Lawrence Block: You Could Call it Murder (USA 2016)

From the Publisher:
"A missing person case brings private eye Roy Markham to the remote winter-bound college town of Cliff's End, New Hampshire. But what began as a routine investigation quickly becomes dark and dangerous. Six pornographic photos and a tidy little blackmail scheme result in a brutal and baffling murder, and no one is safe - especially Markham himself."

That's the product description for Blackstone Audio's excellent rendition of You Could Call It Murder, expertly voiced by Peter Berkrot, and we could leave it at that-but there's an interesting backstory to the book, and the Classic Crime Library seems a good place to share it with you.

In 1961, Lawrence Block was living in New York and earning a living writing Midcentury Erotica and crime fiction. He'd just sold his first book under his own name, Grifter's Game, to Gold Medal Books. (They insisted on calling it Mona, but the original title's been restored by Hard Case Crime.) His agent got him an assignment to write a tie-in paperback novel for Belmont Books, linked to the TV series Markham, starring Ray Milland.

The book turned out well, and the young writer's agent felt it was too good to be a Belmont tie-in. Knox Burger agreed, and Block changed the name of the hero from Roy Markham to Ed London, and Gold Medal published the book as Death Pulls a Doublecross. (Another unfortunate title; you'll find the book in the Classic Crime Library with the author's original title, Coward's Kiss.)

But that left Block owing Belmont a book. You Could Call It Murder is what he wrote for them, and it turned out fairly nicely as well, but his agent sent it to Belmont all the same, where they published it as Markham: The Case of the Pornographic Photos. (By the time it came out - surprise surprise - the TV series was canceled.)

Is everything clear?

THE CLASSIC CRIME LIBRARY brings together Lawrence Block's early crime novels, reformatted and with new uniform cover art.

Lawrence Block: You Could Call it Murder. LB Productions (Classic Crime Library), ISBN: 9781523937714 (February, 2016), 202 p., $9.99.

Lawrence Block: You Could Call it Murder (USA 2002)

From the Publisher:
"Remarkable... undismissable. Block is a talented, idiosyncratic writer." -- Philadelphia Inquirer
A missing person case brings private eye Roy Markham to the remote winterbound college town of Cliffs End, New Hampshire.

But what began as a routine investigation quickly becomes dark and dangerous. Six pornographic photos and a tidy little blackmail scheme result in a brutal and baffling murder, and no one is safe-especially Markham himself.

"I there's one crime witer capable of matching the norish legaces of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, It's Lawrence Block,' -- San Francisco Chronicle

LAWRENCE BLOCK is the author of the Matthew Scudder series and the Bernie Rhodenbarr series. He is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and has won the Edgar and Shamus Awards four times, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe award. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir, and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He is a past president of the Private Eye Writers of America and the Mystery Writers of America.

Lawrence Block: You Could Call it Murder. ibooks, ISBN: 0743445155 (December, 2002), 168 p., $6.99.

Lawrence Block: You Could Call it Murder (USA 1996)

From the Publisher:
"Remarkable... undismissable. Block is a talented idiosyncratic writer." -- Philadelphia Inquirer
LAWRENCE BLOCK YOU COULD CALL IT MURDER
A missing person case brings private eye Roy Markham to the remote winterbound college town of Cliff's End, New Hampshire, but what began as a routine investigation quickly becomes dark and dangerous. Six pornographic photos and a tidy little blackmail scheme result in a brutal and baffling murder, and no one is safe, especially Markham himself. Lawrence Block's energetic storytelling and drop-dead dialogue will whisk fans through this suspenseful tale, right up to its unexpected ending.

"Block is awfully good, with an ear for dialogue, an eye for low-life types, and a gift for fast and effortless storytelling." -- Los Angeles Times

"If there's one crime writer currently capable of matching the noirish legacies of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, it's Lawrence Block." -- San Francisco Chronicle

LAWRENCE BLOCK, a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, created the Bernie Rhodenbarr series and has written over thirty novels including The Specialists and Mona, available from Carroll & Graf.

Lawrence Block: You Could Call it Murder. Carroll & Graf, ISBN: 0786703423 (July, 1996), 140 p., $4.95.

Lawrence Block: Markham - The Case of the Pornographic Photos (USA 1961)

From the Publisher:
Here is a savage crime novel based on the television series
MARKHAM,
starring Ray Milland

KISSES OF DEATH
"He had obviously taken a rugged beating. One eye had been hammered shut and his face was caked with blood from nose and mouth. He was missing an occasional tooth and it was an odds-on wager that a few of his ribs were dented..."

Roy Markham was after those photos: The photos that had meant bullets for Linda, a knife for Gwen, and "suicide" for Barbara. Someone wanted Markham out of the way bad. They'd tried female "persuasion," then they tried to scare him off. Now they'd marked him for murder. It was one private eye against the syndicate.

Lawrence Block: Markham - The Case of the Pornographic Photos. A Savage Crime Novel. New York: Belmont Books, 1961, Belmont Books #236, ¢35.