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.
When the Sacred Ginmill Closes
Summary
When ex-cop Matt Scudder thought back on the summer of '75, two faces emerged from behind the smoky haze of a half dozen boozy saloons that made up his beat: Skip Devoe and Tommy Tillary - two bar flies he wouldn't have given a second thought to in the bright light of day. Yet they and their troubles were the reason that moved him a little farther out of the bleary-eyed mess that had become his life.
©1986 Lawrence Block (P)1991 Recorded Books
Not Comin' Home to You
Summary
Jimmie John Hall wasn't anything until he was a killer, and Betty Dienhardt wasn't anything until she met Jimmie John Hall. When they get together, sparks fly and bullets follow. The first to go are Betty's parents, but Betty isn't bothered. She only wants to be with her man - the first person to ever make her feel special. They set off on a cross-country spree, killing for gas money and food, killing to swap their car for one the police aren't looking for. As the dragnet draws tighter, they only grow closer, riding a road that leads to death because death has surrounded them all the time.
©1974 Paul Kavenaugh (P)2011 Dreamscape Media
The Burglar in the Library
Summary
Lawrence Block's talent for creating colorful characters, sophisticated dialog, and engaging atmosphere has earned him many awards: the title of Grand Master, three Edgar Awards, four Shamus Awards, and a Nero Wolfe Award. One of his most popular series follows the adventures of the suave bookseller and crook, Bernie Rhodenbarr. Bernie's sweetheart has dumped him. But although his heart is broken, he hasn't lost his love for fine books - or for an occasional discrete burglary. So Bernie takes off for a snowy winter weekend at a country inn that just happens to have a rare, signed first edition of The Big Sleep in its library. It's not long, however, before Bernie's ex-girlfriend arrives with her new husband, a body is found in the library, and the book disappears. Bernie must sort out a tricky tangle of clues if he has any hope of nabbing the priceless edition for himself. Narrator Richard Ferrone captures Bernie's cool demeanor and his flair for perfect timing.
©1999 Lawrence Block (P)2000 Recorded Books LLC
The Liar's Bible
Summary
Five-time Edgar winner and MWA grand master Lawrence Block wrote a monthly column for the Writers Digest magazine for 14 years. The Liar's Bible consists of previously uncollected columns, chosen to illuminate the often dimly-lit path of the writer of fiction.
©2011 Lawrence Block (P)2019 Lawrence Block
Passport to Peril
Summary
A thriller loaded with international intrigue from mystery master Lawrence Block. Struggling folksinger Ellen Cameron can't believe her luck. Not only is the State Department sponsoring her trip to West Berlin, but her agent has arranged for her to tour Ireland. It's just the break she needs. And better yet, she's meeting the friendliest and most interesting people on her trip, from a kind priest on the plane to a handsome American studying abroad. But things - and people - aren't always what they seem, and her European adventure could turn out to be the type of international affair she never imagined. Author's note: This book was originally published by Lancer Books under the pen name Anne Campbell Clarke, a pseudonym I never used before or since. I'd been engaged to write a romantic espionage novel in the tradition of Helen MacInnes, and chose Ireland as a setting, being familiar with the countryside and with the folk music. I had a good time writing it, but, of course, that's no guarantee you'll have a good time listening to it. But I certainly hope you do.
©1967, 2016, 2020 Lawrence Block (P)2020 Lawrence Block
Tanner's Twelve Swingers
Summary
Presenting Evan Tanner - the first series character created by Lawrence Block, best-selling author of A Walk Among the Tombstones... Ever since a shred of shrapnel did a number on his brain's sleep center, Even Tanner has been awake 24/7. This gives him more time than your average underachiever. Time to learn the world's languages (he's fluent in Basque, but has trouble with Chinese). Time to embrace the world's lost causes and irredentist movements (The Flat Earth Society, the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia, the Society of the Left Hand). Time to write term papers theses for students with more money than knowledge. And, most importantly, time to do his dreaming while he's wide awake. Karlis, Tanner's comrade in the Latvian Army in Exile, is pining for his true love, a gymnast who can't get out of the Soviet Union. So Tanner sneaks through a hole in the Iron Curtain, meets the child he unwittingly fathered on an earlier trip to Macedonia, smuggles a dissident intellectual out of Yugoslavia, adds to his retinue a six-year-old Lithuanian girl, who'd be the rightful heir to the Lithuanian throne if there ever were one, and winds up not with one Latvian gymnast but with a whole company of them. (Collect them all! Win valuable prizes!) And he does all this without a passport. Oh, he had one, but he gave it away...
©2016 Lawrence Block (P)2017 Lawrence Block
Tanner's Virgin
Summary
Presenting Evan Tanner - the first series character created by Lawrence Block, best-selling author of A Walk Among the Tombstones. Ever since a shred of shrapnel did a number on his brain's sleep center, Even Tanner has been awake 24/7. This gives him more time than your average underachiever. Time to learn the world's languages (he's fluent in Basque, but has trouble with Chinese). Time to embrace the world's lost causes and irredentist movements (The Flat Earth Society, the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia, the Society of the Left Hand). Time to write term papers theses for students with more money than knowledge. And, most important, time to do his dreaming while he's wide awake. Phaedra Harrow, nee Deborah Horowitz, is an occasional companion of Tanner's, albeit a determined virgin. She goes off on a bargain-priced world tour - and Tanner later learns that the tour's a bargain for a reason: the London-based wanker-in-chief accepts only unattached female travelers, takes them halfway around the world to Afghanistan, and cheerfully sells them into white slavery. Next thing you know Tanner's on his way to pre-Taliban Kabul, where, you won't be surprised to learn, many interesting things happen. And that's just the beginning... Tanner's Virgin was originally published as Here Comes a Hero, the title supplied by some ninny at Fawcett. What were they thinking? Anyway, here it is, back again in all its glory...
©1968, 2016 Lawrence Block (P)2018 Lawrence Block
The Merciful Angel of Death
Summary
Matthew Scudder is called to a hospice center for AIDS patients to investigate what the press is dubbing as "Mercy Killings".
©2011 Lawrence Block (P)2011 AudioGO
In the Midst of Death
Summary
Jerry Broadfield thinks he's a good cop. But now he's been charged with extortion - and his former buddies in the NYPD would like to see him laid out on a morgue slab for squealing to a committee on police corruption. Suddenly, he's got a lot of enemies, and when a dead call girl turns up in his apartment, his troubles get even bigger. Broadfield screams "setup," but nobody believes him - except ex-policeman, now unlicensed PI Matthew Scudder. Because Broadfield turned traitor no cop is going to give Scudder any help with this investigation, so Scudder's on his own. But finding a killer among the stoolie cop's sleazebag connections is going to be as difficult as pouring a cold beer in hell - where some of Broadfield's enemies would like to see Scudder if he gets himself in too deep.
©1976 Lawrence Block. All rights reserved. (P)2011 AudioGo
Alive in Shape and Color
Summary
Even before Lawrence Block could rest on his laurels from "In Sunlight or In Shadow", a question arose. What would he do for an encore? Suppose each author was invited to select a painting from the whole panoply of visual art - from the cave drawings at Lascaux to a contemporary abstract canvas on which the paint has barely dried. And what a dazzling response! Joyce Carol Oates picked "Le Beaux Jours" by Balthus. Warren Moore chose Salvador Dali's "The Pharmacist of Ampurdam Seeking Absolutely Nothing". Michael Connelly has a go at "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Harry's namesake Hieronymous Bosch. S. J. Rozan finds a story in Hokusai's "The Great Wave", while Jeffery Deaver's "A Significant Find” draws its inspiration from-yes-those prehistoric cave drawings at Lascaux. And Kristine Kathryn Rusch moves from painting to sculpture and selects Rodin. In artists ranging from Art Frahm and Norman Rockwell to Rene Magritte and Clifford Still, the impressive concept goes on to include Thomas Pluck, Sarah Weinman, David Morrell, Craig Ferguson, Joe R. Lansdale, Jill D. Block, Justin Scott, Jonathan Santlofer, Gail Levin, Nicholas Christopher, and Lee Child. Contains mature themes.
©2017 Lawrence Block (P)2021 Tantor
Out on the Cutting Edge
Summary
This is a city that seduces dreamers - then eats their dreams. Matthew Scudder understands the futility of his search for a longtime missing Midwestern innocent who wanted to be an actress in the vast meat-grinder called New York City. But her frantic father heard that Scudder is the best, and now the ex-cop turned private investigator is scouring the hell called Hell's Kitchen looking for anything that might resemble a lead. And in this neighborhood of the lost, he's finding love - and death - in the worst possible places.
©1989 Lawrence Block (P)2014 Blackstone Audio
Eight Million Ways to Die
Summary
Battling the bottle one day at a time, ex-cop, sometime PI Matthew Scudder finds that next to staying sober, staying alive seems easy. But in the mean streets of New York City it never is. Not for the prostitute who wanted out and got her beautiful self slashed to ribbons. Not for a pimp named Chance who is betting his life that the broken-down detective can find her murderer. And not for Matthew Scudder - just trying to stay alive in a city that knows nothing better than how to die. Winner of the Shamus Award!
©1982 Lawrence Block; 2012 AudioGO
Resume Speed
Summary
From the legendary author of A Walk Among the Tombstones comes this gripping tale of sudden endings and new beginnings. When a man called Bill spots a sign in a restaurant window, he grabs his carry-on and gets off his bus. Within an hour he's got himself a job as a short-order cook, and a start on a whole new life in Cross Creek, Montana. Things just fall into place. He applies for a library card, and the next thing you know he's having dinner with the librarian. One thing leads to another, and he can see a whole new life stretching out before him.
©2016 Lawrence Block (P)2016 Lawrence Block
Such Men Are Dangerous
Summary
A very dangerous man. That's Paul Kavanagh, an ex-Green Beret with nothing but time on his hands--until he gets an offer to steal a shipment of tactical nuclear weapons form the US government--and finds himself a partner, George Dattner, who has the cold eyes of a trained killer. Each of these men alone is dangerous. But anyone who tries to stop them together is guaranteed not to come out of it alive!
©1969 Lawrence Block (P)2011 AudioGO
A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
Summary
There is no accolade or major mystery award that has not already been bestowed upon Lawrence Block. His acclaimed crime novels are as intelligent, provocative, and emotionally complex as they are nerve-tighteningly intense. And perhaps the most respected of his myriad works are the Matthew Scudder books - masterworks of suspenseful invention featuring a remarkable protagonist rich in conscience and character, with all the flaws that his humanity entails. This is the detective novel as high art. In Matt Scudder's mind, money, power, and position elevate nobody above morality or the law. Now the ex-cop and unlicensed PI has been hired to prove that socialite Richard Thurman orchestrated the brutal murder of his beautiful, pregnant wife. During Scudder's hard-drinking years, he left a piece of his soul on every seedy corner of the Big Apple. But this case is more depraved and more potentially devastating than anything he experienced while floundering in the urban depths. Because this investigation is leading Scudder on a frightening grand tour of New York's sex-for-sale underworld - where an innocent young life is simply a commodity to be bought and perverted … and then destroyed.
©1991 Lawrence Block (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Devil Knows You're Dead
Summary
In New York City, there is little sense and no rules, and those who fly the highest often come crashing down the hardest. A deranged, derelict, crazed Vietnam vet has been arrested for gunning down successful young lawyer Glenn Holtzmann at a corner phone booth on 11th Avenue - and the suspect's brother wants unlicensed private investigator Matthew Scudder to prove the madman innocent. But Scudder's curiosity and dedication are leading him to dark, unexplored places in his own heart…and to passions and secrets that could destroy everything he loves. In this unmerciful metropolis, no one is truly innocent - including Matthew Scudder.
©2009 Lawrence Block (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks
Even the Wicked
Summary
In his popular Matt Scudder mystery series, Edgar and Shamus Award-winner Lawrence Block creates riveting stories set on the hardened streets of New York City. His suspenseful tale Even the Wicked portrays recovering alcoholic P.I. Matt Scudder, who is hot on the trail of a theatrical and twisted criminal. A demented serial killer, who calls himself "The Will of the People", has gained a wide audience by sending warning letters to the Daily News. When "Will" names a prominent criminal defense attorney as his next victim, Matt suddenly finds himself protecting an old associate. Matching his wits against the wily murderer, Matt must race to uncover "Will's" identity before he loses his lawyer friend. Proclaimed a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, Lawrence Block skillfully captures the street-smart language and lifestyles of his home city. Narrator Mark Hammer provides the perfect voices for eccentric characters and evil-minded lawbreakers.
©2007 Lawrence Block (P)2007 Recorded Books, LLC
Hope to Die
Summary
The city caught its collective breath when upscale couple Byrne and Susan Hollander were slaughtered in a brutal home invasion. Now, a few days later, the killers themselves have turned up dead behind the locked door of a Brooklyn hellhole - one apparently slain by his partner in crime, who then took his own life. There's something drawing Matthew Scudder to this case that the cops have quickly and eagerly closed: a nagging suspicion that a third man is involved, a cold, diabolical puppet master who manipulates his two accomplices then cuts their strings when he's done with them. No one but Scudder even suspects he exists. And his worst fear is that the guy is just getting started....
©2016 Lawrence Block (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
A Long Line of Dead Men
Summary
An ancient brotherhood meets annually in the back room of a swank Manhattan restaurant, a fraternity created in secret to celebrate life by celebrating its dead. But the past three decades have not been kind to the Club of 31. Matthew Scudder - ex-cop and ex-boozer - has known death in all its guises, which is why he has been asked to investigate a baffling thirty-year run of suicides and suspiciously random accidents that has thinned the ranks of this very select group of gentlemen. But Scudder has mortality problems of his own, for his is a city that feeds mercilessly on the unsuspecting - even the powerful and those who serve them are easy prey. There are too many secrets here, too many places fora maddeningly patient serial killer to hide…and wait…and strike.
©1994 Lawrence Block (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
A Ticket to the Boneyard
Summary
Matthew Scudder is about to face every cop's worst nightmare: James Leo Motley, psychopath extraordinaire. Twelve years ago Matthew Scudder lied to a jury to put James Leo Motley behind bars. Now the ingenious psychopath is free, and the alcoholic ex-cop turned private investigator must pay dearly for his sins. Friends and former lovers - even strangers unfortunate enough to share Scudder's name - are turning up dead because a vengeful maniac is determined not to rest until he's driven his nemesis back to the bottle…and then to the boneyard.
©1990 Lawrence Block (P)2014 Blackstone Audio