Mon 24 Aug 2009
TMF Review: LAWRENCE BLOCK – The Burglar in the Closet.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
LAWRENCE BLOCK – The Burglar in the Closet. Random House, hardcover, 1978. Paperback reprints include: Pocket, 1981; Signet, 1997. Film: Warner, 1987, as Burglar, with Whoopi Goldberg as Bernie (as in short for Bernice).
In Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, when last we met our favorite breaking-and-entering expert, Bernie Rhodenbarr, he was nabbed red-handed in an apartment which, quite unknown to him, came complete with a corpse in the bedroom.
This time, he checks around first. While the murder’s being committed, he finds himself accidentally locked up in a closet instead. The victim? No one important, only his dentist’s not-so-favorite ex-wife.
So, in the midst of the comedy routines provided by dentistry and other irreverent views of the world, Bernie is forced once again to become a detective on the run — burglars find it terribly difficult to get policemen to be sympathetic to their job-related problems. The end result is fast, fresh, breezy, and wow, was I slow on the clues!
(very slightly revised).
Bernie Rhodenbarr novels:
2. The Burglar in the Closet (1978)
3. The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979)
4. The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (1980)
5. The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (1983)
6. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994)
7. The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995)
8. The Burglar in the Library (1997)
9. The Burglar in the Rye (1999)
10. The Burglar on the Prowl (2004)
Short stories:
“The Burglar Who Dropped In On Elvis.” Playboy, April 1990
“The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke.” Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Summer/Fall 1997.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
These books have the one quality that may be hardest to define — charm. Bernie is not only clever and a character you willingly pull for, but he is one you feel as if you know, and would actually like to know.
As for the movie, it ranks as one of the worst book to screen adaptations ever made — and that’s saying a lot all things considered. Not Whoopi’s fault though. No one could have carried that film or overcome being so totally miscast.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I really ought to see the movie, just to say I have.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Let me know if you get all the way through it. I don’t think I have gotten more than about thirty minutes into it without giving up.