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The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart
Borrowing from Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and the film Casablanca, Block weaves a funny and intriguing tale of murder and theft
The myth of Humphrey Bogart has a powerful impact on the main character and his love interest in this funny detective novel by Lawrence Block. In this latest work, the creator of Bernie Rhodenbarr and The Burglar Who…series weaves a fast-paced yarn that borrows inspiration from The Maltese Falcon, the Dashiell Hammett novel adapted for screen and featuring Humphrey Bogart as detective Sam Spade and Casablanca, the movie Bogart is most remembered for.
The book begins with Bernie saying goodnight to his love interest, the mysterious Ilona, who—just as in Casablanca—happened to walk into his bookstore a few weeks earlier and stole his heart. "Of all the bookstores in all the towns in all the world, she walked into mine," writes Block. She is a devoted Bogart fan and Bernie instantly becomes one. "The Musette Theater two blocks from Lincoln Center…" the author writes, just happened to be running a Bogart film festival. The book as you might have surmised is set in Manhattan. Since their meeting the two have been frequenting the Musette regularly only to part company immediately after the film.
The story of Bernie and Ilona is one of two star-crossed lover, who like Bergman and Bogart in Casablanca have a stolen love affair that both know must end in separation. Their first chance meeting sets off the whole sequence of events that follow. After Bernie sent his love interest off in a cab—she had asked him to accompany her for the first time since they met; he next illegally enters an apartment in the posh Park Avenue Boccaccio Building. From the apartment, he had been commissioned by Hugo Candlemas to lift a leather portfolio containing papers of some value. For his work, Bernie would receive $5000 and would not have to fence his burgled goods.
After finding the portfolio, Bernie is interrupted by the arrival of the residence of the apartment. Hiding in a closet until they leave, he emerges from his hiding place to find the portfolio gone and his night’s work for naught. He attempts to contact Candlemas to report his failure but upon ringing his apartment hears the voice of Raymond Kirschmann a detective with the New York City Police Department.
Thereafter the story is a series of twists and turns and murdered bodies. For those unfamiliar with Block’s The Burglar Who…series, Bernie is a professional burglar who owns "Barnegat Books, an antiquarian bookstore on East Eleventh Street between Broadway and University Place in Manhattan." This is his legitimate business, a cover for his more socially unacceptable line of work burgling. He has a lesbian sidekick Carolyn Kaiser, owner of The Poodle factory, a dog-grooming parlor nearby Barnegat Books. She is his confidant and frequent accomplice. And there is Ray who manages to complicate each story by pursuing Bernie as the culprit in most of the mysteries thus forcing the professional burglar to become an accomplished private detective.
In The Burglar Who Thought He was Bogart, Bernie must find the person responsible for murdering both Hugo Candlemas as well as Candlemas’s accomplice, Charles "Cappy, the Ram" Hoberman. In this story, Ray has found evidence incriminating Bernie at least in Candlemas’s murder and is trying to pin both homicides on the hard working burglar.
This detective story revolves around the portfolio Candlemas has asked Bernie to steal, just as the Maltese Falcon, revolved around the priceless statue. Candlemas found Bernie by following Ilona and learned of Bernie’s penchant for burglary. All the other murderous villains filling the story have followed Candlemas until his untimely death, each seeking the illusive portfolio and its valuable contents. Once Candlemas has been found dead, the turn their attention to Bernie, who they wrongly presume has found the object of their attention.
To find out how Bernie has his fling with Ilona and sorts out the killer and the reason for the obsession over the portfolio, you have to read the 359 pages of this fast moving murder mystery. You won’t be disappointed.
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