Well, Happy Birthday, young man! Have I got the date right? June 24?

That’s the date. Another solar return, as my astrologer would tell me.

I didn’t know you were into that.

I’m a writer. Part of the job description calls for a minimal surface knowledge of almost everything, a wealth of information that’s like the Pecos River, an inch deep and a mile wide. So I can tell you with authority that my Sun sign is Cancer on the Gemini cusp with Gemini rising, and that I have Moon in Taurus, Venus in Leo, and an ex-wife in Ashburn, Virginia. Just don’t ask me what any of that means.

I wouldn’t dream of it.

So yes, it’s my birthday. And birthdays have numbers, annoyingly enough, and this particular birthday is one I choose to designate as my Charing Cross Road birthday.

Why?

You’ll work it out. But the fact that today’s my birthday is by no means the most significant thing about it. Today’s the day you can preorder what I’m self-centered enough to regard as the publishing event of the year, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown.

And that’s the cover? Hey, I like it!

What’s not to like? It’s by Jeff Wong, and a nice match for his covers for The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons and The Burglar in Short Order.

I can’t wait to read it.

You’ll only have to wait until October 18. And you don’t have to wait even a day to get your preorder in. Just click any of these preorder links and you’re on your way: Amazon   Barnes & Noble   Apple   Kobo   Thalia   Vivlio

What does preordering get me?

Right now? My sincere and profound gratitude. Come 10/18, it gets you the book as well, and on the very day it’s released.

Does it save me any money?

Possibly. The preorder price is $9.99. If that should increase—always a possibility in these uncertain times—you’re locked in.

Just as important, it saves adding another item to your To-Do list—or trying to hold it in your memory. “Done and done,” you can say to yourself, while you go on to Other Things.

All I see here is the ebook. Won’t there be a paperback?

Indeed there will, with the same October 18 release date, but it takes a little longer to set paperbacks up for preorder. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll let y’all know. Meanwhile, why don’t you go ahead and preorder the ebook?

Okay, give me a minute. (click…click…click…) There! Done and done.

Wasn’t that easy?

And gratifying, I have to admit. And now I can go on to those Other Things, chief among them the adventure of reading my way through the entire Burglar series before the new one pops up in my In box. They’re all available, right? As ebooks and audiobooks and paperbacks?

They are.

I don’t suppose you’d care to list them in order, would you? With the dates of their first publication?

Sure, why not?

Burglars Can’t Be Choosers 1977
The Burglar in the Closet 1978
The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling 1979
The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza 1980
The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian 1983
The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams 1994
The Burglar WhoThought He Was Bogart 1995
The Burglar in the Library 1997
The Burglar in the Rye 1999
The Burglar on the Prowl 2004
The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons 2013
The Burglar in Short Order 2020

That’s quite a list. There were some gaps, weren’t there? Eleven years between Mondrian and Ted Williams. Nine years between Prowl and Spoons.

I kept thinking the series was over.

And you kept being wrong. I suppose the books are best read in order.

Well, I wrote them in order, but what choice did I have? It’s by no means a bad idea to read them in order, as an incident in one book is occasionally referenced in another, but it’s less important than with the Matthew Scudder books, where the character ages in real time and his life changes accordingly.

Bernie never ages, does he?

No, nor does he change much. He still does what he loves and loves what he does. You know, when the fourth book was published—

Spinoza?

Right. I got a letter from a reader who said that was the last Bernie Rhodenbarr book he’d ever read, because after four books Bernie should have learned that burglary was immoral and indecent—

And fattening?

No doubt. Bernie, a presumably bright person, should have seen the error of his ways and reformed.

What was your response?

I never did answer that letter. But I didn’t throw it out, either. And then, in the early days of the pandemic lockdown, when the whole country had that inexplicable shortage of toilet paper—

Say no more.

Fair enough. But no, Bernie doesn’t change much, and it’s by no means essential to read the books in order. In fact it’s occasionally seemed to me that a new reader might best begin with #3, The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling, because that’s the first book in which Bernie’s leading the life he’ll maintain from then on, with Carolyn Kaiser as his best friend and Barnegat Books as his place of self-employment.

It took him a couple of books to find himself, eh?

Bernie was Bernie from the first chapter of Choosers. The personality was there from the very beginning. But it took until Kipling for him to settle into  the life that would help to define him.

Well, we certainly know who he is. But I’m surprised he’s back in action. May I read something to you?

Um…

It won’t take long. “Barnegat Books was already an anachronism when I bought it. Still, people used to read. They used to collect first editions, and track down the complete works of writers they discovered. Now they zone out with Netflix, and what reading they do is on an eReader or an iPad. And if they’re old-fashioned enough to collect books, they don’t have to hunt for them. Why breathe in the dust of an old bookshop when you can find anything you could possibly want through a five-minute online search?”

That sounds familiar.

I’m not finished. “I had this other occupation, and I made enough at night to cover any losses I incurred day-to-day. But now that the entire planet’s wired for closed circuit TV, with security cameras everywhere you can imagine and some places you can’t, well, forget it. There’s no cash anywhere anyhow, and if you steal something nobody’s going to buy it from you, and being a burglar makes even less sense than being a bookseller. Two occupations, one legit and one not, and both of them rendered obsolete by encroaching technology.”

I think I know where that’s from.

And well you might. It’s in the last chapter of The Burglar in Short Order, and it lays out rather persuasively why we’ll no longer get to read about Bernie’s adventures.

Right.

Yet here he is again. Can you explain?

I don’t have to. You just preordered, right? Did you bother to read the book description on the preorder page?

Um…

I didn’t think so. Go back to that page—here’s a link—and take a minute or two to read the book description.

And while you do, I’ll tell you how to fill up a shelf or two with signed first editions of mine for $10 apiece. A few years ago, I stopped retailing signed copies of my work, and sold my entire stock to my friend Otto Penzler, proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop. And now, to celebrate my Charing Cross Road birthday—

I still don’t know why you’re calling it that.

—Otto’s running a limited-time special, with fifteen books of mine, originally priced as high as $75, for just ten dollars each. Order five books or more and the price drops to $7.50 a book.

Wow.

I know. Here, have a look.

That’s—

I know. And I think that’ll do it for now. While all of y’all preorder The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown and stock up on bargains from Otto, I’ll be figuring out how to celebrate my birthday.

Your Charing Cross Road birthday. Oh!

Oh?

I just figured it out.

I knew you would, and you didn’t even have to Google it. Some would call it my Orwellian birthday, but I like it better this way. And it leads straight to another question: Why did the charing cross the road?

Cheers,

PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an  email to lawbloc@gmail.com with LB’s Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.

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