Lawrence Block

"A man named Nicholas Edwards lives in New Orleans renovating houses, doing honest work and making decent money at it. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he used to kill people for a living. But when the nation's economy tanks, taking the construction business with it, all it takes is one phone call to drag him back into the game. It may say Nicholas Edwards on his driver's license and credit cards, but he's back to being the man he always was:...

Accused of a murder he did not commit, a master thief is determined to prove his innocence.

Framed for a high-profile murder that he did not commit, contract hit man John Keller flees for his life and becomes increasingly suspicious about his handler's ominous unresponsiveness.

Bernie Rhodenbarr is a personable chap, a good neighbor, a passable poker player. His chosen profession, however, might not sit well with some. Bernie is a burglar, a good one, effortlessly lifting valuables from the not-so-well-protected abodes of well-to-do New Yorkers like a modern-day Robin Hood. (The poor, as Bernie would be the first to tell you, alas, have nothing worth stealing.) He's not perfect, however; he occasionally makes mistakes....

"Cashed out from the NYPD after 24 years, Doak Miller operates as a private eye in steamy small-town Florida, doing jobs for the local police. Like posing as a hit man and wearing a wire to incriminate a local wife who's looking to get rid of her husband. But when he sees the wife, when he looks into her deep blue eyes... He falls--and falls hard. Soon he's working with her, against his employer, plotting a devious plan that could get her free from...

Matthew Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life, one of stability and respectability- even the New York streets don't look so mean anymore. He's married to a woman he loves, and wonder of wonders, he's actually gotten around to becoming an officially licensed private investigator. Then all hell breaks loose. Matthew' s best friend from Hell's Kitchen asks for his help, and Scudder' s world is suddenly turned...

Matt Scudder is an ex-NYPD cop who now works as an unlicensed private investigator operating just outside the law. When Scudder agrees to help a heroin trafficker hunt down the men who kidnapped and then brutally murdered his wife, the PI learns that this is not the first time these men have committed this sort of twisted crime, nor will it be the last. Blurring the lines between right and wrong, Scudder races to track the deviants through the backstreets...

"The colonel was right. You had to draw a line through mankind, a wavy line but a line, and on one side you had Good and on the other side you had Evil. There was good and bad in everyone, sure, and every shitheel was some mother's son, and it was all well and good to know this, but when push came to shove, it was just words; there was Good and Evil with no shades of gray and Judgment Day came seven time a week." Meet the Specialists, five good men,...