posted on 21 Nov 2024

The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block

The prolific U.S. novelist, Lawrence Block, now in his 86th year, is probably best known for his hard-boiled, alcohol dependent private investigator, Matt Scudder. Scudder is a character that has been constantly evolving over the years as he moves in and out of addiction – drawing many critics to see in him some of Block’s own struggles with drink. I have read two or three of these Scudder capers but I’m not nearly as fond of them as I am of Block’s more light-hearted series featuring the burglar turned antiquarian book dealer, Bernie Rhodenbarr.

Unlike Scudder, Rhodenbarr doesn’t develop as a character over the series but remains gloriously unrepentant about his addiction to his persona as a ‘loveable’ criminal trying to use his love for books as a way of keeping his fingers occupied and diverting him away from burgling for fun.

Most of this series have titles that start ‘The Burglar Who…..’ and this one, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams was first published in 1994 and marked a return of Bernie after a ten year lay-off. Fans will be delighted to known that, following this return, Rhodenbarr is still going strong and made his most recent appearance in 2022 in The Burglar Who Met Frederic Brown.

The name Ted Williams will be more meaningful to U.S. readers than to us here in the UK because he was a famous baseball player who played for the Boston Red Sox in the 1940s and so inevitably became the subject of one of those baseball trading cards that young American boys (and it was almost always boys) were so fond of collecting. How Bernie Rhodenbarr finds himself trying to steal a set of these collectable trading cards in order that he can save his shop from his exploitative landlord is at the core of this enjoyable romp.

Rhodenbarr’s bosom-buddy is Carolyn Kaiser, a lesbian who runs her own pet-grooming business and the only person Bernie is ever absolutely honest and open with. In fact, other than Bernie, Carolyn and Ray Kirschmann, the plain clothes police detective who is always happy to turn a blind-eye to Bernie’s transgressions, no-one in the book can be trusted and double-cross follows double-cross as we move towards a denouement that is almost reminiscent of a Poirot mystery as all the key players get assembled together in order for Bernie to explain who did what and how.

As you can tell, I’m studiously avoiding saying anything much about the plot because almost anything I do say will be a spoiler but I can give you a few pointers. You come across a dead body, murdered, in a shower in a bathroom locked from in the inside; a duplicitous ‘doll’, a cat that can keep a bookshop mouse-free and a greedy landlord who wants to raise Bernie’s rent by 1000%.

This is a book to kick-back and simply enjoy – you’ll find nothing deep or challenging here but you will discover a writer of tremendous skill having fun. And that’s infectious.

You should be able to find paperback editions of this book without too much trouble and they come cheap. Hurrah.

 

Terry Potter

November 2024