Bernie Rhodenbarr has gone legit -- almost -- as the new owner of a used bookstore in New York's Greenwich Village. Of course, dusty old tomes don't always turn a profit, so to make ends meet, Bernie's forced, on occasion, to indulge in his previous occupation: burglary. Besides which, he likes it. Now a collector is offering Bernie an opportunity to combine his twin passions by stealing a very rare and very bad book-length poem from a rich man's library. The heist goes off without a hitch. The delivery of the ill-gotten volume, however, is a different story. Drugged by the client's female go-between, Bernie wakes up in her apartment to find the book gone, the lady dead, a smoking gun in his hand, and the cops at the door. And suddenly he's got to extricate himself from a rather sticky real-life murder mystery and find a killer -- before he's booked for Murder One. Bernie Rhodenbarr has gone legit -- almost -- as the new owner of a used bookstore in New York's Greenwich Village. Of course, dusty old tomes don't always turn a profit, so to make ends meet, Bernie's forced, on occasion, to indulge in his previous occupation: burglary. Besides which, he likes it. Now a collector is offering Bernie an opportunity to combine his twin passions by stealing a very rare and very bad book-length poem from a rich man's library. The heist goes off without a hitch. The delivery of the ill-gotten volume, however, is a different story. Drugged by the client's female go-between, Bernie wakes up in her apartment to find the book gone, the lady dead, a smoking gun in his hand, and the cops at the door. And suddenly he's got to extricate himself from a rather sticky real-life murder mystery and find a killer -- before he's booked for Murder One. Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler. The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling By Block, Lawrence HarperTorch ISBN: 0060731257 Chapter One I suppose he must have been in his early twenties. It was hard to be sure of his age because there was so little of his face available for study. His redbrown beard began just below his eyes, which in turn lurked behind thick-lensed horn-rims. He wore a khaki army shirt, unbuttoned, and beneathit his T-shirt advertised the year's fashionable beer, a South Dakota brand reputedly brewed with organic water. His pants were brown corduroy, hisrunning shoes blue with a gold stripe. He was toting a Braniff Airlines flight bag in one illmanicured hand and the Everyman's Library edition of The Poems of William Cowper in the other. He set the book down next to the cash register, reached into a pocket, found two quarters, and placed them on the counter alongside the book. "Ah, poor Cowper," I said, picking up the book. Its binding was shaky, which was why it had found its way to my bargain table. "My favorite's 'TheRetired Cat.' I'm pretty sure it's in this edition." He shifted his weight from foot to foot while I scanned the table of contents. "Here it is. Page one-fifty. You know the poem?" "I don't think so." "You'll love it. The bargain books are forty cents or three for a dollar, which is even more of a bargain. You just want the one?" "That's right." He pushed the two quarters an inch or so closer to me. "Just the one." "Fine," I said. I looked at his face. All I could really see was his brow, and it looked untroubled, and I would have to do something about that. "Forty cents for the Cowper, and three cents for the Governor in Albany, mustn't forget him, and what does that come to?" I leaned over the counter and dazzled him with my pearly-whites. "I make it thirty-two dollars and seventy cents," I said. "Huh?" "That copy of Byron. Full morocco, marbled endpapers, and I believe it's marked fifteen dollars. The Wallace Stevens is a first edition and it's a bargainat twelve. The novel you took was only three dollars or so, and I suppose you just wanted to read it because you couldn't get anything much resellingit." "I don't know what you're talking about." I moved out from behind the counter, positioning myself between him and the door. He didn't look as though he intended to sprint but he waswearing running shoes and you never can tell. Thieves are an unpredictable lot. "In the flight bag," I said. "I assume you'll want to pay for what you took." "This?" He looked down at the flight bag as if astonished to find it dangling from his fingers. "This is just my gym stuff. You know -- sweatsocks, a towel, like that." "Suppose you open