Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
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.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling. A Bernie Rhodenbarr Mystery. HarperCollins, ISBN: 0060731257 (March, 2005), 286 p., $7.50.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
Bernie Rhodenbarr tries to go legit by opening a second-hand bookstore, but he still can't resist that which he does best -- burglary! Someone's willing to pay him handsomely for what seems to be an easy job: the theft of a rare Kipling edition. But as his contact turns up dead and the cops are out to throw the book at him, Bernie has to use all the tricks of his illicit trade to make sure this little situation has a happy ending!

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling. Signet, ISBN: 0451180755 (November, 1997), 301 p., $6.99.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling (UK 1996)

From the Publisher:
Bookseller, thief - Bernie Rhodenbarr can't resist the lure of a long lost Kipling poem, even if it is locked inside a millionaire's high security library. So Bernie goes browsing and sure enough he liberates the object in question... but also finds a dead redhead and is caught with the proverbial smoking gun by those boys in blue, who are ready to book Bernie for Murder One!

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling. No Exit Press, ISBN: 0948353864 (October, 1996), 206 p., £5.99.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling (USA 1996)

From the Publisher:
Some things in life never go way, and you like it that way. Take Bernie Rhodenbarr, for example. Alter his triumphant return to print two years ago, America has fallen in love with this lovably irascible burglar. And in The Burglar Who Liked is Quote Kipling, the third entry in the series, Lawrence Block once again proves why.

Bernie's tried to go legit by opening up a secondhand bookstore down in Greenwich Village but still can't resist his passion: stealing things. Especially when the price is right, and this time it most certainly is. Here's what Bernie's got to do: pilfer a rare Kipling edition and make off with a bundle.

That's the easy part. The hard part, Bernie finds, is returning the priceless volume to his employer. His instructions are to turn the book over to a lovely femme fatale, but before Bernie can, the femme is suddenly a fatality. And of course the cops are close behind.

With best pal, Carolyn, at his side, and a surprising ally found in police detective Ray Kirschmann, Bernie tries to get himself out of the stickiest wrong-side-of-the-law jam of his life. It will take all the tricks and tools of the burgling trade to uncover a clever plot by some very dangerous men. But dangerous is nothing when you're dealing with the hilarious hijinks of Bernie Rhodenbarr.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling. Dutton, ISBN: 0525941592 (July, 1996), 243 p., $22.95.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling (UK 1990)

From the Publisher:
Bernie Rhodenbarr is back in the third of the serles availabie from NO EXIT that includes Burglars can't be Choosers and The Burglar in the Closet
Bernie Rhodenbarr, bookseller and thief, can't resist the lure of a long lost Kipling poem, even if It is locked inside a millionaire's high security library. So Bernie goes browsing and sure enough he liberates the object in question... but also finds a dead redhead and Is caught with the proverbial smoking gun by those boys in blue, who are ready to book Bernie for murder!

Lawrence Block, born in 1938, is the prolific author of several crime series featuring such diverse characters as Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner and Leo Haig. Burglars can't be Choosers and The Burglar in the Closet, both featuring Bernie Rhodenbarr, are also published by the No Exit Press.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling. No Exit Press, ISBN: 0948353864 (November, 1990), 301 p., £?.??.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling (USA 1979)

From the Publisher:
There absolutely nothing like it.
True, I'in getting older. True. I shrink from the prospect of getting chewed by attack dogs and shot by irate householders and locked in some pickproof penitentiary cell. None of it matters a whit when I'm inside someone's velling place with all his worldly goods spread out like food on a banquet table.
I'm not proud of this. I'm not nuts about criminals. I'd prefer to live as an honest man among honest men, but I haven't yet found an honest pursuit that lets me feel this way. I'm a born thief and I love it.

It's not as if Bernie Rhodenbarr had to go out stealing. He could have gone on living the good life in his secondhand bookstore, foiling shoplifters and taking in the odd dollar for a copy of Virgil's Eclogues (boxed, the box water-damaged, slight rubbing on spine, price $8.50). He could have had dinner with Carolyn Kaiser, the poodle groomer down the block. He could have watched some Russian dance at Lincoln Center. Or he could have stayed home with the TV on and his shoes off and his feet up.

But a pukka sahib type named Rudyard Whelkin came along with a story. Fifty-some years ago, another pukka sahib type named Rudyard Kipling wrote a curious epic poem called The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow. He had it privately printed, and then he thought it over and consigned all the copies to the flames.

All but one copy, that is. One copy, suitably inscribed to his great good friend H. Rider Haggard, somehow survived the holocaust. And found its way, incredibly enough, onto the library shelves of Jesse Arkwright's sprawling Tudor mansion in Forest Hills Gardens. Would Bernie, by any chance, consider a small mission to liberate that copy on behalf of his newest client, the same R. Whelkin?

The security's good in Forest Hills Gardens. But how can it stand up against the man The New York Times Book Review called "the Heifetz of the picklock"? Well, it can't, and it doesn't, and before terribly long Bernie's back behind the counter at Barnegat Books, with The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow all ready for delivery.

Nothing's that easy.
Because the first thing you know, in comes a Sikh with a beard and a turban. And a gun, and guess what book he wants? And the next thing you know, Bernie's in an apartment in the East Sixties, and somebodys sprawled on the Victorian love seat, deader than vaudeville, and the heavy object in Bernie's hot little hand is the proverbial smoking gun. And who do you think is banging on the door?

Cops. That's who.
Listen, it gets worse. There's even an attack dog, and Carolyn's not around to give it a bath. And there are the twists and turns you might expect from Lawrence Block, who (according to Publishers Weekly) "attracts mystery buffs as effortlessly as Bernie picks locks."

So what should you do? You should take this book home and read it. That's what you should do.

Lawrence Block: The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling. Bernie Rhodenbarr, master thief, solves another murder. Random House, ISBN: 0394504178 (September, 1979), 196 p., $7.95.