This will be a "double feature" release:
this Hit Man plus its sequel Hit List.

See also the Hit List registration.

Lawrence Block writes fun and entertaining whudunnits with a bookseries about Bernie Rhodenbarr, an antiquarian bookseller who is actually a burglar. He also keeps delivering new works in another series, about Tanner, a secret agent who never sleeps, and there's a number of funny detectives about a young man, Chip Harrison, who learns the trade of private detective from a highly intelligent breeder of tropical fish. Block also published a number of one-up books, like Random Walk, a philosophically inspiring road-novel, or the thriller Ariel.

HIT MAN started a more recent series. The first collection is especially fascinating. I found it rather surprising how he introduces Keller, who's a killer by profession. A very nice and interesting guy, so you follow his work closely and if you find his occupation in any way shocking, what's so shocking about it is that you, as a reader, find yourself more bonded to the killer than to his "victims".

Here are a few "Block quotes" as a sample of his masterful way with words:

"Something about him made me feel as though I must have done something wrong, and that my not knowing what it might be was no excuse at all."
[Lawrence Block, "In the Midst of Death"]

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"She looked at me, and for a short moment we challenged one another with our eyes. I didn't know then and do not know now precisely what happened, but our eyes met and exchanged wordless messages, and something must have been settled on the spot, although we were not consciously aware of the settlement or even of the messages that preceded it."
[Lawrence Block, "In the Midst of Death"]

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"The night was cool, the moon nearly full in the cloudless sky. Ferenc was an uneven driver, making up in sheer determination what he lacked in natural ability. He aimed the car instead of steering it, and he was more a tactician than a strategist; he would hurl us into hairpin curves with no prior planning, then figure out a way to keep us on the road. I was a while getting used to this, but eventually decided that there as nothing too precarious in what he was doing. It only seemed that way."
[Lawrence Block, "The Cancelled Czech"]

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"The chief was a pudgy man in an expensive blue suit which appeared to have been perfectly tailored fo someone else."
[Lawrence Block, "The Cancelled Czech"]

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"Seidenwall's suits always looked as though someone else had bought them at Robert hall, then wore them day and night for a year before passing them on to Seidenwall."
[Lawrence Block, "The Topless Tulip Caper"]

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"You're my bear and I love you. And you're about to drop off to sleep, aren't you? Unless I keep you awake by glowing in the dark. I almost could, the way I feel. Why does sex wake women up and put men to sleep? Is it just bad planning on God's part or does it somehow contribute to the survival of the species?"
[Lawrence Block, "Even the Wicked"]

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"I made haste slowly. (...) I went outside and sat on a bench in Bryant Park and went over my notes. It was a perfect fall day, and the air had the tang of a crisp apple. They'd been forecasting rain, but you didn't even have to look at the sky to know that it wasn't going to rain that day. It felt in fact as though it would never rain, or turn any colder than it was now. The days wouldn't get any shorter, either. It felt like eternal autumn, stretching out in front of us until the end of time.
Everybody's favorite season, and you always think it's going to last forever. And it never does."
[Lawrence Block, "Even the Wicked"]

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"In the morning [the boys and I] went out for a big breakfast, pancakes and bacon and sausages. I took them up to the Museum of the American Indian in Washington Heights. There are a couple dozen museums in the city of New York, and when you leave your wife you get to discover them all."
[Lawrence Block, "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes"]

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"I walked around for a few hours. Around one-thirty it started raining lightly. Almost immediately the umbrella sellers turned up on the streetcorners. You'd have thought they had existed previously in spore form, springing miraculously to life when a drop of water touched them."
[Lawrence Block, "Out on the Cutting Edge"]

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"I woke up eight hours later, well rested, glad to be alive, with a clear head and a feeling that all was right with the world, and if you believe that I know a bunch of really nice guyes who'd love to play poker with you."
[Lawrence Block, "The Burglar in the Rye"]

Released on Sunday, August 25, 2002 at City Hall (Stadhuis), Grote Markt in Leuven, Vlaams-Brabant Belgium.

Enter the huge 15th century late gothic City Hall (stadhuis) now in use for the Tourist Information service. There is a wide and high entrance hall. To the right, there's an elevated floor and on it a wooden lecture stand with a microphone on top and on the bottom a knee-high little closet where the speaker can hide some liquor, or books. That's where I placed both Hit Man and Hit List!

For pictures and info about the building check out my homepage.

The location in WGS84 is:

N  50 52.74
E 004 42.08