New Releases by Lawrence Block

Evan Michael Tanner hasn''t slept in more than a decade—not since a small piece of battlefield shrapnel invaded his skull and obliterated his brain''s sleep center. Still, he''s managed to find numerous inventive ways to occupy his waking hours. Tanner is a card-carrying member of hundreds of international organizations, from the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Order to the Flat Earth Society—not because he believes in their myriad lost causes, he''s simply a joiner by nature. Besides, it gives him something to do. The Russians think Tanner is a CIA operative on a covert mission. The CIA is certain he''s a Soviet agent. Actually, he''s in Turkey pursuing a fortune in hidden Armenian gold. But Tanner''s up for anything, including a little spycraft, if it helps him reach his big payday. And if need be, he''ll even start a small revolution . . .

John Keller finds himself getting lonely and begins to have doubts about continuing his job as a paid assassin.

There is no accolade or major mystery award that has not already been bestowed upon Lawrence Block. His acclaimed crime novels are asintelligent, provocative, and emotionally complex as they are nerve-tighteningly intense. And perhaps the most respected of his myriad works are the Matthew Scudder books -- masterworks of suspenseful invention featuring a remarkable protagonist rich in conscience and character, with all the flaws that his humanity entails. This is the detective novel as high art. A Dance At The Slaughterhouse In Matt Scudder''s mind, money, power, and position elevate nobody above morality and the law. Now the ex-cop and unlicensed p.i. has been hired to prove that socialite Richard Thurman orchestrated the brutal murder of his beautiful, pregnant wife. During Scudder''s hard drinking years, he left a piece of his soul on every seedy corner of the Big Apple. But this case is more depraved and more potentially devastating than anything he experienced while floundering in the urban depths. Because this investigation is leading Scudder on a frightening grand tour of New York''s sex-for-sale underworld -- where an innocent young life is simply a commodity to be bought and perverted ... and then destroyed.

Grandmaster and Edgar award-winning author Lawrence Block has brought together 71 of his best stories featuring his most popular series characters. From Matt Scudder in ''The Merciful Angel of Death'' to Bernie Rhodenbarr in ''Like a Thief in the Night'' and Keller''s ''Answers to Soldier'', THE COLLECTED MYSTERY STORIES is the ultimate collection from ''one of the best authors now working the beat'' Wall Street Journal

Leo Haig and his assistant, Chip Harrison, investigate the deaths of an exotic dancer''s tropical fish only to have Harrison witness the murder of their client''s roommate.

Chip Harrison has finally gotten a steady job, acting as the man-about-town for the corpulent detective Leo Haig. And it''s on the dangerous streets of New York that Chip brings home his first case, one in which five beautiful sisters are being systematically murdered. Three of the Trelawney women have already been bumped off, & now Chip is cozying up to the remaining two, & investigating a couple of other nefarious relatives with motive on their minds.

The second in a new series of 7 Lawrence Block titles featuring Evan Micheal Tanner. He is 34 years old and hasn''t slept a wink since a piece of shrapnel destroyed the sleep centre in his brain during the Korean War. Tanner, enlisted by an undercover agency, so secret it doesn''t have a name, heads for Czechoslovakia where he must engineer the kidnap of a dying man. But first he finds himself leaping from a moving train, tangling with an amourous blonde and trying to act convincing as the key speaker at a Nazi rally.

Matt Scudder is an ex-cop,ex-alcoholic,private detective-now licensed but he''s still happier doing favours for friends for a flar fee than anything requiring much more in the way of paperwork.Married to Elaine,a retired call girl and enjoying connubial bliss opposite his old hotel room(now the office)he is intrigued by the problems New Yorks latest serial killer is giving his ex-colleagues.

Bad cop Jerry Broadfield didn''t make any friends on the force when he volunteered to squeal to an ambitious d.a. about police corruption. Now he''saccused of murdering a call girl. Matthew Scudder doesn''t think Broadfield''s a killer, but the cops aren''t about to help the unlicensed p.i. prove it -- and they may do a lot worse than just get in his way.

Small-time stoolie, Jake " The Spinner" Jablon, made a lot of new enemies when he switched careers, from informer to blackmailer. And the more "clients", he figured, the more money -- and more people eager to see him dead. So no one is surprised when the pigeon is found floating in the East River with his skull bashed in. And what''s worse, no one cares -- except Matthew Scudder. The ex-cop-turned-private-eye is no conscientious avenging angel. But he''s willing to risk his own life and limb to confront Spinner''s most murderously aggressive marks. A job''s a job after all -- and Scudder''s been paid to find a killer -- by the victim...in advance.

Tells the stories of a policeman recovering from alcoholism, a clever lawyer who saves his marginally innocent clients, a carefully plotted murder, a pathological killer, and an unusual kidnapping

Block covers every step of the novel writing and selling process to help writers deliver a salable manuscript to the right editor''s desk.

In this third installment of Block''s "New York Times" bestselling series, bookseller and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr is on the prowl for a long-lost Kipling poem. But Bernie soon finds himself as the prime suspect in a murder investigation.