OTHER NOVELS

I’m not thrilled with that heading. Seems awfully vague, doesn’t it? I must say, though, that the alternatives all leave something to be desired. "Non-series novels" defines the books by saying what they aren’t. Might as well call the damn things "non-science fiction," or "non-romance." Publishing circles in the States tend to label such books as "stand-alones," while in the UK the prevailing term is "one-off."

Call them what you will, here they are---in alphabetical order:

AFTER THE FIRST DEATH. First printing: MacMillan, 1969. Alex Penn, recently freed from prison where he was doing life for killing a woman, comes out of an alcoholic blackout in a hotel room with a dead whore on the floor. Hey, who hasn't had a morning like that? The most recent edition is the mass-market paperback from ibooks/Simon & Schuster.

ARIEL. Arbor House, 1980. An adopted child in Charleston, South Carolina, slips into a spooky puberty. Generally considered a horror novel. What I like about it is the relationship between Ariel and her friend Erskine. The Carroll & Graf paperback is out of print. I have copies on hand of a signed limited hardcover edition by G&G books Lawrence Block

	CINDERELLA SIMS First printing: Nightstand Books 1961. First hardcover edition: Subterranean Press 2003. Originally published in paperback as $20 Lust, this early pseudonymous novel of mine had its  true title restored for the Subterranean Press edition. It's a classic noir tale of counterfeiting and love gone wrong. Great cover art by Phil Parks, intro by Ed Gorman and an afterwards from me. Lawrence Block

COWARD'S KISS. Fawcett Gold Medal (as Death Pulls a Doublecross), 1961. The first and last book about private eye Ed London. The Carroll & Graf paperback is out of print. This cover art is for the iBooks paperback reissue; there's a Five Star hardcover first edition available, too.

DEADLY HONEYMOON. Macmillan, 1967. My first hardcover book. Virgin bride's raped on her wedding night, and the bridal couple, instead of reporting the incident, track the bad guys down. Basis of really rotten film, Nightmare Honeymoon. This cover art is for the most recent edition from iBooks in paperback..

A DIET OF TREACLE. Hard Case Crime, Jan. 2008. Originally published in 1961 by Beacon as Pads Are For Passion under the pseudonym Sheldon Lord, and out of print until this HCC reprint. A young girl encounters drugs, sex and disaffection in old Greenwich Village.

THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART. Hard Case Crime, Nov. 2005. Originally published as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback in 1965, followed by a Carroll & Graf paperback and a Five Star hardcover first edition. Two con men with a real estate scam hook up with their target's scorned girlfriend/secretary.

MONA. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1961. The author's first book. Reprinted once by Berkley as Sweet Slow Death, then by Carroll & Graf in paperback. Five Star has a hardcover first edition available. In 2004, Hard Case Crime published it with my original title, GRIFTER'S GAME, and that's the cover art you're seeing to the left.

NOT COMIN' HOME TO YOU. Putnam, 1974. Originally published under the pen name Paul Kavanagh. The Putnam hardcover is one I almost never see at signings, and I suspect it's my rarest book. A fictional interpretation of the Starkweather murders in Nebraska two decades earlier. The most recent edition is the Carroll & Graf paperback; it's out of print, but shouldn't be hard to find.

RANDOM WALK. Tor, 1988. A bartender in Roseburg, Oregon, quits his job and walks across the Cascades. He keeps on walking, and other folks join in, and remarkable things happen. Meanwhile, a real estate guy in Kansas starts driving around the Midwest, killing young women at an astonishing pace. This is a book that some people don't get at all, while others tell me they read it seventeen times and it changed their lives. Long out of print, it's available now through iUniverse's print-on-demand program. PS Publishing produced a limited edition in 2007, read the Forward by Spider Robinson here.

RONALD RABBIT IS A DIRTY OLD MAN. Bernard Geis, 1971. A comic erotic epistolary novel. The hardcover first edition is hard to find. Jim Seels of ASAP Press published a special limited edition a couple of years back, but I believe his stock is exhausted. (E-mail him at asap-publishing@home.com to see if he has copies left.) Subterranean Press has brought out a nice trade paperback edition. Best deal is to buy it from them. Or, while supplies last, you can get a signed copy from me. LAWRENCE BLOCK   SMALL TOWN. Morrow, January 2003. The US hardcover was the true first edition and my 14th stand-alone. Now available in mass-market edition from Harper Torch, October 2003. A multiple-viewpoint big novel about a small town, New York City, where a post 9/11 mourner turns killer, ending some lives, touching others, and holding a whole city hostage. Click here for an excerpt, click here to read the reviews, and click here for my letter to booksellers on the writing of SMALL TOWN.

THE SPECIALISTS. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1969. Five former Green Berets and their one-legged colonel knock off a mob-run bank in the aid of truth, justice, and the American way---not to mention a lot of cash. A hardcover first edition was published a few years ago by James Cahill. I was paid in copies, and ultimately wound up acquiring the publisher's entire inventory. Click here and an autographed copy is yours at a bargain price.

SUCH MEN ARE DANGEROUS. MacMillan, 1969. The first book under the Paul Kavanagh pen name. That's also the name of the lead character, a burnt-out Special Ops guy who hijacks a shipment of sophisticated weapons. Very dark, very nasty. This cover art is for the most recent edition from iBooks in paperback. A hardcover first edition is a future possibility. If it happens, you'll read about it here.

THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL. World, 1971. Paul Kavanagh was the purported author, but the protagonist is Miles Dorn, a Middle European agent provocateur who assassinates a string of political figures in aid of a conspiracy to subvert the American government. But he has his own agenda. A few years ago, an ex-CIA type spotted the book on a shelf in my apartment and commented on it. "My husband wrote it," she told him. "Yeah, right," he said, rolling his eyes. "Listen, we know all about that book. Author used to be with the Company." "But my husband---" "Hey," he said, backing away, "if that's what he told you, fine." The most recent edition is the Carroll & Graf paperback, no longer in print.

YOU COULD CALL IT MURDER. Belmont, 1961. The paperback original was called Markham and was a tie-in with a Ray Milland TV series which had already been canceled by the time the book came out. Foul Play Press later reprinted it with the new title. This cover art is for the most recent edition from iBooks in paperback. A hardcover first edition is a future possibility. If it happens, you'll read about it here.

. A note about the Carroll & Graf reprints: While they’re all out of print, this doesn’t mean you can’t find them in bookstores. A lot of shops---mystery specialty stores, independents, and chains---still have copies on their shelves. When paperbacks go out of print, it often takes quite a while before they disappear completely from the marketplace.