The Burglar in the Closet

In this second episode of the series, Bernie Rhodenbarr gets roped into stealing from his dentist’s ex-wife. It seems like an easy score, and he’s scoped out the lady’s apartment building and her habits, so he feels confident. But when she returns before he has left, he slips into the closet only to be locked into it by the resident. When he hears an altercation and realizes something is very wrong, he works his way out of the closet and finds the body of the lady of the house. What he does NOT find, is the attache case (filled with the lady’s jewelry) which he’d left outside the closet. What the hell?

There are plenty of suspects, including the World’s Greatest Dentist, but Bernie really needs to solve the case before the show more police turn on him as the most likely suspect.

The detectives assigned to the case seem easy to fool, but beat cop Ray Kirschmann is harder to shake. Bernie gets some help from a lovely dental hygienist with divided loyalties. Could there be a romantic relationship in Bernie and Jillian’s future?

Gosh but I love Bernie! He’s a gentleman burglar and has standards and ethics. I cannot help but picture Cary Grant; IMHO, he would have been perfect as Bernie. show less

I like Block because he’s a hometown guy and one always supports the hometown. I know this is Block’s “lightweight” series, but I needed a lighter read after reading the last three novels I reviewed from 1938 & 1939. Here’s the coincidence: Block was born in 1938. Ah, well, guess I could not escape.

I also like his characters (at least in this series). One of the best things is that all of them talk like they are in NYC. There are so many novels that cannot seem to get this correct. Usually, I find authors suddenly trying to write phonetically and spell out a stereotypical accent. In other books, authors just ignore the utter uniqueness of this dialect and write as if every character is from Ohio. Block manages their dialogue show more without it seeming cartoonish, but keeps it unmistakable. I guess, I ought to say, its recognizable to readers who know. As an example, Frankie Ackerman – her dialogue can be nowhere BUT The City. show less

Block first published “Burglar in the Closet” in 1978 as the second of what eventually became an eleven-book series featuring the gentleman-burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. This is clearly one of the best of the series and is a terrific read. In the series, Bernie is not your typical gritty, dirty criminal. He is actually, despite his predilection for burgling, an ordinary guy. He tries to live an ordinary life. At night, he burglarizes places and hopefully unoccupied places. The book is smoothly written and quick reading and quite hilarious, particularly when this professional burglar gets locked in the closet among the ex-wife’s gowns and shoes. This series tends to be more humorous than Block’s Scudder series and less gritty. show more Nevertheless, for those of you familiar with Scudder, there are echoes of Scudder here with Bernie working on the barest of clues and wandering through lower Manhattan. Bernie, however, has no problem with drinking and genuinely enjoys getting plastered.
Highly recommended. show less

Block, Lawrence. The Burglar in the Closet. 1978. Bernie Rhodenbarr No. 2. HarperTorch, 2006.
Block’s second Bernie Rhodenbarr novel has as many plot twists as Burglar’s Can’t Be Choosers. His frenemy, the best New York cop money can buy, is back for a piece of the action when he has to hide in the closet when the woman whose apartment is robbing comes home unexpectedly. Don’t blame Bernie. He was doing it as a favor to his dentist and his cuddly hygienist. A good dentist is hard to find. He listens while his intruder makes love to someone, and then again when she answers the door and is stabbed. Worse yet, the jewels he was stealing are taken by the murderer, and his dentist is blamed for the crime. The dialogue is witty and the show more prose lively. 4 stars. show less

Obviously the life of a cat burglar wouldn't be straight boring - he'd run into 'situations', although unlikely situations like this, to where he's in his dentist's chair and asked, in between tooth work, if he would hit up the ex-wife's apartment and steal back some jewels.

As always Bernie is a fun character who fully embraces his immoral outlooks but lives with his own code of honor in the thieving world. Love that the hands-out detective made his appearances; hope he does for all the books. Wonder what happened to the one girl from the first book? Guess it was a fleeting ship and not a lasting thing.

Not quite as good as the first but still cute and a fun ride. The villain in this case wasn't as fair to figure out but still a show more surprise. There's mucho tension in some spots as Bernie again ends up in tight situations, keeping the tension in line with the comical bursts. As with the first book, how the body happens is rather amusing; this burglar just doesn't have good luck when it comes to these crime scenes.

The series isn't award winning yet, it's more of a novelty type of cozy that I think mystery fans should enjoy. I have the next three books to read and look forward to more fun antics with a man who looks forward to burglary, but not these murders he keeps having to solve instead. show less

Block's burglar books are always good light-hearted value. Sort of Wodehouse meets Connelly with the burglar as the (anti)hero.

A funny fast paced mystery, my favorite scene in the book is when Bernie calls Denise Raphaelson on the phone and their back forth dialogue, she appears to have impressed Bernie with her wit also. I don't usually go to much for crime novels but Bernie makes an excellent detective and Block really knows how to write. You may need to be a bit older to solve this mystery written in 1978 with it's tent cent payphones and late night TV.