There’s an old saying about how all good things must come to an end, but Lawrence Block seems to be doing his best to disprove that. Since announcing his “retirement” several years ago, he’s produced a number of excellent novels, novellas, and volumes of non-fiction. His most recent novel, THE BURGLAR WHO MET FREDRIC BROWN, will be out in October and just adds to that list, as it’s a top-notch job all around.
As regular readers will recognize instantly from the title, this novel is a new
entry in Block’s long-running and much-loved series about bookseller/burglar
Bernie Rhodenbarr. Bernie is mostly retired from his criminal profession
because of the proliferation of security cameras and advances in lock
technology, and his bookselling business isn’t doing much better because of
Amazon and eBay. But he’s still living a fairly enjoyable life in New York
City, hanging around in his free time with his best friend Carolyn, who has a
dog grooming salon near Bernie’s bookstore.
Then Bernie reads Fredric Brown’s science fiction novel WHAT MAD UNIVERSE,
about alternate universes, and wakes up the next morning to discover that he
and Carolyn have been transported to one such alternate universe, where
security technology isn’t as advanced as it is in our world, and suddenly the
fabulously valuable diamond Bernie had his eye on in our world (but knew he
couldn’t steal) might just be within his reach after all . . .
Assuming he can navigate all the other changes from the world he knew and solve
the two murders that take place along the way.
Block tackles a pretty tricky task in THE BURGLAR WHO MET FREDRIC BROWN,
combining a traditional mystery with a science fiction/fantasy novel. It’s been
done before, of course. Isaac Asimov’s THE CAVES OF STEEL and THE NAKED SUN
come to mind, along with a number of futuristic private eye yarns. However,
most of those are science fiction novels that are also mysteries, instead of
the other way around, and I think that’s a significant distinction. This novel
incorporates science fictional elements into a well-established mystery series,
and I’m not sure that’s been done before.
Block makes both sides of this combination work well, but ultimately, I don’t
think it matters much. Like much of Block’s recent work, THE BURGLAR WHO MET
FREDRIC BROWN seems to be more about the passage of time and the relationships
of the characters than anything else. With its references to earlier books in
the series, along with the reappearances of characters from those books, this
book strikes me as a love letter to the readers and a fond farewell to Bernie
and Carolyn. I’d almost say that it’s elegiac, but I don’t normally use
highfalutin words like that, and besides, it implies that Block will never
write another Bernie Rhodenbarr novel, and at this point, I’m not betting money
on that.
If it is the final Burglar novel, though, it’s a good way to go out. I enjoyed
THE BURGLAR WHO MET FREDRIC BROWN and think it’s well worth reading. If you’re
a Block fan, you probably have it on pre-order already, and if you don’t, it’s
available to do so in both paperback and ebook editions.
In his last newsletter, Block mentioned that he’s more than 30,000 words into a
new novel. I don’t what it’ll be, but I’m sure I’ll read it. As far as I know,
he’s already been writing novels longer than any other American author currently
alive (he started a few years earlier than Robert Vaughan), so why stop now?
5 comments:
I've definitely got it on pre-order!
me too
I think the mixtures of series CF characters with fantasy or sf tends to be the result of written by Other Hands...all the Sherlocks thus, and the like (or, in films and comics at least, ALPHAVILLE comes to mind). Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller have moved this way with at least one of their collaborative novels, mixing characters from two different times. I'm sure I'm foolishly forgetting at least a few more.
You're right about Other Hands, and that's a good distinction. I'd forgotten about all the Sherlock Holmes vs. the Martians, Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu, etc., volumes. And ALPHAVILLE would certainly fall into the same category.
And speaking of ALPHAVILLE, one of the local TV stations showed a bunch of those Eddie Constantine movies when I was a kid, which seems like odd programming for a Texas station in the early Sixties, but I watched and enjoyed them, anyway. Tarzan, Roy, Gene, Hercules, and Lemmy Caution . . .
Yep. I’ve loved everything Block’s done since he quit writing. Not sure if his “retirement” has been good for him, but it’s certainly been great for us.
I once worried the ever-inventive and prolific Block was in danger of using up every plot twist and trick imaginable, so I’m glad to see that wherever he gets them from (a warehouse in Jersey?), it’s apparently well stocked.
Chapter XX in this new one is one of funniest bits of writing ever.
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