Characters refusing to talk? Plot plodding along? Where do good ideas come from anyway? In this wonderfully practical volume, two-time Edgar Award-winning novelist Lawrence Block takes an inside look at writing as a craft and as a career. From studying the market, to mastering self-discipline and "creative procrastination, " through coping with rejections, Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is an invaluable sourcebook of information. It is a must read for anyone serious about writing or understanding how the process works.

Telling Lies for Fun & Profit

Le blues du libraire

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

Lendemains de terreur

Sheesh. What a lousy title. Flesh Mob was published by Midnight Reader, a fellow imprint of Nightstand Books, in 1962. I can tell at a glance that it's my work, although I don't specifically recall writing it. And I must have put a title on it, but I  an assure you that it wasn't Flesh Mob. It could only have been the inspiration of some editor in Illinois. Several notables filled that role over the years, including Earl Kemp, A. J. Budrys, and Harlan Ellison, but it's hard to imagine any of those three making a eureka moment of Flesh Mob. For years it struck me as merely a bad title, two works that when combined had a sort of reverse synergy, amounting to rather less than the sum of their parts. Then just this week I looked at the title and saw that it could only be a pun on the phrase "flash mob." That still didn't make it a good title, but at least it gave it a lame reason for being. Except not. Because a little internet research shows that "flash mob" came into existence, as both phrase and concept, sometime shortly after the turn of the present century, and approximately forty years after my humble little novel first appeared wherever bad books were sold. AJ and Harlan and Earl were grounded in science fiction, but that's not enough to account for a title that was a pun on a phrase nobody would utter for another four decades. Never mind. The book's a multiple-viewpoint novel, with a rich cast of characters. Here's a sample of two of them:#"I'M LEAVING MATT, " Kitty said. Linc digested this bit of information. She searched his face, trying to decide whether he approved or disapproved. His face was a mask. She couldn't tell how he felt about it. "I'm leaving him, " she said again. "He didn't even come home last night. And the fact doesn't even bother me. There's not a thing left between us, Linc. Nothing at all. He can go his way and I can go mine and neither of us gives a whoop in hell about the other one. That's no basis for marriage." "Will he give you a divorce?" "I think so. He barely knows I'm alive. He'll probably be glad to get rid of me." Linc shrugged. "His pride might be hurt. And he might be upset from a pure financial standpoint. Divorce can be costly to a man. Alimony." "I wouldn't want alimony from him." "Oh?" "Just freedom." He said: "What will you do after the divorce?" "Oh, " she said. "I don't know. I may stay in Clifton, at least until I decide where I want to go next. New York eventually, I think. Small towns can get to you. I think I'm ready for the city." "You'd fit right in." "But for the time being we can have our fun. Do you feel like. like some fun now, Linc?" "God, you're insatiable." "I've been inactive for a long time, " she told him. "Too long. It can get to you. Are you interested, Linc?" "I'll race you to the bedroom, " he said.#There you go, Gentle Reader. Flesh Mob. It is what it is.

Flesh Mob - Collection of Classic Erotica, #25

Sa petite amie a beau être call-girl, son meilleur copain en cavale, son client trafiquant de drogue, matt scudder est un privé honnête.
 Et obstiné.  il est bien arrivé à décrocher de l'alcool ! quand on le met sur un kidnapping particulièrement ignoble, il n'est pas prêt à lâcher la piste.  il est capable de remonter à l'enlèvement des sabines s'il le faut, mais rien ne l'empêchera de penser que francine khoury n'est pas la première victime de ses ravisseurs.  le moindre morceau de preuve lui suffirait pour reconstituer le puzzle.  et ce ne sont pas les morceaux qui manquent.

La balade entre les tombes

À l'heure du numérique, difficile de gagner sa vie avec une modeste boutique de livres anciens et d'occasion sur la 11e Rue Est de New York... Heureusement, Bernie Rhodenbarr a d'autres atouts dans sa manche. Cambrioleur chevronné, on fait souvent plus volontiers appel à lui pour ses talents de crocheteur de serrures que pour ceux de bouquiniste. Mais lorsque "M. Smith", un mystérieux collectionneur, lui propose une petite fortune pour plusieurs vols (incluant aussi bien le manuscrit de L'Étrange Histoire de Benjamin Button de F. Scott Fitzgerald que d'inestimables cuillères en argent), Bernie ignore dans quelle histoire improbable il met les pieds. 

Car, pendant ce temps, une riche vieille dame a été retrouvée morte à son domicile, apparemment terrassée par une attaque lors d'un cambriolage qui aurait mal tourné. Toutefois les raisons de son décès ne sont pas si évidentes, et l'expertise de Bernie est également requise par son meilleur ennemi, le policier Ray Kirschmann, afin de l'aider dans son enquête... 

Voleur rémunéré et détective amateur, notre (anti-)héros trouve en outre des messages rageurs sur la porte de la librairie qu'il est bien obligé de délaisser... Y aurait-il encore des gens qui lisent ?

Le voleur qui comptait les cuillères - Une aventure de Bernie Rhodenbarr

Le blues des alcoolos

From the revered New York Times bestselling author comes a touching, insightful, and humorous memoir of an unlikely racewalker and world traveler Before Lawrence Block was the author of bestselling novels featuring unforgettable characters such as the hit man Keller, private investigator Matthew Scudder, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, and time traveler Evan Tanner, he was a walker. As a child, he walked home from school (mostly because he couldn't ride a bike). As a col-lege student, he walked until he was able to buy his first car (a deep blue 1950 Chevrolet coupe named Pamela, after the Samuel Richardson novel). As an adult, he ran marathons until he discovered what would become a lifelong obsession-never mind if some people didn't think it was a real sport-racewalking. By that time Block had already spent plenty of time walking through the city of New York. But racewalking ended up taking him all over the country, from New Orleans to Anchorage, from marathons in the punishing heat to marathons in the pouring rain. And along the way, as he began to pen the books that would make him a household name among suspense fans all over the world, he found that in life, as in writing, you just need to take one step after the other. Through the lens of his adventures while walking-in twenty-four-hour races, on a pilgrimage through Spain, and just about everywhere you can imagine-Lawrence Block shares his heartwarming personal story about life's trials and tribulations, discomforts and successes, which truly lets readers walk a mile in the master of mystery's shoes.

Step by Step - A Pedestrian Memoir

The city caught its collective breath when upscale couple Byrne and Susan Hollander were slaughtered in a brutal home invasion. Now, a few days later, the killers themselves have turned up dead behind the locked door of a Brooklyn hellhole -- one apparently slain by his partner in crime who then took his own life. There's something drawing Matthew Scudder to this case that the cops have quickly and eagerly closed: a nagging suspicion that a third man is involved, a cold, diabolical puppet master who manipulates his two accomplices, then cuts their strings when he's done with them. No one but Scudder even suspects he exists. And his worst fear is that the guy is just getting started ...

Telling Lies for Fun & Profit

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