Lawrence Block - The Triumph of Evil

The Triumph of Evil

Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block (b. 1938) is the recipient of a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and an internationally renowned bestselling author. His prolific career spans over one hundred books, including four bestselling series as well as dozens of short stories, articles, and books on writing. He has won four Edgar and Shamus Awards, two Falcon Awards from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, the Nero and Philip Marlowe Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom. In France, he has been awarded the title Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice received the Societe 813 trophy.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Block attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Leaving school before graduation, he moved to New York City, a locale that features prominently in most of his works. His earliest published writing appeared in the 1950s, frequently under pseudonyms, and many of these novels are now considered classics of the pulp fiction genre. During his early writing years, Block also worked in the mailroom of a publishing house and reviewed the submission slush pile for a literary agency. He has cited the latter experience as a valuable lesson for a beginning writer.

Blocks first short story, You Cant Lose, was published in 1957 in Manhunt, the first of dozens of short stories and articles that he would publish over the years in publications including American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and the New York Times. His short fiction has been featured and reprinted in over eleven collections including Enough Rope (2002), which is comprised of eighty-four of his short stories.

In 1966, Block introduced the insomniac protagonist Evan Tanner in the novel The Thief Who Couldnt Sleep. Blocks diverse heroes also include the urbane and witty booksellerand thief-on-the-sideBernie Rhodenbarr; the gritty recovering alcoholic and private investigator Matthew Scudder; and Chip Harrison, the comical assistant to a private investigator with a Nero Wolfe fixation who appears in No Score, Chip Harrison Scores Again, Make Out with Murder, and The Topless Tulip Caper. Block has also written several short stories and novels featuring Keller, a professional hit man. Blocks work is praised for his richly imagined and varied characters and frequent use of humor.

A father of three daughters, Block lives in New York City with his second wife, Lynne. When he isnt touring or attending mystery conventions, he and Lynne are frequent travelers, as members of the Travelers Century Club for nearly a decade now, and have visited about 150 countries.

A four-year-old Block in 1942.

Block during the summer of 1944, with his baby sister, Betsy.

Blocks 1955 yearbook picture from Bennett High School in Buffalo, New York.

Block in 1983, in a cap and leather jacket. Block says that he later lost the cap, and some son of a bitch stole the jacket. Dont even ask about the hair.

Block with his eldest daughter, Amy, at her wedding in October 1984.

Seen here around 1990, Block works in his office on New Yorks West 13th Street with, he says, a bad haircut, an ugly shirt, and a few extra pounds.

Block at a bookstore appearance in support of A Walk Among the Tombstones, his tenth Matthew Scudder novel, on Veterans Day, 1992.

Block and his wife, Lynne.

Block and Lynne on vacation someplace exotic.

Block race walking in an international marathon in Niagara Falls in 2005. He got the John Deere cap at the John Deere Museum in Grand Detour, Illinois, and still has it today.

Talk in French when you dont know the English for a thing, turn out your toes as you walk, and remember who you are.

THE RED QUEEN

All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do something wrong.

MILES DORN

Contents

When the doorbell rang, he was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and watching baby birds. A pair of robins had nested in the eaves over the kitchen window. The eggs had hatched a week ago, and since then he had found himself spending hours at a time watching them. There was little drama in it, no cuckoo egg in the robins nest, no cats to be warded off, only the constant feeding and attendance by the parent birds and the steady growth and development of the young.

He set his cup down and went to the door, thinking that it would be the girl. Youre early, he said, drawing the door open.

There were two men on the step, and the taller mans brow wrinkled at Dorns words. Then you expected us?

No.

You are Mr. Dorn? Miles Dorn?

Yes.

And you are expecting someone?

In an hour, perhaps.

Then we have time for a conversation, the taller man said. May we come in?

Of course.

He led them to the living room. The two sat on opposite ends of his couch, an empty cushion between them. Above and between their heads was a framed print, an English fox hunting scene. It had been there when he took the house, and although it was not to his taste he had decided against removing it. He liked its incongruitythis shabby southern town, this squat house of concrete block and stucco with its motel furniture and plasterboard walls, and this glorified representation of the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.

The smaller man lit a cigarette, and Dorn caught the odor of Turkish leaf. It triggered memories. Once all cigarettes had smelled thus.

The taller man said, You were not expecting us; yet if our presence surprises you, you hide it well.

I am rarely surprised. He wondered about the mans accent. It was slight, and had echoes of no particular place, as if this man, like Dorn, had had frequent changes of nationality. The man had a broad forehead, dark brown hair slicked down, heavy brows, large nostrils, a dark and somewhat oily complexion. The smaller man, who had not yet spoken, looked at once Latin and Oriental, and yet was almost certainly not a Cuban Chinese. Dorn thought it likely that these men would have something to do with Cuba and hoped he was wrong. The smaller man had very precise features and flat dark eyes and small hands. Dorn had learned that men of this sort were usually quite good with knives.