MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block presents 23 stories, all of them on the dark side, and all of them set in the city that never sleeps.

In the 1980s, Lawrence Block developed an interactional seminar that adapted elements of the human potential movement specifically for writers. For several years, he and his wife, Lynne, traveled the country conducting seminars that focused on the inner game of writing and designed to enable participants to get out of their own way and put their best work on paper. 

Lawrence Block's new collection assembles seven works of fiction produced over a period of 60 years. 

Ever since a shred of shrapnel did a number on his brain's sleep center, Even Tanner has been awake 24/7. This gives him more time than your average underachiever. Time to learn the world's languages (he's fluent in Basque, but has trouble with Chinese). Time to embrace the world's lost causes and irredentist movements (The Flat Earth Society, the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia, the Society of the Left Hand). Time to write term papers theses for students with more money than knowledge.

I wrote three paperback original novels for Berkley under the pen name Jill Emerson, two of them in diary form, the third a presumed collaborative novel written in concert by the three viewpoint characters. These were fun to do and worked out well, and they led to Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man. I riffed on the experience of my friend George Dickerson, who, like the novel's protagonist, had the magazine he was editing folded out from under him.

The hooker was young, pretty...and dead, butchered in a Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, was also dead, the victim of a jailhouse suicide. The case is closed, as far as the NYPD is concerned. Now the murdered prostitute's father wants it opened again--that's where Matthew Scudder comes in.

Matthew Scudder, a down-but-not-out-detective, is shocked by the apparent suicide of Paula, a waitress at Armstrong’s, one of Scudder’s hangouts. When Paula’s sister shows up and asks Matt to investigate what she believes to be a murder, Scudder agrees to take on the case. A number of clues don’t add up to suicide, and Scudder’s investigation leads him to the dark corners of Paula’s world.

In this first in a series of wickedly funny mysteries, best-selling author Lawrence Block introduces Bernie Rhodenbarr, sometimes burglar, sometimes sleuth. Pulling only an occasional, very discreet job, Bernie manages to maintain his comfortable New York City apartment and keep his unorthodox vocation a closely-guarded secret. Every burglar knows never to trust anonymous phone calls. But when the caller offers easy money for an hour's work, Bernie can't ignore the job.

Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, David Gerrold, explores the darker realms in these seven unsettling stories. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a pet dinosaur? Or maybe you'd like to attend the devil's enrollment seminar? Or perhaps a sleepless journey on the night train to Paris? And by the way...what's chewing on the dream catcher?

To escape punishment for a murder he didn't mean to commit, insurance man Don Barshter has to take on a new identity: Nathaniel Crowley, ferocious up-and-comer in the New York mob. But can he find safety in the skin of another man...a worse man...a sinner man?

Name: Brown (just Brown, ma’am). Physical Appearance/Demeanor: Bear (That’s grizzly - consider yourself warned.). Occupation: Private Dick. Clients: San Antonio’s Finest, area’s most notorious gang boss, hitmen, world renowned artists, Olmos Elementary School entire third grade class. Cases: Find some body and return them to their forever home. Find wife-beating boyfriend before contracted hitman does. Perform background checks on the bad guys. Find lost animals.

French Quarter Vendetta is an old fashioned whodunit. Set in historic, fun loving New Orleans, the plot untangles a tale of murder, mystery, betrayal and jealousy. Follow along as Lieutenant James "Gator" McNeal and his team wade through a list of suspects that include a union president, a state senator's wife, a jealous mistress, a spoiled stepson, an ambitious assistant, a union thug and even a street kid and two-bit drug dealer.

A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune - the elements don't quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation. 

A child predator known as the Snatcher is presumed at large throughout South Florida. To some, he's a ghost. To others, he's evil incarnate. To Sergeant Miriam Castillo, he's the monster who kidnapped her daughter, Ana, leaving behind a horrifying crime scene. With Ana's life hanging in the balance, Miriam enters a nightmarish world to face a remorseless villain who has terrorized her community for far too long.

You are Dr. James Healey and last week you were a genius that was before the DNA experiments. Before the accident you said could never happen since then you have felt your mind decaying a little more each day. You have watched your wife slip into imbecility. You have seen the crowds growing murderous with animal terror, the president of the United States babbling and drooling on tv only one thing separates you from them.