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arbieroo

Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog

It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.

Currently reading

Station Zero
Philip Reeve
Progress: 220/282 pages
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Vess
Progress: 749/997 pages
The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
Robert Chandler
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems
Patrick O'Brian
Progress: 8/160 pages
The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
Marguerite de Navarre
Progress: 152/544 pages
The Poems and Plays of John Masefield
John Masefield
Progress: 78/534 pages
Poems Selected
Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes
Progress: 4/50 pages
Selected Poems
U A Fanthorpe
Progress: 18/160 pages
The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse
Mick Imlah, Robert Crawford
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2
Ursula K. Le Guin
Progress: 133/789 pages

Burglars Can't be Choosers, Robert Block

Burglars Can't Be Choosers - Lawrence Block

So Block has three major series: Scudder the alcoholic detective, Keller the professional killer and Rhodenberry the burglar who solves murders. The impression I have is that I've written them out in order of decreasing popularity, which turns out to be the inverse of how much I like them.

 

It was a bit of a surprise, then, for me to re-read this and discover that Bernard Rhodenberry isn't all that likeable a guy. He's sexist, mildly homophobic and a thief. Block makes him sympathetic (or at least tries to) by having him be funny, honest about his motivations, averse to violence almost to the point of cowardliness (additionally hating guns) and someone who only steals from the rich - even though there's no giving to the poor involved, as well as making him the victim of false murder charge.

 

Somehow it works; I'm rooting for Bernie to solve the murder and clear his name.

 

Our society is changing fast by the way; this is the mid-nineties for Bernard and there are no mobile phones, nobody has heard of the internet - in fact computers are never even mentioned - and these facts stand out like an elephant in a high street, giving things a quaint air of past times that are not even a 1/4 century past.