Lawrence Block Books in Order

Seventeen writers explore desire and violence in the tenth Hot Blood anthology. Stories involving a gym, a body-piercing shop, and amateur filmmakers turn familiar settings into places where human appetites meet betrayal, revenge, and disturbing encounters.

A 12-story mystery anthology from the Adams Round Table, featuring work by Lawrence Block, Mary Higgins Clark, Peter Straub, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, and others. The contents include Block’s “Keller’s Choice” and Clark’s “Lady Sleuth, Lady Sleuth, Run Away Home!”

Evan Tanner awakens after spending twenty-five years frozen and struggles to adjust to a changed world. Sent to Burma on a new assignment, the sleepless operative encounters political schemes and danger before he's fully caught up with the present.

Bernie Rhodenbarr is hired to recover private letters written by a reclusive novelist he admires. Finding a dead agent instead leaves him wanted for murder, forcing the bookseller and burglar to solve a case tangled in literary secrets.

Edited by Lawrence Block, this anthology gathers crime stories set aboard cruise ships, where enclosed decks, ocean nights and shifting passenger lists give classic mysteries and thrillers a fresh, sea bound twist, including a contribution from John Mortimer.

This collection gathers Lawrence Block's early crime stories and suspense novelettes written between 1958 and 1962. It includes work from before his familiar series characters, offering a look at the schemes and dangers that shaped his beginnings.

A supermarket tabloid hires Bernie Rhodenbarr to obtain forbidden photographs at Graceland. The unusual assignment takes the bookseller and burglar into Elvis Presley's protected private rooms, requiring a carefully planned intrusion rather than his usual hunt for valuables.

Seventy-one stories bring together Lawrence Block's crime fiction, including cases for Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Keller, and Martin Ehrengraf. Standalone tales of criminal schemes and troubled lives sit beside adventures ranging from grim suspense to comic detection.

Keller balances stamp collecting and ordinary city life with traveling assignments as a professional assassin. When jobs begin going wrong, he realizes another killer is hunting him, forcing a man accustomed to choosing targets to become one.

Lawrence Block’s anthology pairs stories by nine contemporary mystery writers with works by earlier authors they chose as inspirations. The selections range across crime and suspense, placing each contributor’s work beside a personally meaningful predecessor.

Lawrence Block assembles the first published stories of mystery and crime writers, accompanied by their recollections of getting into print. The collection pairs early fiction with personal accounts that show how individual writing careers began.

After a couple are murdered during a home invasion, their suspected killers turn up dead too. Matthew Scudder doubts the closed case and searches for a third man who may have arranged the deaths and be planning more.

Edited by Lawrence Block, this second Opening Shots volume collects twenty-three first published stories by mystery and crime writers. The anthology looks back to the early work of established authors, showing the beginnings of careers in suspense, detective fiction, and crime writing.

This anthology examines greed through crime stories selected by Lawrence Block, who contributes an opening novella. Destructive desire links the varied tales, with the collection considering how wanting more can push ordinary choices toward dangerous consequences.

This first Seven Deadly Sins anthology gathers short stories about lust and its consequences, opening with a novella by Lawrence Block. Forbidden desire connects the collection, placing attraction beside the impulses that can draw people into crime.

Lawrence Block edits this annual collection of American mystery stories, with Otto Penzler as series editor. The selections range across crime and suspense, often finding tension in threatened violence and the uncertain motives behind seemingly familiar situations.

Bernie Rhodenbarr agrees to rob a plastic surgeon as a favor to a friend. An impulsive burglary elsewhere forces him under a bed, and the incident draws him into an increasingly complicated chain of arrests and murders.

Three early novelettes follow Ed London, a private investigator who enjoys Mozart, brandy, and his pipe but can handle gunmen. These recovered cases bring together dangerous encounters from Lawrence Block's first attempt at a continuing detective character.

A dinner conversation about an apparent suicide reminds Matthew Scudder of a case from his early police career. Looking back, he revisits his partnership with veteran officer Vince Mahaffey and the incident that still remains in his memory.

This collection brings together crime stories featuring Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Keller, Martin Ehrengraf, and other characters. Earlier collections and previously uncollected tales share space, moving between dark suspense and comic schemes that expose human weakness.

A woman's murder connects a struggling writer, a lawyer, an art dealer, and a former police commissioner. In New York after September 11, their intersecting lives unfold while an unlikely killer wages a private campaign against the city.

Twenty crime and mystery writers explore anger and vengeance in this third Seven Deadly Sins anthology. Lawrence Block edits the collection and contributes a novella, joining stories about resentment that erupts into violence and destroys relationships.

Edited by Otto Penzler, this football-themed mystery anthology combines a novella by David Baldacci with thirteen suspense stories from writers including Dennis Lehane, Lawrence Block, and Anne Perry. The tales bring crime, investigation, and danger to playing fields, players, and fans.

This collection profiles fifty American criminals, from outlaws to gangsters, killers, and swindlers. Edited by Lawrence Block, it examines the lives behind notorious names and the gap between their crimes, their reputations, and the myths surrounding them.

Matthew Scudder agrees to check an acquaintance's suspicious online suitor, expecting a modest investigation. As people close to him begin dying, a patient killer's campaign turns the case into a threat against both Scudder and his wife Elaine.

Keller wants to build a retirement fund, so he tells Dot to send more assassination jobs his way. These linked adventures follow the stamp-collecting killer as less selective assignments bring greater risks and uncomfortable reflections on his future.

Twenty erotic horror stories explore desires with dangerous consequences. A goth girl's transformation, a marriage tested by a zombie apocalypse, and a vampire hunter's uncertain memories are among the encounters where attraction becomes entangled with death.

Keller plans to retire after one final assassination job in Des Moines. When an Ohio governor is murdered and Keller's face appears as the wanted suspect, he must survive without working identification, much cash, or contact with Dot.

Classic crime stories trace Manhattan’s darker literary history through its neighborhoods and changing eras. This edited anthology follows criminals, outsiders, and troubled residents in work by writers including Edith Wharton, Edgar Allan Poe, Damon Runyon, and Donald Westlake.

Retired in New Orleans, Keller faces financial pressure when the economy falters. A phone call draws the stamp-collecting former assassin back into paid killing, testing the distance between his new domestic life and the profession he left behind.

Lawrence Block recounts a life shaped by walking, running, and racewalking, from city streets to endurance events and a pilgrimage through Spain. The memoir connects physical discomfort and achievement with the persistence involved in living and writing.

Suburban husbands leave for work in Manhattan while their wives remain at home, creating opportunities for new relationships and sexual encounters. This early novel, written as Sheldon Lord, follows the desires that unsettle the neighborhood's conventional domestic arrangements.

An unnamed burglar breaks into an apartment and unexpectedly meets its owner. Their conversation leads to a game of chess, but the arrival of the owner's wife turns an already uncomfortable encounter into something far more dangerous.

Richard Krale's losing run at a friendly poker game leaves him determined to recover his money. When the other players leave, he persuades a winner to keep playing, allowing mounting stakes and greed to change the evening's character.

During his first year of sobriety, Matthew Scudder investigates the murder of childhood friend Jack Ellery. Ellery's list of people he wronged offers possible suspects, but entering his troubled world also threatens Scudder's fragile recovery from alcoholism.

Chip Harrison and his detective employer Leo Haig become involved in a missing-manuscript mystery at the Mysterious Bookshop. Their Christmas investigation draws on the shop's owner and a circle of mystery writers whose connections complicate the search.

Sixteen stories and a stage play explore murder, desire, greed, and revenge. Alongside appearances by Bernie Rhodenbarr and Matthew Scudder, the collection follows hoarders, obsessive admirers, art thieves, and other people whose private preoccupations take dangerous forms.

Dolly holds tightly to her possessions, filling her home with things she refuses to discard. Visitors question her about the clutter and the family who left, bringing attention to the troubling boundary between what she treasures and what she hides.

Lawrence Block explores collecting stamps issued around the world before 1940 in thirty-three columns. Selections from his Keller fiction add the perspective of a hired killer whose renewed passion for philately gives him another way to spend his earnings.

Kit Tolliver travels under changing names, killing men she meets and taking their money. Remembering former partners who survived gives her a new purpose: tracking them down and completing the murders that her earlier encounters left unfinished.

Psychic Sylvia Belgrave is troubled by headaches and disturbing dreams. Hoping both to help and to find relief, she approaches the police about a missing girl, drawing her unusual abilities into a case whose implications extend beyond her symptoms.

Dorothy meets Billy in a restaurant to discuss a problem involving her former partner and a claimed debt of ten thousand dollars. This one-act play follows their conversation as she explains the relationship and the predicament she wants resolved.

While still an NYPD detective, Matthew Scudder is asked to help after a friendly poker game ends in murder. His involvement requires more than finding out what happened, forcing him to consider how far he will bend the law.

Paul Dandridge wants punishment for Billy Croydon, the man convicted of murdering his sister. Their relationship develops through years of imprisonment and correspondence, as grief, revenge, and apparent changes of heart complicate what justice could mean to either man.

A man carrying a knife visits bars in search of a woman, imagining how their encounter might unfold. The story explores several possible courses of events, making intentions, danger, and the balance of power uncertain from one scenario to another.

A woman draws her lover into a plan against her husband, offering a route through the house and its security. Desire and manipulation shape the arrangement, leaving the participants' motives and control over the situation increasingly uncertain.

Bernie Rhodenbarr visits a collector to sell him a stolen book, only to become involved in a death inside a secured library. The locked room presents a puzzle whose solution may matter as much to Bernie's safety as to the investigation.

Essays drawn from Lawrence Block's writing columns examine how fiction is made and how writers keep working. Topics include characters, plotting, creative blocks, and publishing choices, offering practical approaches to problems encountered while turning ideas into finished stories.

Lawrence Block collects later columns on fiction writing in chronological order, exploring both creative decisions and daily working habits. Questions about ideas, productivity, money, and the writing life offer a view of the practical challenges behind completed books.

Eleven short works follow Matthew Scudder across different periods of his life, from his police career to later investigations and sobriety. Murders, old acquaintances, and evenings with friends reveal the changing relationships and New York surroundings that shape him.

A man enters the Side Pocket expecting a pool table and finds himself caught in a sexual blackmail scheme. The attempted setup goes wrong, turning the encounter into a dangerous contest among people whose intentions are far from straightforward.

Retired Kramer organizes his week around carefully chosen routines, including practice at a golf driving range. A former colleague persuades him to play an actual round, disrupting the controlled activities that have made his retirement so comfortable.

Morton Colliard's business has failed, leaving him with a home, a wife, and a baby on the way. To survive the economic downturn, he considers returning to an earlier line of work and testing whether his old abilities remain intact.

Boxer Darnell hopes to win another championship, but his wife Keisha worries about the damage he is taking in the ring. His ambitions and his manager's assurances conflict with the warning signs she sees in his health.

Matthew Scudder receives an unexpected twelve-hundred-dollar bequest from a woman he barely knew. Learning that she was murdered leads him to investigate both the seemingly random street killing and the reason she chose to remember him in her will.

Writing as John Warren Wells, Lawrence Block presents accounts of unconventional sexual behavior drawn from correspondence and interviews. The case-history format explores experiments and desires associated with the sexual revolution, following people whose experiences fall outside familiar relationship patterns.

John Warren Wells returns to the world of airline stewardesses through six interviews about their intimate lives. This follow-up to his earlier study examines changing sexual attitudes and experiences among women whose work takes them across cities and countries.

Written as John Warren Wells, this collection gathers correspondence columns about sexual behavior. Readers discuss desires, fetishes, relationships, and questions about their own experiences, giving the book its focus on private concerns during a period of changing social attitudes.

Living under a new identity in New Orleans, Keller renovates houses and enjoys family life and stamp collecting. When the economy damages his business, a phone call draws him back to contract killing and the risks of his former profession.

The attacks of September 11 force New York hit man Keller to reconsider his familiar routines and assumptions. As he continues taking assignments, his reflections on the city and his profession become an effort to adjust to a changed world.

Seven male sex workers describe finding clients, earning money, and understanding their own lives. Written under John Warren Wells's name, the book presents their accounts of work and relationships, exploring the different circumstances behind a shared occupation.

Accounts from men and women explore alternatives to conventional marriage, including partner swapping, open relationships, and group arrangements. John Warren Wells's case histories examine the motives and experiences of people trying to reshape commitment around their intimate preferences.

Kit Tolliver's habit of killing her sexual partners has become a continuing mission. This story explores the history behind her actions, connecting her past with the purpose driving her murders and the direction she intends to take next.

Kit Tolliver locates Peter Fuhrmann, a former partner who survived her earlier attempt to kill him. Discovering that he is in a maximum-security prison creates a new problem: reaching him despite the barriers surrounding the man she wants dead.

A cross-genre anthology edited by George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois, built around women who are dangerous in different ways. The lineup ranges from fantasy and science fiction to historical and crime tales, each centered on agency, risk, and consequences.

Kit Tolliver withdraws to a cheap hotel and a minimum-wage job after a disturbing encounter. Restlessness leads her to accept a stranger's offered ride, placing a woman accustomed to hunting others in the position of being hunted herself.

Kit Tolliver visits a St. Louis lesbian bar while considering whether intimacy with a woman might offer a different future. There she attracts married couple Brady and Angelica, whose shared interest in her conceals an agenda of their own.

In a Hell's Kitchen bar, a young woman meets a man and accompanies him home. The encounter introduces Kit Tolliver's dangerous pattern of changing identities and turning apparent attraction into murder, placing her unsuspecting companion in immediate jeopardy.

Disgraced former cop Perry Christo, now a private investigator, is hired to find the wealthy daughter of an Upper East Side socialite. The search moves through wintry New York and the Hamptons in a serial noir novel written chapter by chapter by twenty mystery authors.

In Kirkland, Washington, Kit Tolliver rents a room while pursuing a former partner she intends to kill. His lack of interest frustrates her plans, while an increasingly close friendship with her landlady offers an unexpected distraction from her mission.

On a reconnaissance visit to his target's Dallas-area home, hit man Keller attends a party and studies the surroundings. Noticing a child in trouble in the swimming pool forces him to act in a way that complicates his assignment.

An astrological reading gives Keller unsettling insights and a warning about a particular date. The professional killer considers what the prediction means, but accepting another assignment brings his usual practical decisions into conflict with the possibility of an unfavorable fate.

Hit man Keller begins seeing a psychotherapist while trying to conceal how he earns his living. As their sessions develop, the therapist's own personal problems intrude, placing Keller's search for understanding alongside the dangerous methods he uses to solve difficulties.

Brothers Vern and Newton stop for fuel at an isolated desert service station. With few alternatives on the road ahead, they must deal with a proprietor whose prices and attention to their car raise questions about the help he offers.

Kit Tolliver tracks Alvin Kirkaby, a former lover she once spared because he was heading overseas with the military. Now back in North Carolina, he becomes another name on her list of men to kill.

Kit Tolliver wakes in a strange bed after picking up a man in a Bronx bar. As she reconstructs the previous night, she discovers that her intended victim has plans and surprises of his own.

Bookseller and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr returns to stealing with a series of break-ins involving colonial silver, a Fitzgerald manuscript, and a portrait. A dead body complicates the hunt for valuables and leaves Bernie facing another mystery.

A waitress-wanted sign gives Kit Tolliver an opportunity while she searches Phoenix for men who survived their encounters with her. Taking a diner job brings a new potential victim within reach of her murderous plans.

Calling herself Lucky, Kit Tolliver visits an Indian casino in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and meets a gambler who collects casino chips. Their encounter conceals the lethal purpose behind her search for a suitable companion.

Kit Tolliver wants to kill a former lover, but his name was false and their Philadelphia meeting offers little help. A friend's account of a Mormon missionary suggests an unexpected way to continue the search.

These twelve stories follow defense lawyer Martin Ehrengraf, whose clients invariably emerge innocent without courtroom battles. His methods reach beyond ordinary legal argument, and the people who hire him may discover that his fees carry unusual consequences.

This anthology gathers New York stories about love, loss, and the city's less visible lives. Its settings stretch from Hell's Kitchen and Greenwich Village to Coney Island, Williamsburg, and Queens, mixing humor with darker experiences.

A woman enters a roadhouse looking for a man who can play a part in her plan. The narrator believes he understands how to choose women, but this encounter puts that confidence under scrutiny.

Twenty-three stories explore New York through crime, humor, and speculative fiction. Familiar streets become settings for troubled lives and unexpected encounters, with contributions from writers including Robert Silverberg and S. J. Rozan alongside Lawrence Block.

Lawrence Block reflects on crime fiction through essays about writers he has read, admired, and known. Personal memories mingle with discussions of figures such as Raymond Chandler, Donald Westlake, Charles Willeford, and Evan Hunter.

Former New York cop Doak Miller works undercover in Florida to catch a woman seeking her husband's murder. Falling for his target, he begins considering a scheme that would turn the investigation against his employers.

Karen Winslow struggles with a secret from her past and uncertainty about the life she wants. Meeting the self-assured Rae opens a possible relationship, while her attraction to a man complicates her understanding of herself.

These two crime stories bring ordinary social encounters into dangerous territory. In one, a businessman considers a deadly deal at the gym; in the other, a man joins a murder club and encounters unexpected risks.

Seventeen writers create stories inspired by Edward Hopper's paintings, imagining lives beyond the moments captured on canvas. Reproductions accompany tales that move across genres, exploring the people, rooms, and streets suggested by the artist's scenes.

Hit man Keller travels to Des Moines for an assignment and settles into a motel while waiting for instructions. This episode, drawn from Hit and Run, places his familiar working routine at the start of an unforeseen upheaval.

Keller receives an unusual assignment: kill a dog in Manhattan rather than a human target. For a hit man who once owned a dog himself, the job raises concerns unlike those of his usual contracts.

Keller attends a baseball game with more than sporting interest in designated hitter Floyd Turnbull. An assignment from Dot makes a player he has watched for years the subject of a very different kind of attention.

Living under a new name with his wife and daughter, Keller accepts an assignment involving a client's unfaithful wife. Identifying her lover requires investigation, putting the retired hit man into the unfamiliar role of detective.

An assignment to kill the abbot of a Murray Hill monastery brings Keller back to New York. Now living in New Orleans with a family, he must revisit a city tied closely to his former life.

Eleven mystery stories by different writers bring together varied approaches to crime and murder. Edited by Patrice Fitzgerald, the collection includes Lawrence Block among its contributors and moves between distinct characters, situations, and criminal puzzles.

Folksinger Ellen Cameron welcomes a sponsored trip to West Berlin and a tour of Ireland. Friendly fellow travelers promise an exciting break, but concealed motives draw her journey into international intrigue and uncertain romantic possibilities.

A bus journey brings Bill to Cross Creek, Montana, where a help-wanted sign leads to work as a short-order cook. A budding relationship with a librarian offers another reason to settle into this new life.

A young college graduate leaves the Midwest for Greenwich Village and explores her attraction to women. The novel follows her search for an identity and a place within a world unfamiliar to her.