The Lost Cases of Ed London

About the book

SIGNED, NUMBERED EDITION

Lawrence Block, creator of private eye Matthew Scudder and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, is one of the major figures in the modern mystery story, and a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America.

But back in 1960, when he was still in his 20's, Block was trying to invent a series character. He had been hired to write a TV tie-in for a series called Markham, but he decided that the story was too good to waste on someone else's characters, and he turned the novel into the first of a series of Ed London, private eye.

Or at least he hoped it would be the first of a series. Block never completed another book about Ed London, but during 1962 and 1963 he published three novelettes about the character for Man's Magazine. Given the magazine that published them, the tales were filled not only with gunmen but also with stag-party girls - and Larry Block's expert storytelling.

When Block's early stories were collected as One Night Stands, the Ed London tales could not be found. In fact, the author was certainly that he had written one of them, thought that he might have done a second, and forgotten all about the third.

Here then, for the first time in book form, are the lost cases of Lawrence Block's first private eye - pipe-smoking, courvoisier-drinking, Mozart-loving but ultra-tough operative, Ed London.