Lawrence Block is certainly one of the most--if not the most--prolific writers of detective fiction in the United States. He has published more than fifty novels, in addition to dozens of short stories, a detailed bimonthly newsletter on his life and writing, and extensive nonfiction articles, many of them on the craft of writing, including a widely read column for more than twenty years in Writer's Digest. Whereas most mystery writers would be grateful to have created a single enormously successful sleuth, Block is the originator of two best-selling series: the fourteen Matt Scudder novels have established his reputation in the hard-bitten, hard-drinking tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, while his nine novels of the "Burglar" series, featuring the whimsical "detective thief " Bernie Rhodenbarr in cat-and-mouse investigations among the rich, have overtones of the British tea-cozy school of polite detection. A third series of thriller novels, about...