Bernie Rhodenbarr may be New York’s most charming bookseller (by day) and its most skillful burglar (by night), but the modern world isn’t kind to either of his vocations. How is a bookseller supposed to make ends meet in a world where Amazon will deliver any title right to your doorstep? And how is a burglar to ply his trade in a city filled with security cameras and unpickable electronic locks?

The answer, as Bernie will discover in the pages of this wildly imaginative new novel—the twelfth in MWA Grandmaster Lawrence Block’s acclaimed series, and the first in nearly a decade—is that the world can sometimes change in the most unexpected ways. Tempted to steal a priceless diamond from the penthouse apartment of a swinish entrepreneur, Bernie goes out drinking with his best friend Carolyn instead. But when he wakes up with something much stranger than a hangover, he realizes he’s got the opportunity of a lifetime if only he can figure out what to do with it.

Taking inspiration from the mind-bending works of one of Bernie’s favorite authors (and one of Block’s), The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown throws Bernie into unfamiliar territory while keeping him squarely on the streets of the city he loves, and if that seems impossible to you, well—maybe that’s because impossible is exactly what it is…