What do You think about The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (2005)?
I'll admit, while I'd enjoyed the last couple of Burglar books, they didn't have the zip of the first two. The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian cured that whipfast.Block is, in my experience, fantastic. I'm more of a Scudder guy, but the Bernie series is fun for a light read. This entry may have the best dialogue of any of the books I've read of Block's, Scudders included. Sharp, fast, characters whipsawing barbs to and fro--there are several scenes, as a reader, where I felt in the presence of a master artist, kind of like some of the painters mentioned in the narrative. Block sizzles this book through your eyeballs. It is simply so much fun. The characters aren't all that new, but if you've read to this point in the series, you're comfortable with them in a way that lends history and stays out of the way as the lines fly like throwing stars. Block weaves enough freshness into both the new and the familiar cast that it's a joy to experience. The only place Mondrian fell flat for me was the last couple of chapters. Block has a way of letting Bernie tell us he's doing things, but hiding his actual machinations until it's time for the big reveal. That's okay, I suppose, but he combined this with a trope he's used at least once too often in this series, which made the last bit of the novel a confusing three-card Monte of a finish that left me frustrated and disoriented. It's too bad because everything up to the finish was so well done that it seemed a magic trick of its own. Despite the ending, I'm refreshed and ready for more Bernie. Block is an admirable talent that just keeps giving and giving.Recommended for all fans of fun reads and any mystery fan who can put up with a blurred solution.
—Matt Allen
Little by little, I'm chipping away at this series featuring New York bookstore owner and occasional burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr - and every one has been a treat. The ending of this one, the fifth, I believe, had my head in a bit of a spin trying to keep all the lines in the Mondrian paintings straight (pun intended), but it was one of the most enjoyable so far.Bernie is approached by a wealthy gentlemen who wants an appraisal of the old books in the library of his swanky apartment. While he's there, Bernie notices a Mondrian painting on the wall. As is customary in these books, at least one person ends up dead (in this case, the wealthy gentleman) and the painting is missing, and because Bernie's fingerprints are all over the man's apartment - legitimately - Bernie gets accused of the murder. Complicating matters is that Bernie's friend and sometime burglaring cohort Carolyn becomes a victim herself; one of her two beloved kitties is catnapped, and the ransom is a Mondrian painting that's hanging in a local museum. Coincidence? I think not.
—Monnie
The fifth Burglar book is, as we've come to expect from Block, an absolute pleasure to read from start to finish. The series is very much a by the numbers affair with your basic plot reused from one book to the next - namely the burglar must prove that he didn't murder somebody whilst keeping the fact that he was stealing something very valuable out of the equation - but it's all of the surrounding detail that our supreme storyteller adds to things that make it the delight that it is. Bernie is a charming rogue, full of witty repartee and useless information trotted out to demonstrate Block's love of research in to a particular field - in this instance primarily the work of the artists in the De Stijl movement - whilst he manages to draw a handful of interesting and deftly painted characters in to his orbit, several of whom reappear from book to book almost as frequently as Bernie himself, whilst some even manage to resist framing him, hiring him or sleeping with him. In true whodunnit style we are once more treated to the roundup as Bernie reveals which of the major players did the deed (although I'm unsure whether Poirot would have planted evidence, with the help of Japp, in order to draw a confession) and in true Block in Burglar Bernie mode half of the suspects haven't even been featured in the novel to this point. I love the arrogant, tongue in cheek nature of such a move, it's thoroughly in keeping with the tone of the book and the attitude of his protagonist to casually deconstruct genre expectations.
—Tfitoby
