Lawrence Block: The Burglar who thought he was Bogart

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Bernie Rhodenbarr owns a second-hand bookshop and does a bit of burglary on the side just to keep things afloat.

His best friend is a dyke called Carolyn who is hooked on the murder mysteries of Sue Grafton. In real life, Grafton's fiction has catchy titles like M is for Murder. In Block's fiction they have plots like the one about the Chinese landscape architect who gets strangled with his own pigtail. It's called Q is for Gardens.

Bernie is the world's biggest Bogart fan. He meets a woman with a strange accent and a mysterious past at a Bogart festival. Cue a ridiculous plot involving the lost throne of Anatruria, some truly awful puns, the storyline of almost every movie Bogart ever appeared in - all for the purposes of taking the mickey out of the hard-boiled crime novel. Cute, funny and very, very silly.

No Exit Press

$29.95