Reviews

The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart by Lawrence Block

psteve's review against another edition

3.0

Enjoyable if slight. Bernie Rhodenbarr is a bookstore-owning burglar in New York, and a regular character of Block's. In this one, a strange Eastern-European walks into his bookstore (of all the bookstores in all the world...), and strikes up an acquaintance. She's planning on attending a Bogart film festival, and he goes along. They go to almost every Bogart movie in the festival, on double-bills. At the same time, an acquaintance of his tells hires him to burgle some documents from an apartment. This goes bad, the girl disappears, and our man gets involved in figuring out what was going on, which involves a maybe king of a central European country. Not a lot to it, though all the Bogart references, both subtle and not are fun, especially at the end.

mburnamfink's review against another edition

4.0

It's a Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery, so you know what's up, with gentleman thieving and some light murder. Bernie has a new girlfriend, an Eastern European beauty named Ilona who's into Humphrey Bogart films. Bernie is hired to steal a portfolio of documents from an apartment, and when he partner winds up dead, well, maybe he's been watching too many movies, but you have to avenge your partner.

The plot involves a Balkan micronation, old CIA operations, rare stamps, and lost royal heirs. Bernie stumbles through an unlikely series of coincidences to arrive at his version of justice. It's kinda contrived, kinda dumb, and some fun light reading.

5wamp_creature's review against another edition

2.0

these go so quickly I just had to start another.

guiltyfeat's review

3.0

A Bernie Rhodenbarr pot boiler. Not Block's finest, but a romp nonetheless with a typical ending where Bernie gets everyone in the same room at once and has them all rat each other out.