Lawrence Block has 89 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 50 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 41 ratings. The most-rated is The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons.
A Drop of the Hard Stuff
Summary
Edgar Award-winning author Lawrence Block has been named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. A Drop of the Hard Stuff continues Block’s popular series starring New York private detective and recovering alcoholic Matthew Scudder. Scudder is already struggling with his sobriety when his friend and fellow AA member Jack Ellery is found murdered. Now the only thing keeping Scudder from the bottle is his obsession with finding the culprit.
©2011 Lawrence Block (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
Hit List
Summary
Keller is a regular guy. He goes to the movies, works on his stamp collection. Call him for jury duty and he serves without complaint. Then every so often, he gets a phone call from White Plains that sends him flying off somewhere to kill a perfect stranger. Keller is a pro and very good at what he does. But the jobs have started to go wrong. The realization is slow coming, yet when it arrives, it is irrefutable: Someone out there is trying to hit the hit man. Keller, God help him, has found his way onto somebody else's hit list.
©2000 Lawrence Block (P)2005 Recorded Books
The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza
Summary
Best-selling author Lawrence Block exposes the wickedly exciting double life of Bernie Rhodenbarr - respectable bookseller by day and notorious burglar by night. In The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza, Bernie applies philosophy to match wits with a wily murderer and a few too many burglars. Bernie and his dog-grooming partner in crime, Carolyn, are planning the perfect crime. Tonight, they will rob a brownstone while the well-heeled owners are out of town with their vicious watch dog. But when Bernie painstakingly picks the lock, they discover somebody has already emptied the house - except for a valuable coin almost too hot to handle. Lawrence Block's finely-crafted plots and well-drawn characters have earned him three Edgar Awards and the title of Grand Master. With his deep, gravelly-toned narration, Richard Ferrone provides the perfect voice for the book-loving thief and his sophisticated friends as they land in one hilarious scrape after another.
©1980 Lawrence Block (P)1999 Recorded Books, LLC
Sinner Man
Summary
Lawrence Block's first crime novel - lost for nearly 50 years! To escape punishment for a murder he didn't mean to commit, insurance man Don Barshter has to take on a new identity: Nathaniel Crowley, ferocious up-and-comer in the New York mob. But can he find safety in the skin of another man...a worse man...a sinner man?
©1960 Lawrence Block (P)2016 Lawrence Block
A Candle for the Bag Lady
Summary
Matthew Scudder investigates the brutal murder of a woman known as the “bag lady.” A seemingly homeless woman, she turns out to have distributed her substantial wealth in a complex will naming random strangers. Where did the money come from? Why was she living in such reduced circumstances? And why in the world did she choose these beneficiaries - the owner of a local newspaper stand, a neighbor she rarely spoke to, the detective himself - when her real friends and acquaintances got nothing at all? And how is all this linked to her murder?
©2011 Lawrence Block (P)2012 AudioGO
Killing Castro
Summary
There were five of them, each prepared to kill, each with his own reasons for accepting what might well be a suicide mission. The pay? $20,000 a piece. The mission? Find a way into Cuba and kill Castro. This breathtaking thriller, originally published the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis (under a pen name by Lawrence Block), is the rarest of Block's books - and still a work of chilling relevance all these years later, with Castro and Cuba once again commanding headlines.
©1961 Lawrence Block (P)2008 BBC Audiobooks America
Dark City Lights
Summary
MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block presents 23 stories, all of them on the dark side, and all of them set in the city that never sleeps. Contibutors include SFWA Grand Master Robert Silverberg (with a story of aliens landing in Central Park), Jonathan Santlofer (with a story of Marilyn Monroe), Brian Koppelman and David Levien (co-creators of Billions, each with a story far removed from the New York of Bobby Axelrod and Chuck Rhoads). And stories by Peter Hochstein, Thomas Pluck, Warren Moore, Elaine Kagan, Parnell Hall, Ed Park, Jane Dentinger, Peter Carlaftes, Jill D. Block, Jim Fusilli, Tom Callahan, Annette Meyers, Bill Bernico, Erin Mitchell, Eve Kagan, Kat Georges, Jerrold Mundis, and SJ Rozan. And Block himself, with a story about a hitman who sets his sights on a dog. Hey, it could happen. Anything can happen in New York.
©2015, 2020 Lawrence Block (P)2021 Lawrence Block
The Topless Tulip Caper
Summary
It's a crime that Times Square dives aren't private investigator Chip Harrison's usual hangouts. Tulip Willing is the star attraction at the Treasure Chest, and also Chip's newest client. It seems she wants cover for a mysterious stranger who's been scaring her out of her clothes. Cherry Bounce, another dancer at the Treasure Chest, is shot dead in the act. Chip finds himself on the trail of a killer who's eager to trap the street-wise detective and strip him of his livelihood forever...
©1975 Lawrence Block (P)2012 AudioGO
Spider, Spin Me a Web
Summary
The craft of writing is a lot like spinning a web: You take threads and weave them skillfully together, and only you know where this intricate network of twists and turns begin and how it will end. Now, with Lawrence Block's expert advice, you can learn this art of entrapping your reader in a maze of fascinating fiction. Spider, Spin Me a Web is the perfect companion volume to Block's previous book on writing, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, which Sue Grafton noted "should be a permanent part of every writer's library". As helpful and supportive as always, Block shares what he's learned over the course of writing over a hundred published books: techniques to help you write a solid piece of fiction, strategies for getting a reader (or editor) to read - and buy - your book, ideas for increasing your creativity, and developing an environment that will nourish you and your craft. Spider, Spin Me a Web is a complete guide to achieving your full potential as a writer.
©1997, 2019 Lawrence Block (P)2019 Lawrence Block
Looking for David
Summary
A 25-year-old cold case of art theft and murder is re-examined when Matthew Scudder and his wife, Elaine, encounter the main suspect in Florence, Italy. Throughout the trip, Scudder comes to realize the killer’s motive and takes the steps towards proving the suspect’s guilt.
©2011 Lawrence Block; 2012 AudioGO
Hit and Run
Summary
Keller's a hit man. For years now, he's had places to go and people to kill. But enough is enough. He's got money in the bank and just one last job standing between him and retirement. So he carries it out with his usual professionalism, and he heads home, but guess what? One more job. Paid in advance, so what's he going to do? Give the money back? In Des Moines, Keller stalks his designated target and waits for the client to give him the go-ahead. And one fine morning, he's picking out stamps for his collection (Sweden 1-5, the official reprints) at a shop in Urbandale when somebody guns down the charismatic governor of Ohio. Back at his motel, Keller's watching TV when they show the killer's face. And there's something all too familiar about that face.... Keller calls his associate, Dot, in White Plains, but there is no answer. He's stranded halfway across the country, every cop in America's just seen his picture, his ID and credit cards are no longer good, and he just spent almost all of his cash on the stamps. Now what?
©2008 Lawrence Block (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers
No Score
Summary
It is a mystery why a street-smart young man like Chip Harrison has to resort to elaborate plans to attract a young woman like Francine. But someone turns Chip’s dream into a nightmare of danger. Chip has to act fast and furiously in a sizzling and suspenseful adventure that only Edgar Award-winning Lawrence Block could have written. In this barrel of fun, Chip Harrison rightfully takes his place beside Block’s best-known characters.
©1970 Lawrence Block. All rights reserved. (P)2012 AudioGo
Chip Harrison Scores Again
Summary
When young, broke, and single Chip Harrison finds a bus ticket to Bordentown, South Carolina, he knows it was sent by the hand of fate. It’s his way out of wintry New York City, Bordentown’s sheriff provides a very warm welcome! Before long, Chip charms his way into the sheriff’s good graces and into the arms of Lucille, the preacher’s daughter. Even Chip should see he is headed for trouble with a capital T, in another furiously funny caper by Edgar Award-winning author Lawrence Block.
©1971 Lawrence Block (P)2012 BBC America
The Crime of Our Lives
Summary
An MWA Grand Master tells it straight: Fredric Brown: “When I read Murder Can Be Fun, I had a bottle of bourbon on the table and every time Brown’s hero took a drink, I had a snort myself. This is a hazardous undertaking when in the company of Brown’s characters, and, I’ve been given to understand, would have been just as dangerous around the author himself. By the time the book was finished, so was I.” Raymond Chandler: “You have to wonder how he got it so right. He spent a lot of time in the house - working, reading, writing letters. He saw to his wife, who required a lot of attention in her later years. And when he did get out, you wouldn’t find him walking the mean streets. La Jolla, it must be noted, was never much for mean streets.” Evan Hunter: “In his mid-70s, after a couple of heart attacks, an aneurysm, and a siege of cancer that had led to the removal of his larynx, Evan wrote Alice in Jeopardy. And went to work right away on Becca in Jeopardy, with every intention of working his way through the alphabet. Don’t you love it? Here’s a man with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, and he’s perfectly comfortable launching a 26 book series.” Donald E. Westlake’s Memory: “Here’s the point: Don’s manuscript arrived, and we had dinner and put the kid to bed, and I started reading. And my wife went to bed, and I stayed up reading, and after a while I forgot I was having a heart attack, and just kept reading until I finished the book around dawn. And somewhere along the way I became aware that my friend Don, who’d written a couple of mysteries and some science fiction and his fair share of soft-core erotica, had just produced a great novel.” Charles Willeford: “Can a self-diagnosed sociopath be at the same time an intensely moral person? Can one be a sociopath, virtually unaware of socially prescribed morality, and yet be consumed with the desire to do the right thing? That strikes me as a spot-on description of just about every character Willeford ever wrote. How could he come up with characters like that? My God, how could he help it?” An MWA Grand Master and a multiple winner of the Edgar, Shamus, and Maltese Falcon awards, Lawrence Block’s reflections and observations come from over a half century as a writer of bestselling crime fiction. Several of his novels have been filmed, most recently A Walk Among the Tombstones, starring Liam Neeson. While he’s best known for his novels and short fiction, along with his books on the craft of writing, that's not all he’s written. The Crime of Our Lives collects his observations and personal reminiscences of the crime fiction field and some of its leading practitioners. He has a lot to say, and he says it here in convincing and entertaining fashion.
©2015 Lawrence Block (P)2019 Lawrence Block
Me Tanner, You Jane
Summary
It's a jungle out there. Literally. At least for Evan Tanner, an eternally sleepless, sometime superspy, who finds himself in Africa on the trail of the AWOL ruler of tiny Modonoland. It seems the petty despot's gone missing, and he's taken the state treasury along with him. No stranger to impossible missions and international peril, Tanner's been in over his head before. This time, however, he's in imminent danger of being buried alive. And it all has to do with the CIA, white supremacists, moderate revolutionaries...and a blond jungle bombshell named (no joke!) Sheena. Tanner's always been a sucker for a pretty face and a curvaceous body, especially one that's wrapped in leopard skin. But this red-hot renegade daughter of a local missionary is a man-eater. Which means this time Tanner's goose is well and truly cooked.
©2009 Lawrence Block (P)2019 Lawrence Block
One Last Night at Grogan's
Summary
Matthew Scudder, his wife, Elaine, Mick Ballou, and Mick's new wife sit around a table in Mick's Hell's Kitchen saloon for one last night of stories before the building is transferred to its new owners.
©2011 Lawrence Block (P)2012 AudioGO
The Triumph of Evil
Summary
<>p>Assassinations, political upheaval, student riots, and conservative rage. In the thick of the Cold War, it was the perfect recipe for revolution, and it only took a gentle push to send a nation toppling into dictatorship. But what if it happened in the United States? Miles Dorn can make it so. A hired killer with no past and no future, he steps out of retirement and sets his sights on the political leaders holding America back from the brink. When they fall, a tyrant will step forward and Dorn will disappear again. But as the death toll rises, he finds himself growing close to a civilian who makes him question his path. Can he turn back before it's too late for him - and America?
©1971 Paul Kavanagh (P)2011 Dreamscape Media, LLC
A Stab in the Dark
Summary
Nine long years have passed since the killer last struck - nine years since eight helpless young women were brutally slaughtered by an icepick-wielding maniac. The trail grew cold and the book was unofficially closed on a serial killer who stopped killing. But now "The Icepick Prowler" has confessed - but only to seven of the killings. Not only does he deny the eighth, he has an airtight alibi. Barbara Ettinger's family had almost come to accept that the young woman was the victim of a random killing. Now they must grapple with the shocking revelation that not only was her death disguised to look like the serial killer's work, but her murderer may have been someone she knew and trusted. Matthew Scudder has been hired to finally bring her slayer to justice, setting the relentless detective on the trail of a death almost a decade old, searching for a vicious murderer who's either long gone, long dead... or patiently waiting to kill again.
©1981 Lawrence Block. All rights reserved. (P)2011 AudioGo
Make Out with Murder
Summary
Chip Harrison has finally secured himself a job, acting as the man-about-town for the corpulent detective Leo Haig. And it's on the dangerous streets of New York that Chip brings home his first case, one in which five beautiful sisters are being systematically murdered by a killer with a diabolical design. Three of the Trelawney women have already been bumped off, and now Chip is cozying up to the remaining two, and investigating a couple of other nefarious relatives with motive on their minds. The solution is a tantalizing brain-teaser that only Edgar Award-winning Lawrence Block could have written.
©1974 Lawrence Block (P)2012 AudioGO
Coward's Kiss
Summary
Ed London is the type of private investigator that you call to clean up the mess when your mistress turns up dead. But after he dumps a body in Central Park, it appears this case is still alive and kicking. Seems that the dead girl was in possession of something special that some very shady characters want back. Now Ed, along with his pretty actress friend Maddy, will have to crack the case before he ends up dead himself. But there's more than a murder here; there's missing jewels, Israeli intelligence, Nazi spies, and a host of double-dealing, backstabbing thieves.
©1961 by Fawcett Publications Inc. All rights reserved. (P)2011 AudioGo