American crime writer Lawrence Block says his latest book fills in the seven-year gap of the life of its private investigator Mathew Scudder. Yang Guang reports.

American crime writer Lawrence Block, 73, starts his Beijing tour with a joke, "Bonjour, I'm happy to be here in Paris." The four-time Edgar Award winner and Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America is surprised at how the capital has changed, since his last time here in 1992, followed by a one-month trek along the Silk Road to Kashgar in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. "It is a whole new city," he says. "If my stories were set in Beijing instead of in New York, I think the dead would not be stabbed or shot, they would probably be knocked down by cars."

Block sold his first crime story in 1957 and has since published more than 50 novels and 100 short stories. His most famous creations are the unlicensed private investigator Matthew Scudder, who first appeared in the 1976 The Sins of the Fathers, and the used-books dealer and burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, whose journey commenced in the 1977 Burglars Can't Be Choosers.

According to publisher Xie Gang, 16 Matthew novels and five Bernie novels have been introduced to the Chinese mainland, since Eight Million Ways to Die in 2006. The Chinese translation of the 17th title in the Matthew series, A Drop of the Hard Stuff, will be published shortly after its release in the United States in May.

"The advent of Matthew has undone the dominance of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie novels among Chinese readers," Xie says.

Block says he is excited that the Matthew and Bernie series have found an accepting audience in this part of the world. "It's gratifying to get the reception in China," he says.

In fact, Block has for long had a star-studded readership in Hong Kong and Taiwan, including directors Wong Kai-wai and Hou Hsiao-hsien, writers Chang Ta-chun and Chu Tien-wen, and actor Tony Leung.

"Tony Leung wanted to play Matthew, and we've been talking about my writing a film for him, but it's a pity that nothing's come out of it," he says.

It has been suggested that Matthew's struggle with alcoholism is in part autobiographical, but Block does not directly respond to that.

"Every character reflects certain characters of the writer - we both live in New York, both had a period of time when we drank too much, and neither of us drinks anymore," he says.

"But our lives are vastly different - I'm never a policeman, and he's never a writer."

Block says two years ago he thought it was time to drop Matthew and stop writing novels, while continuing with short stories and magazine pieces.

But, Block says, he realized that there was a chronological gap in Matthew's life story between Eight Million Ways to Die and Out on the Cutting Edge - in the former Matthew becomes aware that he has to come to terms with alcoholism, while in the latter he has been off alcohol for seven years.

A Drop of the Hard Stuff, Block says, is about Matthew's "interesting and tumultuous life" in this in-between period.

(China Daily 01/29/2011 page11)