Books: Burglars Can’t Be Choosers By Lawrence Block (1977)

Bernie Rhodenbarr is a personable chap, a good neighbor, a passable poker player. His chosen profession, however, might not sit well with some. Bernie is a burglar, a good one, effortlessly lifting valuables from the not-so-well-protected abodes of well-to-do New Yorkers like a modern-day Robin Hood. (The poor, as Bernie would be the first to tell you, alas, have nothing worth stealing.) He's not perfect, however; he occasionally makes mistakes. Like accepting a paid assignment from a total stranger to retrieve a particular item from a rich man's apartment. Like still being there when the cops arrive. Like having a freshly slain corpse lying in the next room, and no proof that Bernie isn't the killer. Now he's really got his hands full, having to locate the true perpetrator while somehow eluding the police -- a dirty job indeed, but if Bernie doesn't do it, who will?

Lawrence Block, much like fellow crime writer Donald E. Westlake, has spent his prolific writing career two series, one featuring the dark, often violent world of PI Matthew Scudder and often comic, bumbling world of “the gentleman burglar” Bernie Rhodenbarr. Westlake was known as Richard Stark when he wrote the nihilistic world of Parker, but used his real name for the John Dortmunder tales. Both of Block’s series are set in New York (same as Westlake/Stark), but where the Scudder world has little humor, the world of Rhodenbarr is often hilarious.

Burglars Can’t Be Choosers is Rhodenbarr’s first adventure, and we are quickly introduced to this mild manner 34 year-old Robin Hood of a sort (he generally chooses well-off targets who can afford the losses). He knows his stuff, especially locks, and he is also not a violent man and abhors the idea of any violent confrontation. While he steals only when he needs something, works alone, and always chooses his own targets, here he is hired for $5,000 (in 1977 money) to steal a “blue box”. But things go quickly sideways when the cops show up because someone heard noises, and then the cops discover a dead body.

At its core, it’s a whodunit, even a “locked room” mystery one at that. Its fun read, often humorous but not laughs out loud funny the way Westlake’s Dortmunder books can be. There is eleven books in the Rhodenbarr series, so I’ll see if I can get through some.