The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"[...] we were sitting in a Blimpie Base on Broadway, planning the commission of a felony. That set us apart from the other customers, who looked to have gotten well past the planning stage. "

I read Lawrence Block's "Burglar" series only for the wonderful prose and humor. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams is not as great as my previous read in the series The Burglar In the Rye but still, I had fun reading this installment of Bernie Rhodenbarr saga and finding many jewels of witty prose. I also think that many readers will appreciate the meta-literary motif of this novel. While in the other novel You-Know-Who was constantly in the background (and in the rye, obviously), here we have recurring allusions to Sue Grafton's series. For instance, how about G is for Spot and D is for Cup?

The story begins when a customer visits Bernie's used book shop to buy Ms. Grafton's B is for Burglar. Yet the customer happens to be Bernie's new landlord, who announces that he is increasing the rent by 1200%. Poor Bernie! How can he get that much money to pay the rent! Wait! After all, Bernie has a real job in addition to being a bookseller! He is so accomplished at it that he could get a PhD in burgling!

Amidst the rent increase trouble, Carolyn, Bernie's best friend, gets him a cat. Bernie hires Raffles as an employee in his bookstore, responsible for rodent control. But where does Ted Williams come in? Well, baseball cards collecting is the other main motif in the novel. We also have a mysterious young woman whom Bernie meets at night and who asks him to walk her home. I will not explain any more of the plot; I could truthfully say that it is too complicated and has too many twists, but the real reason is that I totally don't care about what is happening and it is only the witty prose and instructional descriptions of burgling activities that keep me reading.

The novel ends conventionally, with the horrendous (for me) Wolfean-style gathering of all characters in one place, which allows Bernie to announce the guilty party. Yuck! Also, there is quite a bit less humor in this novel than in Rye, but still, I had lots of fun reading. How can one not smile when reading the phrase coup de foie gras. Or the following cute passage:

"The dress was a perfect choice; it made her look as respectable as a Junior League luncheon while leaving no doubt whatsoever that she was a female member of her species, and that it was a distinctly mammalian species at that."

Also, let me mention that the introduction of Raffles to the cast is not just a random component. The cat plays quite an essential role in helping Bernie solve the case. I don't have the faintest idea who did what in the novel but I certainly liked reading it! Recommended!

Three-and-a-quarter stars.


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