber who works for a Georgia university before, during, and after the Civil War. Stars slow but great storytelling.

Anne Perry "Hostages" -- I usually get irritated with Perry because it often seems that she's being paid by the word. This one, however, surprised me. It's lean, mean, and compelling.

Donald Westlake "Walking Around Money" -- Westlake is another master who knows exactly what he's doing and how to do it.

GOOD
Ed McBain "Merely Hate" -- Good procedural with a few twists.

Walter Mosley "Archibald Lawless" -- Interesting if implausible piece about a naive New Orleans young man who gets involved with a larger-than-life personality after moving to New York City.

Stephen King "The Things They Left Behind" -- Per usual, King is repetitive and can't quite pull off a great concept. I kept wanting this September 11 piece to get better, but it never did.

Jeffery Deaver "Forever" -- Deaver just can't end a story. He's got to add twist after twist after twist until the story becomes this unsatisfying scifi thing. Still, Talbot is a great character.

FAIR --
John Farris "The Ransome Women" -- John Farris is one of the worst writers ever. He is just awful. However, he is so bad he sometimes becomes good. Shlocky, soap operish, melodramatic romance novel--you've got to read it to believe it. I was laughing out loud at some of the hackneyed lines and plot twists. I about died when a character and his doomed relative roasted marshmallows over the burning ashes of one of his paintings.

Joyce Carol Oates "The Corn Maiden" -- Oates is not a bad writer. But she's certainly not a good one either. The story was disturbing and really kind of gross. I don't know what it is about Oates, but I get the feeling that she's never lived but only written and read. If that makes any sense.

Forever by Jeffery Deaver
Over approximately the last month, I've slowly made my way through Transgressions, the 2005 anthology of crime-fiction novellas edited by the late Ed McBain. As with most anthologies (especially those composed primarily of "big names"), the results have been of mixed quality. A few stand out among the rest -- among them The Ransome Women by John Farris and The Resurrection Man by Sharyn McCrumb -- but only one stood high enough to be recognized as definitely the best of the bunch: Forever by Jeffery Deaver, an author I'd not previously read.

In Forever, Deaver introduces police statistician Talbot Simms. Tal in a numbers whiz who is happy to remain at his desk, crunching arithmetic means and standard deviations. But when a couple of elderly suicides present themselves as statistical "outliers" (meaning the combination of events fall far outside the norm of mathematical likelihood), Tal declares them "2124" (suspicious) and inadvertently heads toward solving his first case as a "real" police detective.

Deaver skillfully portrays Tal Simms as a novice among veterans, concurrently showing the reader all the tiny details needed to follow procedure. But Tal slowly feels his way along, with the reluctant help of Detective Greg LaTour, who develops a grudging respect for the "Einstein" of his department. Both characters are fully three-dimensional, and I would welcome a series from Deaver featuring them. Forever also features some of the most original plotting and imagination this side of classic science fiction. Odd that I put off reading it for so long, primarily from not knowing his work, because Deaver's is the name I'll come away from Transgressions most praising.

AReading Buffet
Transgressionsprovidesreaders with the opportunity to sample ten different offerings from ten different authors.There is a gritty 87th Precinct novella from Ed Mcbain and a lyrical offering on a child abduction from Joyce Carol Oates.Steven King is well represented with a short but strangely moving tale of a 911 survivor haunted by his souveniers from his unlucky co-workers.

I enjoyed Transgressions for both its quality and variety. While no story in particular was a stand out, each provided a sample of the particular author's style.Like a buffet, a taste is really all you need to determine where (and whether) you will return for second and third helpings.

A smorgasbord of great reads!
After the success of his novel BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, Evan Hunter (Ed McBain) turned to what were then referred to as "novelettes," his subject being the 87th Precinct detectives of Isola (think New York). As time passed, the 87th Precinct novelettes grew to full-length novels. Fifty years later, McBain persuaded nine other mystery, thriller, and horror writers to submit what are now called "novellas" of around a hundred pages each.

The result was one of my most enjoyable reads of 2006. I don't know why I don't read more anthologies. It was in an anthology that I first experienced Stuart Kaminsky, Sharyn McCrumb, and Lawrence Block.

Coincidentally, one of the best novellas in this anthology is one by Block. Block returns with his enigmatic hit man Keller in KELLER'S ADJUSTMENT. Block manages to make us feel empathy for the man. Although he has sex with a Phoenix real estate saleslady, Keller is essentially a lonely man. He needs somebody to talk to. He once had a dog, but a former girlfriend took it with him when she left; he went to a therapist, but the therapist turned into a snoop, and he had to dust him. Unwilling to take a chance on a living breathing entity, Keller buys a stuffed animal to talk to.

Jeffrey Deaver also responded to the call with FOREVER. In it he introduces Tal Simms, a mathematician/statistician working for Westbrook County Sheriff's Department. Simms is considered a "computer geek" by the rest of the detective squad, especially homicide detective Greg "Bear" LaTour. Simms and his eventual partner LaTour are confronted with several suspicious suicides. Older rich couples are killing themselves under dubious circumstances. In most respects, the underdog character Simms is every bit as likable as Lincoln Rhymes. I would definitely buy a full length novel featuring Simms.

A new discovery for me was John Farris.Farris's THE RANSOME WOMEN concerns a beautiful art appraiser named Echo Halloran who agrees to pose for the great artist John Leland Ransome. She's not only flattered, but as a budding artist herself, she wants to learn from him. Her boyfriend, police detective Peter O'Neil, is suspicious, and with good reason. I enjoyed this novella so much I ran right out and bought FURY, THE TERROR Farris's masterwork.

I have to admit that Ed McBain's own contribution, MERELY HATE, was my principal motivation for purchasing the anthology. I needed my 87th Precinct fix, and it's great as usual. It is post 9/11 in Isola, and the detectives are called to investigate the murder of a Muslim cab driver. Through these cab driver murders, McBain capsulizes the reason for the problems in the Mid East.

Other writers who contributed novellas were Donald Westlake, Anne Perry, Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Sharyn McCrumb, and Stephen King. All of them were excellent. ... Read more

Product Description

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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Read
This is the first collection of short stories by Lawrence Block (others have necessarily followed), and contains some real gems.It is here that many readers will make their first aquaintance with Chip Harrison and Leo Haig, Block's tip of the hat to Rex Stout.Also found here for the first time are two tales about his, umm, unusually successful attorney - Ehrengraf.Also a Scudder tale for those devoted fans as well.There's a diverse collection of tales that reads smooth and quick.If you like Lawrence Block you will not be disappointed.Then, when you are done - check out Some Days You Get the Bear for more!

Collection of short stories interesting.
A collection of short stories. Some previously published in various mystery magazines. Some never before published. For Matt Scudder fans there's an entry. The first ever Chip Harsion story is also in thiscollection.Very good reading for a Lawrence Block fan. ... Read more

Product Description
The line-up: three New York Times bestselling authors, four Edgar Award winners, and other critically acclaimed past presidents of the Private Eye Writers of America.

THE DETECTIVES: the authors' most famous P.I.s.
THE STORIES: the authors' personal favorites.
PLUS: a special behind-the-crime-scene introduction to each author's creative process. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Old and new stories
List of stories: Wrong Place, Wrong Time/Bill Pronzini; The Merciful Angel of Death/Lawrence Block; Eighty Million Dead/Michael Collins; Deadly Beloved/William Campbell Gault; Second Story Sunlight/John Lutz; A Poison That Leaves No Trace/Sue Grafton; Aftermath/Jeremiah Healy; The Pig Man/Les Roberts; Faking It/Parnell Hall; Laying Down To Die/Robert J Randisi; The Maltese Cat/Sara Paretsky; Natural Death,Inc./Max Allan Collins.

I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 because of the 12 stories only 4 are new.The rest are reprints.Of the reprints, there were 2 that I'd never read before; EIGHTY MILLION DEAD and DEADLY BELOVED.All the stories are excellent and the writing topnotch ... Read more

Product Description
A long-distance call from a Texas city on his birthday gives Benjamin Dill the news that his sister—it’s her birthday, too, they were born exactly ten years apart—has died in a car bomb explosion. It’s the chief of police calling—Felicity Dill worked for him; she was a homicide detective. Dill is there that night, the beginning of his dogged search for her killer. What he finds is no surprise to him, because Benjamin Dill is never surprised at what awful things people will do—but it’s a real surprise to the reader. As Newsday said when the novel was first published, “One sure thing about Ross Thomas’s novels: A reader won’t get bored waiting for the action to start.”
... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Is this a roman a clef?
I picked this up because I was on a quest to read some Edgar Award winners. I thought it well-written and fun. But no one has noted this story, with minor changes, is set in an unnamed 1980's Oklahoma City (Ross Thomas's hometown) and gives a cynical history of the city and especially its wealthy neighborhood Nichols Hills. This fact should make it a must-read for OKC residents to suss out what thinly disguised landmarks and personages pop up in the tale.

wonderful storyteller
This was the first of his books that I read and I was hooked. I could not believe that he would be able to tie all the disparate story lines together in a way that would not seem forced, but he didand in an effortless way. If you like stories that have many threads coming together with a reality that is utterly believable this book is for you.

Pedestrian
Briarpatch lacks intensity and a sense of impending danger. Where were the surprises that make me say, "Whoa, I didn't see that coming!" Descriptions of the town's history and landmarks, although interesting, were a bit excessive. And what's with the protagonist's repetitive observation of the local bank's time and temperature sign?Not much sizzle, definitely not much steak here. Ross Thomas has written better novels. A 2 for plot, but 3 for talented writing.

Outstanding style that is soooooo comfortable to read.
After only a few pages, I knew that this author was a great writer. There's something very comfortable about reading a Thomas book. His style is so easy and enjoyable to read that it is no surprise that Briarpatch won an Edgar Award.

Story starts with a bang when Dill receives a call that his sister, a policewoman in his hometown, was killed with a car bomb. Dill is an investigator for a Senate subcommittee and his professional and personal affairs get all tangled up when he goes home to bury his sister. This mayhem includes murders, politics, corruption, secret deals, etc. interweaved over more than 300 pages of brilliant storytelling

Authoral-Qaeda Strikes Again

A Better Whodunnit
Let's face it, we live in a YOUTUBE/A-D-D world where attention spans last about as long as...hey, is that a shiny quarter? Where was I? Oh yeah, it's about where we are at but not where we have been or how we got here. Ross Thomas took the talent and time to turn out truly good and entertaining books, this one in particular. Is BRIARPATCH a great book? Well, that's subjective because what's great to some, sucks for others.
All I know is that when I get tired of the popular mystery or thriller writers of the day-this day- I go back and find a John D. MacDonald or Ross Thomas to enjoy reading again. A well written book with unique or interesting characters and convincing plot twists, not to mention insight to the ridiculous human experience is usually enough to do it. If you haven't read a Ross Thomas book then find one and see if you don't enjoy it and grin as you do. If you haven't read him in awhile then re-read and discover him all over again.

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Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not on the level with Block's other books
This is from a series Block wrote early in his career.I think most people who read Blocks mysteries will be disappointed if they pick this up.It is fluff and not so interesting.

The saga continues...
Chip Harrison is back.This time he finds a bus ticket to Bordentown, South Carolina. Chip gets himself into trouble and then charmed the local sheriff who helps him get his Social Security card a driver's license.Lands a job as a bouncer at the local bordello and falls in love with thepreacher's daughter.Better than No Score but a far cry from Block'sseries about Bernie Rhodenbarr and Matt Scudder it is light enjoyablereading. ... Read more

Product Description

Lawrence Block weaves his spell in this suspenseful taleof a man haunted by murders he hopes he hasn¹tcommitted . . .

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.

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Customer Reviews (1)

1969 Block Thriller Does Show Its Age in Parts
This is not a bad short thriller, originally published in 1969 references throughout do definitely constantly highlight this is not a modern tale.A pack of cigarettes is purchased for 4c, you can get a taxi from one side of Manhattan to the other for just over $2 and chocolate bars cost 10c are factors in the first few chapters that keep reminding you of this fact.Still After the First Death is a pleasant light quick easy read and is definitely ideal for the commute to work or to read somewhere like on a plane.

In After the First Death Alex awakes with a killer hangover and has suffered another severe blackout where he cannot remember a thing from the time he started drinking.As he tries to work out where he is and gather his clothing he is shocked to see they are covered in red wine.Closer inspection reveals they are in fact covered in blood and the girl with the slit throat next to the knife covered in blood seems to be the source.Alex has been in this situation before and was recently let out of jail on a technicality after four years for that murder.Like now he blacked out after a heavy drinking session.He was sure he was innocent then, but knows no one will believe him this time round.He isn't even sure of his innocence himself.
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Product Description
A couple of years ago, my good friend Donald E. Westlake hung a sign over his desk.NO MORE INTRODUCTIONS, it said.I thought this might indicate that Don, always a marvelous host, had decided that in the future he was going to let his guests work things out on their own.And I suppose they’d manage.Just give them enough to drink and they’d take care of the rest.

But what he meant was that he was no longer going to fall into the trap of accepting invitations to write introductions for one thing or another.They were, he decided, a great waste of time and energy, and he might better spend that time and energy on writing books.Or stories, or screenplays---but not introductions.

I took his point.But no such sign ever appeared over my desk, nor would I have heeded it if it did.I’ve never been able to resist the lure of the proffered invitation to furnish an introduction of an afterword for something of mine or somebody else’s.It always seems to me to be something I can dash off in a moment or two, and that whatever I receive for it (and, alas, it’s never much money) will be essentially free money, money that cost me next to nothing in the way of time or energy.

This is an illusion, and I know now that my old friend had it right.On the other hand, what would I otherwise be doing with that time and energy?Productive work?Not bloody likely.

Here, then, are a slew of intros and outros, if you will, to work of mine and others.Can I possibly have the unmitigated gall to string all of this crap together and expect you to read it?Not only do I have the requisite gall, but it, like Caesar’s, is divided into three parts.The first part consists of introductions I’ve written to works of mine, the second to anthologies which I edited, and the third to works of other writers.

And now here I am, writing an introduction to this mess.Is there no end to it all?

Table of Contents

Part One:Introducing Myself
Introducing Evan Tanner
Introducing Martin H. Ehrengraf
Introducing Bernie Rhodenbarr
Introducing Matthew Scudder
Introducing The Specialists
Introducing Ariel
Introducing Enough Rope
Introducing One Night Stands
Introducing Ed London
Introducing Cinderella Sims
Introducing Ronald Rabbit
Introducing Campus Tramp
Introducing Hellcats & Honey Girls

Part Two:Introducing Myself Among Others
Introducing Masters’ Choice
Introducing Masters’ Choice 2
Introducing Opening Shots
Introducing Opening Shots 2
Introducing Speaking of Lust
Introducing Speaking of Greed
Introducing the Adams Round Table
Introducing Manhattan Noir
Introducing Manhattan Noir 2
Introducing Blood on Their Hands
Introducing Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers & Thieves

Part Three:Introducing Others
Introducing Ross Thomas
Introducing Gary Haywood
Introducing Ross Macdonald
Introducing Joseph Conrad
Introducing Spider Robinson
Introducing Mickey Spillane
Introducing Dave Van Ronk
Introducing Charles Willeford
Introducing Ed Gorman
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Customer Reviews (1)

Not exactly what I expected, but still good reading.
OK, the Chip Harrison books (I thought) are mysteries - I mean, they're by Lawrence Block, Master of the Genre, after all.This is an omnibus containing the first two Chip Harrison books, and they are not mysteries.Unless trying to figure out how this young fellow is finally going to lose his virginity is a mystery.Don't get me wrong, it's good reading, but rather graphic in places.Maybe I'm just a stuffy old prude - my Mom is reading both books now, and loves them.So go figure.
Just don't expect murder mysteries.(The later Chip Harrison books are.)
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Customer Reviews (1)

Solid Writing, Decent Stories...
I've been an avid fan of Lawrence Block's works, and only recently read the Chip Harrison series. This collection includes "Five Little Rich Girls", and "The Topless Tulip Caper", the third and fourth installments in the series. I enjoyed the first story the best, the writing style is unmistakably Lawrence Block. Chip Harrison, an 'detective's assistant' is like Bernie Rhodenbarr (from Block's Burglar series) meets Keller (from Hit Man and Hit List). Leo Haig is your classic genius detective, despite his occasional dottiness. The stories are well written, but a bit risqué. "Five Little Rich Girls" was originally published as "Makeout with Murder" for a good reason. There's more of the same in the "Topless Tulip Caper". They're quick reads, so if you're looking for some fun, pick it up - the title's getting a bit scarce. ... Read more