The Burglar on the Prowl

Rating:
Summary: Vunderbar for Rhoddenbar!
Review: I've been reading Block's books for 25 years, starting with The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep, and while I am an avowed fan of the author, am also able to admit that some of his offerings have been far from top-notch.

This book, however, is first-rate fun. An entertaining and breezy mystery with quirky characters, superb burgling, and a size that's just right for the content. Block is rarely guilty of over-writing, and like Elmore Leonard, writes great dialogue that moves the story along.

The story here is the weak element. While the plot is joyful and interesting, the sheer number of coincidences that play such an important part in the story become a bit much after a while. The conclusion of the book fails to bring all the salient elements together, and to his credit Block's protagonist admits as much. I have a feeling Block wrote himself into a corner and sort of crapped out on the ending.

You know what? I didn't care. I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor.

Rating:
Summary: Now THIS is more like it!
Review: If you are a Bernie fan, run out and grab one of these books today and you will feel like you did when you discovered your first Bernie novel, it is that good. Not to be overly critical of the last couple of Bernie books, but they cannot hold a literary candle to The Burglar on the Prowl. I felt like Mr. Block was starting to rest on his laurels a bit like Tom Clancy has started to do of late and just throw fans a weak effort at a Bernie novel every now and then. But, as if to restore my faith, along comes The Burglar on the Prowl! This is what a Bernie book should be...it was a sheer pleasure to read. The wit is back Mr. Block. Stay off the cruise ships when you write and go to Ragsdale and repeat this process again and again. It has produced a winner! I laughed aloud at least 5 times by the beginning of Chapter 4! The wit of Bernie and Carolyn combined with all the wonderful metaphors, word plays, and well-researched literary (and other) references plus the tie-in to the earlier 'Ted Williams' book made this new read seem like an old friend right from the start. Welcome back Bernie! Welcome back Lawrence Block! Well done!

Rating:
Summary: Bernie Bags the Baddies!!
Review: If you haven't met Lawrence Block's busy bookselling burglar, Bernie Rhodenbarr, you have ten treats ahead of you that include The Burglar on the Prowl. Bernie's addicted to burgling. He loves the feeling of being in someone else's place when they are not there, and he adores the loot that he lifts. But he has a conscience. He remembers being burgled himself, and avoids taking items of sentimental value to the owners. If he sees a wrong, he'll do what it takes to right it . . . even if there's nothing in it for old Bernie.

Although it's usually best to start at the beginning of a series (in this case with Burglars Can't Be Choosers), Mr. Block does a good job of providing background in this story so you could begin with this one without losing very much enjoyment.

The Burglar on the Prowl starts off innocently enough. Old friend Marty Gilmartin (the owner of the baseball cards that were stolen in The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams) has a bone to pick with a fellow roué, plastic surgeon Crandall Rountree Mapes, who has seduced and alienated the affections of his girl friend. Never mind that both Gilmartin and Mapes are both married. Gilmartin wants vengeance. Gilmartin tells Bernie that Mapes keeps lots of cash in a wall safe at home and gives Bernie the address. Gilmartin is even willing to give up his usual finder's fee if Bernie will lift the loot.

Bernie dutifully cases the joint, sees a way to pull off the caper, and heads home to watch Law and Order on television. Feeling twitchy, he decides to go out again. That impulse to go on the prowl sets off an incredible set of events that reverberate throughout the novel. After a lot of pondering, he decides he wants to burgle a brownstone . . . and wanders around until he finds one that calls out to him. Without casing the joint or knowing if anyone is at home, he breaks into a top floor apartment and finds some jewels and cash in the freezer. Then he hears two sets of footsteps coming up the stairs. He bolts for the window to the fire escape . . . and cannot open it. What next?

Before the next few days are over, there are dead bodies all over New York and Bernie's been busted as a suspect in these cases. But he doesn't know anything about those bodies.

Shaking off the inconvenience, there's still all of that loot at the Mapes place in Riverdale. Will Bernie glide away with it?

These are just a few of the imponderables in The Burglar on the Prowl. Before he's done, Bernie finds a lot of baddies who need to be bashed . . . and Bernie does his best to be sure that happens.

This book could have been subtitled "Meaningful Coincidences" and have understated the point. The plot creates astonishing connections among the characters that will leave you breathless by the end. Although it's all part of the fun of the book, if you are like me you'll find the plot overly complicated. Sometimes simple is better . . . and comic heist capers at some point lose their beauty with too many twists and turns. I graded the otherwise entertaining book down one star for the excesses in the plot.

And the next time you get an urge to take a late night prowl, think of old Bernie in this book. Perhaps you'll decide to settle for a dish of ice cream at home instead.

Rating:
Summary: Fun Series
Review: If you want to know the plot, you can read the many versions in the earlier reviews. Like another reviewer before me, I'd rather read the book before I know the plot--especially in a mystery novel. But, I'll try to provide some value-added in a different regard. Lawrence Block has basically 3 series. Two are tongue-in-cheek (the Bernie Rhodenbarr the caring burglar and the Tanner "spy" series) and one is serious (Matt Scudder). I enjoy them all, but expect different things from them. In the Burglar series you usually get a lot of fun with Bernie getting into and out of trouble throughout, with humorous lines, delightful (if sometimes strange) characters, etc. In this one, the author points out the continuing evidence of lots of coincidences throughout the caper. He intentionally sacrifices credibility of events for humor and sheer fun. The Tanner books are similar in that regard. This particular offering is particularly coincidental and particularly fun--one of the most fun in the entire series, IMHO. Don't expect a Scudder-type book. They are wonderful (maybe more so) in their own right, but very different from the Bernie books. So, if you want a real whodoneit with all seriousness --where you try to figure out the guilty party etc. from the clues--read the Scudder books or Agatha Christie. If you want a really fun and humorous rollicking read, this is a great choice. Enjoy!!! p.s. It probably deserves at least another 1/2 star, but then I like Scudder better. Don't ask me why.

Rating:
Summary: Good old-fashioned style and humor
Review: In "Burglar on the Prowl," Bernie Rhodenbarr is presented with a bit of an ethical dilemma. While the slick burglar hides under the bed of a woman he's robbing, he hears her being raped. Should Bernie come to her rescue and risk jail time (and a possible pummeling from the rapist) for his thievery? Or should he just sit tight and hope he's not caught? To find the answer, you'll have to read the book.

"Burglar on the Prowl" is the story of the misadventures of bookstore owner and long time criminal Bernie Rhodenbarr. When one of his friends asks him to rob a mutual acquaintance in an act of revenge, Bernie can't refuse. After all, the loot is pretty handsome. But during a practice run, he encounters a delicate situation that he had not expected. To top it off, his face has been spotted on a security crime near another burglary. Only in this theft, the victims are murdered. When Bernie is robbed himself, he can't help but wonder if the murderers have something to do with it.

New York writer Lawrence Block, author of "Hope to Die" and a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, uses some good old-fashioned style and humor to make this book a joy to read. With characters like Carolyn, his best friend who happens to be a lesbian with dating issues, and Ray, a policeman straight out of a sixties film, how can you go wrong? This book is an intriguing mystery that will make you think, laugh, and have an all around good time.


Rating:
Summary: Bernie Steals The Show
Review: It's strange to read books with criminals as the protagonists. In the real world you read about these guys in the paper or you come home to find yourself a victim of their handiwork and you rage "these people must be stopped". But put them in a fictional story and make them decent people apart from the burglary thing and you find yourself rooting for them, hoping they get away with it. This is my experience when reading the Burglar books, at least.

Lawrence Block is probably best known for his hardboiled Matt Scudder series, a P.I. series featuring the deeply troubled alcoholic as he fights his way through life. The Burglar series is a much lighter series and this book, THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL is the 10th in the series. The series features Bernie Rhodenbarr, a bookstore owner who moonlights as a professional burglar.

Bernie is asked by a friend to burgle the home of a plastic surgeon as a favour for stealing his girlfriend. He's looking for a form of revenge and the fact that the surgeon has a safe filled with cash sweetens the deal. Springing from this plot come a rather unusual chain of events, murders, robberies and the like, that are unrelated at first glance but closer inspection reveals that the country of Latvia is making a disturbing number of appearances. It seems that no matter which way Bernie moves, he either meets someone from Latvia or Latvia is brought up in conversation. It really becomes a head scratcher that is as amusing as it is perplexing.

Although Bernie outlines the rules that a burglar must adhere to if he wants to stay out of trouble, but while waiting to pull off the plastic surgeon job he can't help but break one of those rules putting it down to restlessness. The rule he breaks states that a burglar must always prepare and study his target thoroughly - I think in burglar-ese it's known as "casing the joint". He defines his breaking of the rule as a need to go out on the prowl. When out on the prowl, he simply wanders the streets in search of a likely house or apartment to burgle without knowing whether anyone is inside, what security is in place or even if there's anything to steal.

Naturally, his little excursion results in the unexpected arrival home by the owner, but Bernie was quick enough to hide to avoid detection. But while he remains hidden, he overhears something taking place that is to later weigh very heavily on his conscience. (Of course, I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you what it is!) Amazingly, this encounter which was completely random is tied in with the main plot - again using the increasingly astounding Latvian connection. Its place in the story is a very clever piece of plotting

The finale is presented in a rather Hercule Poirot-like manner, using the trick of gathering all the suspects and other sundry characters together in one big room and presenting the facts to everyone in the hopes that the guilty party will blink. Bernie takes the role of Poirot and ties the case together, a role that becomes particularly difficult when police are involved and much of the evidence he gathered was due to his breaking and entering abilities.

There are many amusing moments in the book, particularly when Bernie and his long-time friend Carolyn Kaiser get together. Carolyn is a lesbian and has trouble maintaining a relationship. Her latest solution is to take out a personal ad on the internet and their observations about the results are very funny. Similarly, Block has made it a habit in the series of poking fun at a few fellow authors, making up parody book titles and plotlines. In THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL he does it again, this time taking aim at John Sandford's Lucas Davenport series with hilarious results.

You can tell that Block has delighted in throwing in coincidence upon coincidence, some of them absurdly unlikely. I think it works wonderfully well, adding quirky humour to the story that the quirk inside me appreciated. As with all of the burglar books, Block mixes the humour with more serious themes such as organised crime, murder and date rape. But the overriding tone is light and the mystery is clever and very well constructed.

Although this is the 10th book in the series, it's not really necessary to read the books in order and this one can be read as a stand-alone if you'd prefer not to go back and read the earlier books first. Certainly, I read the books out of order and didn't feel as though I missed any major character developments.

Another series that is a particular favourite of mine that also features a petty thief is Donald Westlake's John Dortmunder series. If you've tried those books and found that you enjoyed them, I think you will also enjoy THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL.

Rating:
Summary: A Funny and Fun Read
Review: Lawrence Block's Burglar on the Prowl is a lot of fun, probably won't win the Pulitzer Prize, but still, it is fun to read. Burglar on the Prowl is the first book by Mr. Block that I have ever read, but it certainly won't be my last. The story is well-written, it's funny, it flows. The plot works and the ending will make you smile. Burglar on the Prowl is an enjoyable, quick read, the perfect companion for a long plane ride or a sunny day sitting beside the pool.

Rating:
Summary: A master's hand at work
Review: Lawrence Block's tenth entry in his mystery series featuring beguiling burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr has hit the fields of play with a wallop.

The first paragraph of BURGLAR ON THE PROWL ends with the frustrated explosion, "Words fail me," when Marty Gilmartin, a larcenous man himself, has come to ask of Bernie a favor only a burglar's skill can effect.

Gilmartin tries to describe his foe, a cad named Mapes who has stolen from him his paramour. Between Bernie and Gilmartin there ensues a lively discussion of apt epithets, deserving obscenities, supple nouns and adjectives, and paper, ink, cloth, and glue, the hard stuff of which supplies Bernie Rhodenbarr's day job as legitimate businessman, the proprietor of a used book store. Burgling is only a hobby.

Or, should we say, an obsession, in the most agonizing sense. For, Bernie cannot help himself. "On the prowl," he says: a phrase "deliciously attractive in an unwholesome way." In this book as never before, Bernie informs us of the joys, and the nonsense, of the drive to steal, the thrilling bad-boyness of it, the irresistibility of living on the teetery edge in the full knowledge of terrifying potential consequences. In a book with Bernie as the narrator, you know words will never fail.

This, while you sink into a world where crimes go down, thugs threaten, and bodies, alas, collect.

After the visit by Gilmartin, Bernie tells his sounding-board lesbian neighbor Carolyn Kaiser about Gilmartin's desire to get back at Mapes by lifting laundered money from a wall safe. Carolyn of course admonishes Bernie against risky behavior. Still, old friends help old friends. She accompanies him on a reconnaissance mission to Mapes' home. As it turns out, the moment is not right for a break-in. The two must wait for another day ... or night, as it were.

But now Bernie is restless. The bloom from Gilmartin's exciting charge has ignited the fuse of that calling from which Bernie is powerless to shrink. He slips out one evening and, after a few false starts to test his skills, enters an apartment belonging to a woman who comes home apparently drunk, escorted by a man with a deep voice. Trapped, Bernie slides, with difficulty, under the bed, a cliché of an action, a ridiculous fate for a practiced burglar. While silently berating himself, before long he realizes the woman has been drugged and is becoming a victim of date-rape. Wedged in as he is, he imagines several action scenarios.

What Bernie does or does not do after that is one of the nervy flourishes author Block seems more and more willing to dangle before us in recent works.

Series books, those with a run of familiar characters, sometimes risk a hazardous course: the danger of sameness. Not under Block's able swing. He is testing, testing .... And he is unapologetic about some of his conclusions, unpopular though they may prove to be.

This series, the burglar series, is the more lighthearted of the author's work. ON THE PROWL is faithful to that premise. Yet, as Bernie Rhodenbarr entertains us by pondering the puzzles and profundities of words, their origins and ambiguities, their richness and insufficiencies, he equally mulls over the meanings of life and the whys of inner drives, and sometimes the mirror shines too brightly.

Sitting down with a Block book is an adventure of wry wit and understated surprise. It is the pleasant anticipation of overheard conversation so smooth that in retrospect you might easily believe you actually heard it. You wait for the precise bon mot for which Bernie Rhodenbarr, lover of language, titan of trivia, guide to painless historical and literary allusions, is justifiably revered. In the now-and-then references to his past, Bernie, the inveterate book lover, even helps us out by footnoting which other book in the canon holds a particular incident in his "backstory," as novelists would call it.

But if Lawrence Block loves word play, he loves the intricate fittings of plot as surely much. Block can create a locked-room mystery like no other. He can mix Latvians and plastic surgeons in lacings that simply won't come apart. In Block's hands, coincidence seems the natural mandate of logic. We may be discomfited by the humanness of the main character, only to be confounded when Bernie performs the feat of not only returning lifted loot to a woman he feels sorry for but adding a few of his own bucks to boot. In this world of make-believe, we are made to believe.

Now that's writing, son. Get me a beer and another book off Bernie's shelf, soon.


Rating:
Summary: Welcoming back an old friend.
Review: Previous reviewers have laid out the plot (and given away some of the twists and turns --- I'm glad I didn't read the reviews until AFTER I had read the book!). Sitting down (well, actually laying down on the couch) to read this latest in Lawrence Block's Bernie series was a welcome diversion to the yard work that awaited (and still waits!)

Bernie is one of those reads that is always welcome and fun. Block's turn of phrase, literary references, dialogue, etc. make the reader feel like they are part of the book themselves, welcomed in like old friends to hear the latest adventure. One wonders if perhaps we couldn't visit more frequently. . . alas.

The ending was a bit more challenging to follow --- and a few too many coincidences to be believed, but as mentioned by another reviewer, the previous pages and the last few more than made up for the effort of a couple.

Thank you Mr. Block for this latest installment --- so, can we now expect another Matt Scudder in the wings????? (one can hope, can't one???)

Rating:
Summary: Secret agent
Review: The is quite a confection. It is one of a series the gifted Lawrence Block has devised with an antiquarian book seller and thief as the chief character. How clever it is to link the propensity to collect with theft.

Bernie's book store is on East 11th Street between University Place and Broadway. His shop is called Barnegat Books. The local deli is called Two Guys from Kandahar. Burglary is tax free and involves little paper work. The proposed subject of a burglary is a plastic surgeon. He is supposed to have cash in his wall safe.

The tale is narrated in the first person by Bernie Rhodenbarr. The burglar Bernie feels guilty about involving his friend Carolyn in a crime and advises her to keep her online date. Bernie tries to look like a regular guy leading a lawful existence. He keeps his burglar tools and alternate ID in a closet of his apartment.

He goes to Riverdale in the Bronx to scope out the plastic surgeon's place. There is a sort of domestic arms race going on with alarms and lights he thinks to himself. The story is interesting, intricate, and Latvian. Bernie even comes to date one of his victims which is an odd method of meeting women. Prospective readers will find much to enjoy in this book.