Gulliver Fairborn's novel, Nobody's Baby, changed Bernie Rhodenbarr's life. And now pretty Alice Cottrell, Fairborn's one-time paramour, wants the bookselling, book-loving burglar to break into a room in New York's teeth-achingly charming Paddington Hotel and purloin some of the writer's very personal letters before an unscrupulous agent can sell them. Here's an opportunity to use his unique talents in the service of the revered, famously reclusive author. But when Bernie gets there, the agent is dead .

The Burglar in the Rye

Voilà un Lawrence Block en grande forme ! Après Le Cambrioleur en maraude, dans lequel il nous racontait les dernières et follissimes aventures du bouquiniste-cambrioleur Bernie Rhodenbarr, Block revient au personnage de Matt Scudder, dont la série fit et fait encore sa fortune.
Matt Scudder, qui n'est plus tout jeune, pense souvent à la mort, - la sienne et celle de nombre de personnages qu'il a côtoyés dans sa vie de flic alcoolique, puis de privé passablement hors norme - lorsqu'une de ses relations, Louise, lui demande d'enquêter sur l'amant qu'elle a découvert par Internet. Si cet homme lui plaît en effet beaucoup, il n'en reste pas moins inaccessible. Pas moyen d'aller chez lui (il ne lui a pas donné son adresse), ni de savoir véritablement ce qu'il fait. Intrigué par ce cas de figure, Matt décide d'enquêter avec l'aide de son fidèle ami, T.J.
Pendant ce temps, un tueur en série du nom de Preston Applewhite attend la mort dans une prison de Virginie. Il a toujours clamé son innocence, mais les preuves retenues contre lui étaient tellement accablantes que le jury l'a condamné à la peine capitale en moins d'une heure. Intéressé par ce que pourrait lui dire cet homme, un psychologue décide d'aller lui rendre visite quelques jours avant l'exécution. Son plan est simple : il fera semblant de croire aux dénégations du condamné et, en lui inspirant ainsi confiance, pourra obtenir des révélations intéressantes. Et c'est bien ce qui se passe jusqu'au jour où, le psychologue assistant à l'exécution, Preston Applewhite reçoit la piqûre fatale.
Matt Scudder, qui n'a pas d'opinion tranchée sur la peine de mort et son côté dissuasif, hormis le fait que, bien sûr, elle empêche l'assassin de recommencer, poursuit son enquête sur l'amant inconnu, malheureusement pour lui, sans grand résultat.
A ceci près que pas mal de gens commencent à mourir autour de lui et que, très vite, il sent que sa vie et celle de sa compagne Elaine sont en danger. Renoncer ? Pas question. Matt Scudder n'est pas de ceux qui renoncent.

Les fleurs meurent aussi

A 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 u M. Smith n, un mystérieux collectionneur, lui propose une petite fortune pour plusieurs vols (incluant aussi bien le manuscrit de L'Etrange 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

Broadway Can Be Murder started out to be a novel based on Johnny Midnight, a TV series which everyone has long since forgotten. Except, of course, that nothing manages to be forgotten in the Internet Age. I, whose job it was to knock out 50, 000 words of Johnny Midnightish prose and dialogue, had forgotten when it ran and who was in it, but Google took no time at all to remind me that the title role was played by Edmund O'Brien, and that the series ran during the first nine months of 1960. And if you want to know more about it, well, Google and Wikipedia are there to enlighten you. I was in New York, newly married, living at 110 West 69th Street. I was writing short stories for crime fiction magazines, erotic novels for Midwood and Nightstand, and fielding assignments that my agent steered in my direction. Two of these were from paperback publishers who had acquired the book rights to a TV drama and wanted to hire someone to write a book. First up for me was a show called Markham, which starred Ray Milland. Belmont was to be the publisher, and I had to write that book twice.  My first effort turned out to be too good to waste its fragrance on Belmont's desert air, and my agent had me change the title and the names of the characters and sold the thing to Gold Medal. So I had to write it again, and I did, and they liked it okay and published it. Next up was Beacon Books, with "Johnny Midnight" as both the book's inspiration and its title. I wrote it, but by the time Beacon was preparing it for publication, the series had been canceled. The publisher saw no reason to pay a licensing fee for a moribund show, and accordingly changed names: Johnny Midnight became Johnny Lane, and his trusty servant morphed from Uki to Ito. And Lawrence Block became Ben Christopher for the occasion. I don't know what kept me from using my own name, the book was crime fiction rather than the erotica that seemed to call for a pen name, but I do remember that my great friend Donald E. Westlake had recently done some sort of tie-in novel and hung the name Ben Christopher on it, telling me it would be his pen name for tie-ins he was anxious to forget. I horned in on the name, and if Don found this irksome he kept it to himself. Someone at Beacon picked the title. Strange Embrace. Well, there's a lesbian element in the book, and I guess they wanted to play it up, and "strange" was a useful code word toward that end. It retained that title when Subterranean Press put it in a splendid double volume with 69 Barrow Street, and when I first reissued it in the Classic Crime Library. But it doesn't really fit the book at all, making a hard-edged crime novel set in the world of New York theater look like a bt of Beacon erotica. Thus it's new title: Broadway Can Be Murder it now is and shall be. Ray Milland I should add, had no better luck than Edmund O'Brien; his show Markham was canceled after a single season. Belmont evidently didn't get the news in time to act on it, and they dutifully published the book as Markham: The Case of the Pornographic Photos. When I okayed a reissue years later by another publisher I changed the title to You Could Call It Murder-and it's available now with that title, in paperback or ebook, as Classic Crime Library #12. (And the book it was written to replace, which Gold Medal called Death Pulls a Doublecross, is now #13 in the Classic Crime Library with my original title restored: Coward's Kiss.) And here's CCL #19, Broadway Can Be Murder. Enjoy it!

Broadway Can Be Murder - The Classic Crime Library, #17

Et revoici notre ami Matt Scudder, le privé ex-ivrogne. Cette fois, un épisode terrible du passé ressurgit : un certain Motley, tueur sadique, dingue et nécrophile, que jadis Matt a fait condamner par un faux témoignage, est sorti de prison. En Ohio, il massacre toute une famille, dont une fille, ex-call-girl, amie d'Elaine, la petite copine de Matt. Lequel comprend que le tueur s'attaque à tous les proches d'Elaine, et à elle aussi, pour se venger de Matt. D'où s'ensuivent cavalcades, bagarres et tortures.

Un ticket pour la morgue

Matt Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life. The crime rate's down and the stock market's up. Gentrification's prettying-up the old neighborhood. The New York streets don't look so mean anymore. Then all hell breaks loose. Scudder quickly discovers the spruced-up sidewalks are as mean as ever, dark and gritty and stained with blood. He's living in a world where the past is a minefield, the present is a war zone, and the future's an open question. It's a world where nothing is certain and nobody's safe, a random universe where no one's survival can be taken for granted. Not even his own. A world where everybody dies.

Everybody Dies

Nella sua quarta avventura, Matthew Scudder riapre un caso su cui aveva indagato anni prima, quando era  detective della polizia di New York. Louis Pinell, l'Assassino del Punteruolo, recentemente arrestato, ammette spontaneamente di aver ucciso sette giovani donne nove anni addietro, ma giura che è stato un imitatore a uccidere Barbara Ettinger. Scudder gli crede. Ma la pista che conduce al vero assassino della Ettinger è contorta, oscura e pericolosa... e ancora più fredda del cadavere che è deciso a vendicare. L'indagine di Scudder porta nella sua vita una nuova donna, la scultrice Jan Keane, il cui loft a Tribeca si prospetta come un promettente rifugio. Ma il suo alcolismo, ormai cronico, comincia a sembrare un problema...***Da alcune recensioni: "Block sa come tessere una rete intricata. E quando le persone cercano di ingannare, cosa che accade abbastanza spesso nei suoi libri, si mettono in un mare di guai. Le trame di Block sono tese e i suoi dialoghi realistici senza troppi abbellimenti. I suoi personaggi sono uomini duri e parlano come ci si attende la loro". - Rocky Mountain News "Estremamente ben scritto! Block è un abile chirurgo, sicuro e preciso". - New York Times "Avvincente, con una conclusione sconcertante". - Publishers Weekly "Block è estremamente abile, con un orecchio per i dialoghi, un occhio per i personaggi di bassa lega e un dono per la narrazione veloce e senza sforzo che regge il confronto con Elmore Leonard". - Los Angeles Times "Quando Lawrence Block è in modalità Matt Scudder, la narrativa poliziesca può avvicinarsi tanto alla letteratura che spesso non c'è alcuna differenza". - Philadelphia Inquirer

Una Pugnalata nel Buio - Matthew Scudder, #4

The bear is on the prowl in many different guises.  He may be the master thief stealing into Graceland, an intense young passenger experimenting in terror, or a psychiatrist haunted by his patient's nightmare.  Or maybe he's beautiful, lethal woman in a blood-red scarf.  So beware of the this huge, dangerous beast.  Because first he will enthrall you.. and then he will strike.

Some Days You Get the Bear

Fifty books. Four Edgar awards. Two bestselling series. It all adds up to Lawrence Block, one of the bonafide masters of mystery fiction, and the creator of Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr. Now Bernie -- bookseller by day, burglar by night -- returns in his first adventure since The Bulglar in the Library, two years ago. This time, he's tapped to retrieve the lost letters of famed and reclusive author Gulliver Fairborn. But instead of the letters, Bernie finds one dead literary agent, a beautiful woman, and a cadre of cops in his way.

The Burglar in the Rye

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