Kirjahaku

The explosive fifth book in the Keller series from the master of classic American crime.

The long-awaited eleventh novel in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series.

A brilliant, fast-paced thriller from 'a flat out entertainer' Daily TelegraphAlso a major film starring Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens and Ruth Wilson - now available on NetflixKenan Khoury's wife never returned from her shopping trip - at least, not alive. A ransom is demanded and paid; and his wife is duly returned to him - in small pieces in the boot of an abandoned car. But as Khoury's wealth has not come entirely honestly, he can't go to the police.PI Matt Scudder is left to speculate on the motives of a very unusual kidnapper. And soon he is on the trail of a pair of ruthlessly sadistic psychopaths whose cruel games have only just begun...

Keller is an ordinary man - who kills people for a living. But then a hit goes wrong, and more than one life is at stake...'Absolutely riveting ... Block is terrific' Washington PostKeller is an assassin - he is paid by the job and works for a mysterious man who nominates hits and passes on commissions from elsewhere. Keller goes in, does the job, gets out: usually at a few hours' notice. Often Keller's work takes him out of New York to other cities, to pretty provincial towns that almost tempt him into moving to the woods and the lake shores ... Almost, but not quite.But then a job goes wrong in a way Keller has never imagined and it leaves him with a big problem. Finding himself with an orphan on his hands, Keller's job begins to interfere with his carefully guarded life. And once you let someone in to your life, they tend to want to know what you do when you're away. And killing for a living, lucrative though it is, just doesn't find favour with some folks.

The Master Returns--With Never-Before-Collected Tales of Murder and DesireOne of the most highly acclaimed novelists in the crime genre, Lawrence Block is also a master of the short story, with award-winning work ranging from the macabre to the slyly comic, from heart-stopping tales of revenge to memorable explorations of lust and greed, all told in Block's unforgettable style. The sixteen stories (and one stage play ) collected here feature appearances by some of Block s most famous characters, including gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr and alcoholic private detective Matt Scudder, as well as glimpses into the minds of a rogue's gallery of frightening killers, dangerous sociopaths, crooked cops, and lost souls whose only chance to find themselves may be on the wrong side of a gun.You'll meet a compulsive hoarder whose towering piles of trash and treasures hide disturbing secrets...a beautiful young tennis star with a rather too possessive secret admirer...a dealer in stolen art who is unwilling to part with his most prized possession at any price...poker players with agendas that have nothing to do with the cards in their hands...and a catch-and-release fisherman whose preferred catch walks on two legs.Terror and passion, cruelty and vindication--it's all here, in a collection that will thrill you, scare you, and remind you why Lawrence Block is still the best there is at what he does.This is the book that led Publishers Weekly's reviewer to enthuse, "If Block were a serial killer instead of one of the best storytellers of our time, we'd be in real trouble."

The do-it-yourself edition of bestselling author Lawrence Block's groundbreaking seminar for writers In the 1980s, bestselling author Lawrence Block developed an innovative, interactional seminar that adapted elements of the human potential movement, specifically for writers. For several years, he and his wife, Lynne, traveled the country conducting workshops that focused on the inner game of writing and were designed to enable participants to get out of their own way and put their best work on paper. Written to ensure the course material would be made available to the largest audience possible-and at a lower price-Block self-published this book in 1986, in a print run of 5,000 copies, which sold out in short order. A few years later, he stopped offering the seminar, having tired of the guru trip and preferring to concentrate on his own writing. For years afterward, WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE was nearly impossible to obtain.When ebooks became popular, Block arranged for HarperCollins to publish WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE in its digital format. Still, he continued to hear from fans mourning the print edition.This is, after all, the sort of text one wants to be able to page through, making the printed book more user-friendly. In the fall of 2013, an assistant found the last box of the 1986 edition in a storage cupboard; Block offered them in a newsletter, and all 25 copies sold out within three hours.This is the original text, with a new foreword bringing it up to date. With the book, as with the seminar, it doesn't matter at all where you are in your writing career or what kind of writing you do. That's all beside the point. WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE is about making the best out of who you are and where you are.

The Criminal Defense Lawyer. Redefined.Martin H. Ehrengraf, dapper and diabolical, may be Lawrence Block's darkest creation. He's the defense attorney who never sees the inside of a courtroom, because all his clients are innocent--no matter how guilty they may seem. Some even believe themselves to be guilty: they remember pulling the trigger, or wiring the dynamite to their spouse's car, or holding the bloody blade. But things have a way of working out when Martin Ehrengraf is on the case. Evidence turns up, incriminating someone else. More murders occur, with the same M.O. And the gate of the jail cell opens, and the accused walks free.But be careful--hiring Martin Ehrengraf comes with a price. A high price, one that comes due even if he appears to have done nothing on your behalf. And you'd better be prepared to pay...Here at last are the complete exploits of Martin Ehrengraf: a dozen delicious tales of vice and villainy including one--''The Ehrengraf Fandango''--that is appearing for the first time anywhere. It's a twelve-course meal of sinister surprises, exquisitely prepared and served simmering hot by the greatest living master of mystery fiction.Says Publishers Weekly: "The clients of Mephistophelean DA Martin Ehrengraf are always innocent, even when they recall committing murder, as shown in this collection of 12 dark, twisted tales from MWA Grand Master Block (Catch and Release). The urbane lawyer charges only if clients are exonerated-and they always are, though his hand is seldom seen. Apparent crimes of passion prove to be serial killings in "The Ehrengraf Defense," which introduces the tie he wears to celebrate victories. Clients who try to renege on payment discover he's a dangerous ally whose sinister ingenuity works as effectively against as for them, as miserly Millard Ravenstock learns in "The Ehrengraf Settlement." In "The Ehrengraf Obligation," the attorney represents penniless poet William Telliford, whose work he admires, but when freedom diminishes William's creative output, the poet finds himself back in prison for murder. While Ehrengraf initially seems amoral, he follows his own code, far from socially sanctioned mores but sacred to him. Sophisticated, surprising, charming, and relentless, he's a compelling antihero."And Thomas Gaughan in Booklist adds: "Block's stellar career has given crime lovers a number of different protagonists: honor-bound PI Matt Scudder, gentleman thief Bernie Rhodenbarr, and Keller, the stamp-collecting hit man, to name just three. Defense attorney Martin Ehrengraf, though less known, is notably darker than Block's other main characters. Ehrengraf represents people in deep trouble with the law and facing damning evidence against them. He works on a contingency basis: his fee is earned only if his client is freed from jail. His fees are exorbitant and he rarely appears in court, but, somehow, when Ehrengraf takes a case, new evidence appears that exonerates his client. All but one of these 12 stories appeared in magazines, beginning in the late 1970s. Ehrengraf is the star of each, a dandy who oozes self-regard, a charming sociopath who will murder to free his client and collect his fee. He never really cops to his methods, except to icily hint at them should a client balk at paying."

An MWA Grand Master tells it straight: Fredric Brown: "When I read Murder Can Be Fun, I had a bottle ofbourbon on the table and every time Brown's hero took a drink, I had a snort myself. This is a hazardous undertaking when in the company of Brown's characters, and, I've been given to understand, would have been just as dangerous around the author himself. By the time the book was finished, so was I."Raymond Chandler: "You have to wonder how he got it so right.He spent a lot of time in the house-working, reading, writing letters. He saw to his wife, who required a lot of attention in her later years. And when he did get out, you wouldn't find him walking the mean streets. La Jolla, it must be noted, was never much for mean streets."Evan Hunter: "In his mid-seventies, after a couple of heart attacks, an aneurysm, and a siege of cancer that had led to the removal of his larynx, Evan wrote Alice in Jeopardy. And went to work right away on Becca in Jeopardy, with every intention of working his way through the alphabet. Don't you love it? Here's a man with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, and he's perfectly comfortable launching a twenty-six book series."Donald E. Westlake's Memory: "Here's the point: Don's manuscriptarrived, and we had dinner and put the kid to bed, and I startedreading. And my wife went to bed, and I stayed up reading, and after a while I forgot I was having a heart attack, and just kept reading until I finished the book around dawn. And somewhere along the way I became aware that my friend Don, who'd written a couple of mysteries and some science fiction and his fair share of soft-core erotica, had just produced a great novel."Charles Willeford: "Can a self-diagnosed sociopath be at the sametime an intensely moral person? Can one be a sociopath, virtually unaware of socially prescribed morality, and yet be consumed with the desire to do the right thing? That strikes me as a spot-on description of just about every character Willeford ever wrote. How could he come up with characters like that? My God, how could he help it?"An MWA Grand Master and a multiple winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon awards, Lawrence Block's reflections and observations come from over a half century as a writer of bestselling crime fiction. Several of his novels have been filmed, most recently A Walk Among the Tombstones, starring Liam Neeson. While he's best known for his novels and short fiction, along with his books on the craft of writing, that's not all he's written. THE CRIME OF OUR LIVES collects his observations and personal reminiscences of the crime fiction field and some of its leading practitioners. He has a lot to say, and he says it here in convincing and entertaining fashion

"WRITING THE NOVEL FROM PLOT TO PRINT TO PIXEL is like having a pocket-sized mentor you can consult any time. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy."-Alex Kourvo, Writing Slices Lawrence Block is almost as well known for his instructional books for writers and his 14 years as a monthly contributor to "Writers Digest," as he is as a bestselling author and MWA Grand Master. WRITING THE NOVEL, his first book for writers, has remained continuously in print since its original appearance in 1978. Recently revised and expanded, each chapter has been updated, and Block has included essential information on digital publishing, self-publishing, how to get published, and the perils-and opportunities-awaiting debut and veteran novelists alike. Unlike so many advice-givers, Block doesn't tell you what book to write, or the one and only way to write it. He holds that every novel is different, and so is every novelist; his aim is to give you the tools to enable you to find your own way. You will find chapters on: deciding which novel to write developing plot ideas and charactersoutlining rewriting getting publishedself-publishing and so much more In this revised edition, WRITING THE NOVEL FROM PLOT TO PRINT TO PIXEL, Lawrence Block retains all his original text while creating a writer's guide that's fifty percent longer than previous editions. As he would be the first to tell you, you don't need this book-or any other-to succeed as a novelist. Still, thousands of writers have found it most helpful-and who couldn't use a little extra help?

Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES...Chip's debut in NO SCORE opens with the lad orphaned and cast adrift by the loathsome headmaster of his prep school. Thus unfolds a picaresque tale in which young Chip travels far and wide, determined to make his way in the world and somehow shrug off the awful cloak of virginity. This earnest and endearing Lecher in the Wry finds work as an assistant to Gregor the Pavement Photographer (whose wife keeps him forever on Third Base, and won't let him steal home) and employment as a Termite Salesman. He falls in and out of love, and, well, you'll see.

Here's CHIP HARRISON-the second series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES..Chip's second adventure in CHIP HARRISON SCORES AGAIN begins when our lad finds a discarded wallet holding a bus ticket to Bordentown, South Carolina. Instead of cashing it in, he uses it-and winds up as an assistant manager in the hamlet's finest bordello. (Well, it's also the only bordello.) And that's just the beginning. While the virginity that plagued him in NO SCORE is no longer an issue, our Lecher in the Wry retains the irresistible innocence that makes him such delightful company.

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.

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. Haig's client in THE TOPLESS TULIP CAPER is Thelma Wolinsky, known to Leo Haig as a distinguished amateur breeder of tropical fish, and to the world as topless dancer Tulip Willing. It sounds like just the sort of case for Chip, doesn't it? You bet it does.

Die S nden der V ter stellt Matthew Scudder vor, jenen New Yorker Privatdetektiv, der von Liam Neeson in Ruhet in Frieden auf der Leinwand verk rpert wurde. Eine junge Prostituierte wurde get tet und der mutma liche M rder hat sich in seiner Gef ngniszelle erh ngt. Auf der Suche nach Antworten wendet sich der Vater des toten M dchens an Scudder.Dieser erste Band der preisgekr nten Reihe wurde urspr nglich 1976 ver ffentlicht, die deutsche Ausgabe ist aber bereits seit vielen Jahren vergriffen. Der Roman wurde nun f r heutige Leser von Stefan Mommertz neu bersetzt, einschlie lich einer 1991 verfassten Einf hrung von Stephen King. Darin weist King darauf hin, dass Scudder zwar den romantischen Untert nen der Gattung entspricht, er aber genauso viel von Dorian Grey wie von Travis McGee hat. King schreibt weiter: Block hat den Teil des Mythos, der ebenso Klischee wie Wunscherf llung ist, beiseitegelegt und ihn durch etwas ersetzt, das sehr viel glaubw rdiger ist. Das Ergebnis ist eine Reihe von B chern, die genau genommen ein einziges sind - eine urban-alkoholkranke moderne Version der >Pilgerreise

Alex Penn wakes up in a squalid Times Square hotel room. This is what he sees when he finally opens his eyes: "The floor was a sea of blood. A body floated upon this ocean. A girl-black hair, staring blue eyes, bloodless lips. Naked. Dead. Her throat slashed deeply."It had to be a dream. It had to, had to be a dream. It was not a dream. It was not a dream at all."I've done it again, I thought. Sweet Jesus, I've done it again."Years before, Alex Penn woke up in similar circumstances, called the police, went to prison. A technicality freed him-and now there's been another drunken blackout, another dead streetwalker.But something nags at his memory, and he begins to suspect some other hand wielded the knife. And if he didn't murder this woman, maybe he didn't kill the other one, either.So he runs, adrift in an urban jungle, hoping to steer clear of the police long enough to solve the crime.AFTER THE FIRST DEATH is sure to appeal to fans of David Goodis and Cornell Woolrich. And, with its gritty New York setting and its undercurrent of alcoholism, it can be considered a precursor to Lawrence Block's iconic Matthew Scudder series.THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block's early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.

"You may rape the bride..."David and Jill Wade wanted a properly traditional start to their marriage. For openers, they decided to delay its consummation until after the ceremony. They planned a perfect honeymoon at a secluded lakeside resort in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.Joe Carroll, the guest in the cabin next door, seemed friendly enough. They took his dinner suggestion, then returned to their cabin and prepared to retire-until a noise alerted them, and they went to the porch and watched a group of men descend on Joe Carroll's cabin. They dragged him out at gunpoint, then executed him in cold blood.And Jill screamed...The men heard her, rushed the Wade's cabin. They took their turns with Jill. Then they left.And the newlyweds barely considered reporting the violation to the police. Instead, with only a name and a few bare clues to steer them, they hunted down the men who'd done the awful deed and the crime boss who'd given them their orders.DEADLY HONEYMOON was Lawrence Block's first hardcover novel. It's a powerful tale of revenge, and of a man and woman far more closely bound by their shared mission than they would have been by a more ordinary honeymoon.THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block's early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.

"The colonel was right. You had to draw a line through mankind, a wavy line but a line, and on one side you had Good and on the other side you had Evil. There was good and bad in everyone, sure, and every shitheel was some mother's son, and it was all well and good to know this, but when push came to shove, it was just words; there was Good and Evil with no shades of gray and Judgment Day came seven time a week."Meet the Specialists, five good men, Manso and Murdock and Simmons and Giordano and Dehn. They scattered when they took off their green berets and returned to civilian life, but now and then their colonel picks up the phone and gets in touch-and they get together to do as they did in Vietnam.Colonel Roger Elliott Cross left a leg in Vietnam. His men came home physically intact, but each bears scars nonetheless. But when they come together, teamed up to right wrongs, they are a powerful force for good.And, by doing good, they also manage to do well. Because when five specialists take on a Mafia-owned bank, why shouldn't they turn profit on the deal?If you saw The A-Team on television, this may seem familiar to you. When Lawrence Block saw the A-Team, it seems uncannily familiar to him, and he had the feeling the show's producers had read his 1968 novel. But he decided, wisely or not, that life is too short for litigation. Now, years later, the TV show has vanished and the book lives on. Isn't that as it should be?THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block's early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.

"If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem."You heard that a lot in the early 1970s, when the country seemed to be teetering on the brink of revolutionary upheaval. Miles Dorn, living quietly in retirement in the U.S., had come a long way from his roots in Central Europe, leaving his past as an assassin and agent provocateur behind him. But as soon as he walks into his house and smells the smoke from a Turkish cigarette, he knows nobody can walk away from the past. It's always there, and it can reach out at any moment and get hold of you.He's recruited for a series of assassinations designed to render his adopted country vulnerable to a political coup. Instead of the elaborate web that's the staple of conspiracy theorists, he's one man, working alone.He's also a man falling in love, and with a woman a generation too young for him. "We're the same age, Miles," she insists. "I've known you for exactly as long as you've known me."Of course he likes the sound of that, but he knows better than to believe it. Just as he knows better than to believe that their love affair-or anything else in his life-has a real chance of working out. But what can he do? Is Dorn part of the solution-or a principal part of the problem?The Triumph of Evil is a powerful evocation of perilous time in America's recent past. It's a thriller on a human scale, and you'll be stunned by its plausibility and gripped by its suspense. THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block's early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.

"This goes through you like a dose of salts and stings like iodine."So said Virginia Kirkus Reviews of Such Men Are Dangerous when it first appeared almost fifty years ago, and since then this edge-of-the-chair novel hasn't lost a step. It's the story of Paul Kavanagh, a burnt-out ex-Green Beret who copes with what we've since learned to call PTSD by retiring to a dime-sized islet in the Florida Keys. There he lives a determinedly simple life, his human contact limited to a weekly visit to a storekeeper on a nearby island.Then George Dattner turns up with a plan. A CIA op, he has inside knowledge of a scheduled shipment of military goods from an army base in South Dakota. It's really nasty stuff-atomic grenades, lethal gas, tactical weaponry that could be a game-changer for a border war or insurgency. And he's got a buyer lined up. All he needs is a partner, because the way he's got it figured, hijacking the shipment is a job that the right two men can pull off.Kavanagh signs on.The operation is brilliantly planned and executed, but not without a few surprises along the way. But the greatest surprise, and a denouement that's as shocking now as it was half a century ago, will hit you as hard as it hit readers half a century ago.THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block's early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.

"Jimmie John Hall wasn't anything until he was a killer, and Betty Dienhardt wasn't anything until she met Jimmie John Hall. When they get together, sparks fly and bullets follow. The first to go are Betty's parents, but Betty isn't bothered. She only wants to be with her man - the first person to ever make her feel special."They set off on a cross-country spree, killing for gas money and food, killing to swap their car for one the police aren't looking for. As the dragnet draws tighter, they only grow closer, riding a road that leads to death because death has surrounded them all the time."That's the copy on Dreamscape Audio's excellent audiobook, expertly narrated by Alan Sklar, and I'd be hard put to improve on it. It's worth noting, though, that the novel derives from and was inspired by the real-life (and real death) rampage of Charles Starkweather and Caryl Fugate in 1950s Nebraska; the novel itself is set fifteen years later, and does not attempt a literal reconstruction of the original case.It's a powerful work of fiction, a penetrating look at two disturbed and disturbing individuals, and a breakneck tear across the American Midwest. Like Such Men Are Dangerous and The Triumph of Evil, it was originally published under LB's Paul Kavanagh pen name, but as soon as he could he resides all three books under his own name, and is pleased to make them available now in the Classic Crime Library. THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block's early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.