The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian by Lawrence Block
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"[...] black ribbons uncurled and stretched themselves across the white expanse, extending from top to bottom, from left to right, forming a random rectangular grid. Then one of the enclosed spaces of white blushed and reddened, and another spontaneously took on a faint sky tint that deepened all the way to a rich cobalt blue, and another red square began to bleed in on the lower right, and --
By God, my mind was painting me a Mondrian."

Three months ago I reviewed here The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block, and in the review I wrote:

"[...] there are some similarities between Bernie R[hodenbarr]. and Archie G[oodwin]. (I wish someone could write a story that would allow them to meet)."

and look what happens! On page 38 of my hardcopy edition of The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (1983), we read

"'Archie,' she said. 'They've kidnapped Archie Goodwin.'"

I feel prescient! Also, what a contrast: I did not much care about the Kipling book while I very much like the Mondrian one!

Anyway, about the plot. Archie Goodwin is not really the Archie Goodwin but still, the current installment of the Burglar series starts strongly: Bernie has an interesting day in his used book shop. A customer tries to sell a book that belongs to a library while another customer reads poetry aloud from a tome she is buying. Later Bernie visits the apartment of another customer who hired him to appraise his book collection. Yet... Bernie has his set of burglar tools with him! Then a lot happens: kidnapping, murder, and more. Piet Mondrian's paintings provide anchors to fix the narrative axis of the plot. Mondrian's paintings disappear, reappear, and get stolen to order.

Wonderful, light, delightful prose! Bernie and his friend, Wally, run in Central Park and do 9:20 miles. Well, at their age, I could do a 7:15 mile! The account of a brief affair between Bernie and Andrea is totally charming. As are further passages dedicated to sexual attraction:

"'Especially since you'd like to verb her again.'
'Well ---'
'And why not? She's got a nifty pair of nouns.'"

(By the way, I have just found out that these cute phrases are now a part of the contemporary Urban Dictionary. Did the Dictionary take it from Mr. Block? Or the other way around?) And what about the following hilarious fragment:

"'Performance art,' Denise was saying. 'First you paint a picture and then you destroy it. Now all we need is Christo to wrap it in aluminum foil. Shall I wrap it up or will you eat it here?'
'Neither,' I said, and began removing my clothes."

Mondrian is a very funny book, in altogether higher class than the Kipling installment. If not for the extremely lame denouement setting, where all suspects are gathered in one place, and the murderer is exposed, I would've give the novel a four-star rating. Even with the lame ending it is a great read!

Three-and-a-half stars.

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