Lawrence Block, The Burglar on the Prowl

Any month that includes a new Block novel has at least one thing going for it. A master of both heavy drama and light comedy, Block’s capable of some powerful writing; at his peak, in a novel like When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, he can stand next to Raymond Chandler and stare him in the eye. His latest, featuring charming gentleman thief Bernie Rhodenbarr, is the tenth in a comic series that’s as inconsequential as a meringue, but just as tasty. Burglar on the Prowl sees Bernie relieving the boredom before an easy heist with some extracurricular nighttime crime. Soon the bodies are piling up, and guess who looks guilty? The protagonist might steal diamonds or hearts, but he’d never kill anybody—after all, Block based Bernie on Cary Grant’s dapper persona; it’s perhaps doubly apt, then, that George Clooney’s working on a film version of the first Rhodenbarr novel.