Read: "Catch and Release" by Lawrence Block

Read: Catch and Release by Lawrence Block, 2013, 9781596065710.

One afternoon Lawrence Block was sitting at home and ruminating. "Hmm, I've got a bunch of short stories that I already published in magazines and collections. Now those stories are just sitting around in landfills, libraries, and Bill Crider's storage lockers. Oh! Wait! I can publish them again for everyone who did not read them the first time."

"I'll put in some notes about each story and maybe Hard Case can put out a hardcover. Then, people can comment on the internetbox about whether they liked them or not. Of course, I've been publishing for over 50 years so I don't much give a rat's ass what some random dude has to say."

Anyhoo.

If you are not a fan of Block's work then you are a weirdo. The guy cannot seem to do wrong. This collection has 17 stories and two of them feature Matt Scudder and Mick Ballou. Scudder is very close to Ballou and I consider Ballou to be a murderous, criminal dirtbag.

Some of these are very short. VERY short. The first story is two pages of Bernie Rhodenbarr. I used to listed to Rhodenbarr novels quite a bit. I recall listening to Rhodenbarr and Nero Wolfe stories in the car with my wife when we lived in Arizona.

I've not much else to say. This is a fairly quick read.