Crime is His Business: Bernie Rhodenbarr

Burglars Can't Be Choosers (1977)

Bernie Rhodenbarr is doing a little light burglary in New York when a pair of police officers arrive. All might have been resolved in a civilised manner if it hadn't been for the dead body one of the cops discovered on his way back from the toilet.

The Burglar in the Closet (1978)

Despite promising himself in the last adventure not to take on jobs suggested by others, Bernie ends up in the closet of the ex-wife of the World's Greatest Dentist. His little light burglary of the gems she walked off with in the divorce is rudely interrupted by her return, and subsequent murder.

Now Bernie is on the run again, hiding from murder cops, Ray, the best cop money can buy, and trying to solve the crime and save his own neck.

The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979)

Bernie has bought an antiquarian bookstore. He buys a bit, sells a bit, and discreetly reads paperbacks behind the counter. But an offer he can't refuse has Bernie breaking and entering and taking away a one-of-a-kind Kipling, inscribed to H. Rider Haggard. But what with Sikhs with guns and a buyer who doesn't show and another dead body in his life, our boy is once again hiding from the forces of the law while trying to prove his innocence.

The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza

Bernie is coasting alone in his new career as a bookseller. He knows he could make a better living if he applied himself, but why would he when a night's work with buddy Carolyn as sidekick could net him thousands?

Unfortunately they pass through the cleverly-opened locks of the target house to discover that other burglars had been there before them. Fortunately those burglars hadn't been able to open the safe and get to the bounty within.

Unfortunately the next day Bernie is picked up as a murder suspect and it appears that someone broke in again, this time killing the lady of the house.

As the bodies start to stack up and Bernie is once again interesting to the NYPD, he must discover the identity of the real murderer to save his own neck.

Like a Thief in the Night (1983)

Short story. Bernie encounters a woman while he is burglarising a suite of offices.

Says Block: It's been in short story collections of mine since, including my omnibus, Enough Rope. I had to read it closely in order to format the scanned story for ePublication, and I was pleased to find that I like it a lot.

The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (1983)

Bernie, in his guise as a bookseller and appraiser, has finally cracked the bastion of the Charlemagne building. It all goes awry when one of Carolyn's beloved cats is kitnapped and held to ransom for a Mondrian. Bernie, remembering a Mondrian at the home of his client decides to return and steal that Mondrian instead of the one in an art gallery specified by the kitnappers.

He encounters a lovely and congenial lady, but no Mondrian. The next day he's arrested and charged with murder. How can he save his skin, and that of the cats? It's a classic Bernie conundrum.

The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994)

Bernie Rhodenbarr is actually trying to earn an honest living. It's been an entire year since he's entered anyone's abode illegally to help himself to their valuables. But now an unscrupulous landlord's threat to increase Bernie's rent by 1,000% is driving the bookseller and reformed burglar back to a life of crime -- though, in all fairness, it's a very short trip. And when the cops wrongly accuse him of stealing a priceless collection of baseball cards, Bernie's stuck with a worthless alibi since he was busy burgling a different apartment at the time . . . one that happened to contain a dead body locked inside a bathroom.

So Bernie has a dilemma. He can trade a burglary charge for a murder rap. Or he can shuffle all the cards himself and try to find the joker in the deck -- someone, perhaps, who believes that homicide is the real Great American Pastime. (source: Amazon.com)

The Burglar Who Dropped In On Elvis (1990)

Short story. A journalist from a trashy newspaper offers Bernie money to photograph the upstairs rooms at Graceland, which are closed to the public.

The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995)

Bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr's in love--with an exotic Eastern European beauty who shares his obsession with Humphrey Bogart movies. He's in heaven, munching popcorn with his new amour every night at a Bogart Film Festival--until their Casablanca-esque idyll is cut short by his other secret passion: burglary.

When he's hired to pilfer a portfolio of valuable documents from a Park Avenue apartment, Bernie can hardly refuse. But the occupant's early return forces Bernie to flee empty-handed--and he soon finds himself implicated in a murder. Before you can say "who stole the strawberries?" he's hunting for a killer, up to his neck in the outrageous intrigues of a tiny Balkan nation . . . and menaced by more sinister fat men and unsavory toadies than the great Bogie himself butted heads with in pursuit of that darn bird! (source: Amazon.com)

The Burglar in the Library (1997)

Bookseller and New-Yorker-to-the-bone, Bernie Rhodenbarr rarely ventures out of Manhattan, but he's excited about the romantic getaway he has planned for himself and current lady love Lettice at the Cuttleford House, a remote upstate b&b. Unfortunately, Lettice has a prior engagement--she's getting married . . . and not to Bernie--so he decides to take best buddy Carolyn instead. A restful respite from the big city's bustle would be too good to waste. Besides, there's a very valuable first edition shelved in the Cuttleford's library that Bernie's just itching to get his hands on. Did we neglect to mention that Bernie's a burglar?

But first he's got to get around a very dead body on the library floor. The plot's thickened by an isolating snowstorm, downed phone lines, the surprise arrival of Lettice and her reprehensible new hubby, and a steadily increasing corpse count. And it's Bernie who'll have to figure out whodunit . . . or die. (source: Amazon.com)

The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke (1997)

Short Story

It was published as a special insert in Mary Higgins Clark's mystery magazine and in an anthology of similar husband/wife collaborations, and has been chosen for locked-room anthologies. I included it in my omnibus collection of short fiction, Enough Rope, so if you already own that book, or want to acquire it in eBook form, you may not need to snap up this present offering. (Block)

The Burglar in the Rye (1999)

This time, Bernie's tapped to retrieve the lost letters of famed and reclusive author Gulliver Fairborn. But instead of the letters, Bernie finds one dead literary agent, a beautiful woman, and a cadre of cops in his way. (source: Amazon.com)

The Burglar on the Prowl (2004)

Antiquarian bookseller by day, burglar by night, Bernie has an innate knack, a gift, for getting into places designed to keep him out.

Sophisticated yet down-to-earth, philosophical yet practical, Bernie is a gentleman who knows and loves his territory, the gloriously diverse and electric streets of Manhattan; a connoisseur who surrounds himself with the finer things in life, including his tailless Manx tabby, Raffles, and good friends like his neighbor Carolyn. In fact, it's a friend who gets him in his latest jam. Bernie is minding his own business when he's asked for a favour -- a neat, uncomplicated bit of vengeful larceny that will reap a tidy profit -- an offer the intrepid thief can't refuse. (source: Amazon.com)

The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons

Bernie is commissioned to steal items for a collector of buttons and button-related materials. His contented New York existence is interrupted yet again by the appearance of bent cop Ray Kirshmann looking for the solution for a mysterious death. Life, as always, gets interesting for a bookseller who likes a little crime on the side.

The Burglar Takes a Cat

It's not a new story, it is in fact an extract from one of the novels, but all the same I'm pleased to point you to The Burglar Takes a Cat, in which the ineffable Raffles comes into Bernie's life. (Lawrence Block on facebook)