The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - Bernie Rhodenbarr #3

Lawrence Block

Summary

“Block is a master of witty dialogue, plotting and pace, and the series’ wacky, offbeat characters make great companions.” —Cleveland Plain-Dealer   "Fans will welcome it. New readers will delight in it. A witty, and always affectionate, sendup of the genre.” —Denver Post   “Clever and amusing.” —Detroit Free Press   “Wittily diverting…rather like an Agatha Christie novel narrated by Basil Fawlty, or a game of Clue organized by Monty Python.” —Entertainment Weekly   “Block peoples his mystery with a wacky cast of characters who all happen to have a knack for snappy dialogue, the wackiest and snappiest being Bernie himself, of course.” —Florida Times-Union   “Rhodenbarr is one of the slickest characters in crime, and Block…one of the most talented writers.” —Houston Chronicle   “…you’d rather be stranded on a desert island with [Bernie Rhodenbarr] than with any other detective in fiction.” —Kirkus Reviews   “In his Matthew Scudder books, Block is one of the most serious of crime novelists. When he chronicles Bernie…Block is one of the funniest…[Bernie] is enough to give burglary a good name.” —Los Angeles Times 
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.

Available since: 05/08/2015.

Other books that might interest you

Mrs Bindle

Herbert George Jenkins

Herbert Jenkins' most popular fictional creation was Mr. Joseph Bindle, who first appeared in a humorous novel in 1916 and in a number of sequels. In the preface to the books, T. P. O'Connor said that "Bindle is the greatest Cockney that has come into being through the medium of literature since Dickens wrote Pickwick Papers". The stories are based on the comedic drama of life at work, at home and all the adventures that take place along the way. It becomes clear as the stories progress that Bindle would not be who he is without Mrs. Bindle, and this book seeks to tell the stories of the Bindles from the distaff point of view.  (Summary by Wikipedia and Don W. Jenkins)

Show book

The Pirates of Penzance

W.S. Gilbert

The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The story concerns Frederic, who, having completed his 21st year, is released from his apprenticeship to a band of tender-hearted pirates. He meets Mabel, the daughter of Major-General Stanley, and the two young people fall instantly in love. Frederic finds out, however, that he was born on 29 February, and so, technically, he only has a birthday each leap year. His apprenticeship indentures state that he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday, and so he must serve for another 63 years. Bound by his own sense of duty, Frederic's only solace is that Mabel agrees to wait for him faithfully. (Summary from Wikipedia) 
CastNarrator: Julie VWFrederic: Karen SavagePirate King: StephenCSamuel: Phil ChenevertRuth: Liberty StumpMajor-General Stanley: Kevin S. MellisMabel: Catherine EastmanEdith: BookAngel7Kate: EzwaIsabel: JemmaBlytheSergeant of Police: John FrickerChorus:Alex FosterBookAngel7Catherine EastmanEzwaFred DeBerardinisHelen SongHenry FrigonJane SmithJemmaBlytheJohn FrickerKaren SavageLiberty StumpMiriam Esther GoldmanStephenCToddHW

Show book

Somme Battle Stories

Alec John Dawson

Stories of World War I warfare, published in 1916 in the midst of the war. (That's why names of persons and units are literally "blanked" out.) Alec John Dawson (1872 - 1951), generally known as A. J. Dawson (pseudonyms Major Dawson, Howard Kerr, Nicholas Freydon) was an English author, traveller and novelist. During World War I he attained the rank of Major, and was awarded the MBE and Croix de Guerre in recognition of his work as a military propagandist, a work the listener may want to keep in mind. (Terminology note: "Boche" means the Germans, singular or plural; "Blighty" means hospitalization in England; "The Push" means fighting in the Somme offensive.)

The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme, German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme Offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on either side of the River Somme in France. The battle was one of the largest of World War I, in which more than 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed, making it one of humanity's bloodiest battles.... 1 July 1916 was also the worst day in the history of British Army, which had c. 60,000 casualties,... The British Army on the Somme was a mixture of the remains of the pre-war regular army, Territorial Force and the Kitchener Army which was composed of Pals battalions, recruited from the same places and occupations, whose losses had a profound social impact in Britain.... The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial war, which the continental armies had been engaged in for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage, leading to its collapse in late 1918. (Wikipedia, Battle Of The Somme) ( Wikipedia and david wales)

Show book

Never Sniff a Gift Fish

Patrick McManus

Humorist Patrick F. McManus has been called "a master at spoofing sportsmen" by Publishers Weekly. His rib-tickling books about hunting, fishing, and camping receive rave reviews from national media. The New York Times Book Review writes, "Everybody should read Patrick McManus." In the chapters of Never Sniff a Gift Fish, McManus will teach you the wisdom that is usually shared only in the close ranks of modern-day hunters and gatherers. To complete your arsenal, McManus also includes The Hunter’s Workout Guide and a special Family Camper’s Dictionary. Exercises like the hindquarter shuffle will make you move like a hunter. And phrases like "Yip-yip-yip-Owoooooo!" will help you sound like one, too. Whether he’s poking fun at fly fishing or taking on some other sportsman’s icon, Patrick F. McManus is sure to have you laughing aloud. Norman Dietz’s wry narration is the perfect vehicle for McManus’ best-selling, tongue-in-cheek works. Also available: How I Got This Way , The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw, and The Good Samaritan Strikes Again .

Show book

South Pole Station - A Novel

Ashley Shelby

Do you have digestion problems due to stress? Do you have problems with authority? How many alcoholic drinks do you consume in a week? Would you rather be a florist or a truck driver? These are some of the questions used to determine if you have what it takes to survive at South Pole Station, a place with an average temperature of -54 F and no sunlight for six months a year. Cooper Gosling has just answered five hundred of them, and her results indicate that she's abnormal enough for Polar life. Cooper's not so sure that's an achievement, but she's got nothing left to lose, so she decides to accept a one-year assignment to the National Science Foundation's Artists & Writers Program in Antarctica. There, she encounters the Polies, a group of misfits that only have in common their conviction that they don't belong anywhere else. But when a fringe scientist arrives-claiming that climate change is a hoax-his presence rattles the already imbalanced community, bringing them to the center of a global controversy an

Show book

Tim Bobbin: A View of the...

Various Authors

A comic dialogue written in John Collier's idiosyncratic version of the 18th century South Lancashire dialect together with a collection of 19th century texts on Collier and his work. Egged on by Meary (Mary), Tummus (Thomas) recounts the series of misadventures that ensue when he makes a trip to Rochdale on an errand for his master. First published in 1746, the text grew over subsequent editions as Collier expanded the story, added a preface in which he berates publishers who had pirated his work, and inflated and amended his glossary. The text read here is the final version of the preface, dialogue and glossary, which appeared in an 1862 edition of Collier's works. Collier's texts are followed by several accounts of Collier's life and commentaries on his work, Elijah Riding's 1860 'plain English' translation of the Tummus and Meary text, and three poems set at Collier's graveside in Rochdale. (Summary by Phil Benson)

Show book