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Lawrence Block
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As Dark as Christmas Gets (The Affairs of Chip Harrison Book 6) Kindle Edition

by Lawrence Block (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.7 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
In addition to the four novels (No Score, Chip Harrison Scores Again, Make Out With Murder, and The Topless Tulip Caper), Lawrence Block wrote two short stories about young Chip Harrison. Both take place after the four novels, and feature Chip (The Lecher in the Wry) as he is in the third and fourth books—i.e., the assistant of Leo Haig, a sort of road company Nero Wolfe. The first story, “Death of the Mallory Queen,” appeared in 1984; 13 years later, “As Dark as Christmas Gets," was written for a pamphlet that served as Otto Penzler’s Christmas gift. Every year Otto commissions a story from a writer of his acquaintance, with the sole requirement that the story be set in his establishment, The Mysterious Bookshop, and that it involve the crime or the threat of a crime. The story was subsequently published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

The story, deeply imbued with the mystique of the mystery community, involves a missing manuscript, and a cast of characters who may ring a bell or two, seasonal or otherwise. And, along with Harrison and Haig, the bookstore proprietor plays a vital role...
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  1. Print length
    35 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    July 7, 2011
  4. File size
    702 KB
  5. Page Flip
    Enabled
  6. Word Wise
    Enabled
  7. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005C6EGNY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ LB Productions (July 7, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 7, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 702 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 35 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

About the author

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Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block

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Lawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published more than 100 books, and no end of short stories.

LB is best known for his series characters, including Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner, and Keller. LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.

His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years and led to a series of books for writers. He has also written television and film screenplays. Several of LB’s books have been filmed, including A Walk Among the Tombstones.

LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America. He has won multiple Edgar and Shamus awards, the Japanese Maltese Falcon award, the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association of the UK, been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir, and has been awarded the Société 813 trophy.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
28 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • col2910
    3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, not especially festive and not his best.
    Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2017
    I've read Death of the Mallory Queen previously, but haven't yet tried any of the longer form Chip Harrison novels. From my limited experience of Chip, he's my least favourite of the recurring Block characters I've encountered. Far rather a dose of Scudder, Keller or Bernie. The jury is still out on Tanner as I haven't read him yet either.

    The events take place on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. A party on the eve sees an unpublished Cornell Woolrich manuscript disappear. A Christmas Day reunion with the seven possible culprits, our party host and our puzzle solver, Leo Haig along with assistant Chip, sees the mystery solved.

    I did like the reveal of the manuscript's journey during the course of the party. Each guest has a possible motivation for acquiring the manuscript either for personal or professional reasons. With regards to the setting and the resolution, see the first intro. paragraph - no reputations were damaged during the resolution of our mystery.

    An ok story, which didn't especially feel festive to me but it's another notch on the scoreboard.

    3 from 5

    Read in December, 2017
    Published - 1997 or 2011 (copyright notes 1997, Kindle details 2011)
    Page count - 36
    Source - Kindle Unlimited
    Format - Kindle
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  • Randy Johnson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Tale Set At Christmas
    Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Chip Harrison functions to Lreo Haig as Archie Goodwin did so for Nero Wolfe. In this short story, Haig gets asked to solve a theft from his favorite book store owner's personal collection, an unfinished manuscript by Cornell Woolrich.

    He'd thrown a party the night before, fifty guests or so, then shared a drink late with a half dozen close friends in his library, all in the writing field either as publishers, writers themselves, or literary agents. The manuscript was there before he went to bed on one shelf alongside other boxed manuscripts of his collection.

    It's Christmas day and Chip has to gather the few people for the customary reveal of the guilty party in the finale.

    I had a great time with this one.
    Helpful
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  • Anthony R. Cardno
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Book-centric Mystery
    Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2016
    Block wrote only two short stories featuring Chip Harrison and his employer Leo Haig. This one was written originally as part of the limited chapbook series of Christmas stories set in NYC's The Mysterious Bookshop, although it is now available as a stand-alone ebook. Haig (who fancies himself a poor man's Nero Wolfe) and Harrison (his Archie Goodwin) are hired by the owner of a NYC bookstore to investigate the theft of an unfinished, unpublished, handwritten Cornell Woolrich manuscript. The story, as with Block's other Harrison short story, is breezy, light, and full of winks and nods at the mystery genre. This time, there's no murder to be solved, but there are a plethora of industry types for Haig to deal with in his brief investigation of the theft. There's the bookstore owner, who can't remember a key two hours of the previous night; a book-collecting famous violinist; a Woolrich-loving daytime drama actress and her hard-boiled fiction-loving husband; a party caterer the bookstore owner has a romantic interest in; a small press publisher; and a former mystery author turned Hollywood hack and his literary agent. Each behaves much as you'd expect such a character would behave if this were a private detective television show, and Block is clearly having fun again poking fun at friends and peers. One of those seven characters walked away from a Christmas party at the store with the one-of-a-kind manuscript, and Haig solves the case by having the suspects walk him through what they were doing during the party. Block doles out the details of the evening with a heavy dose of character and author self-awareness. Harrison makes several comments about writing this case up as a short story rather than a novel, and several characters remark upon the "hack writer" who completed Woolrich's unfinished novel Into The Night (that author was Lawrence Block himself). It's a fun story for fans of the mystery genre in specific, and for book lovers (collectors or otherwise) in general, with a very satisfactory resolution to the mystery.
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  • Q. Blackstone
    1.0 out of 5 stars Poor Choice
    Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This was not a good read as I expected it to be. Did not like. Would not recommend this at all.
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  • Greggorio!
    5.0 out of 5 stars A FINE, FUN, FESTIVE FABLE!!!!!!!!!
    Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2015
    This short is a delightfully fun filled pseudo mystery, involving the disappearance (and recovery) and of an unpublished manuscript written by Cornell Woolritch. The story is set in the world’s finest mystery bookshop, which is located in (arguably) the world’s finest city. Written, of course, by the world’s finest writer of mysteries. How appropriate. The story is narrated by the up and coming writer wannabe Chip Harrison, who works as an assistant to Leo Haig, who also happens to be a damn fine solver of a certain type of mystery...

    Anyway, the suspects are all gathered together by invitation back at the crime scene. With Haig firing the right questions at just the right person at the right time, it is not long before the reader learns what happened (no one dies here, so I cant use the term, “whodunit”). In some respects the solution is a let-down, but at least Mr Block played it safe by protecting the integrity of the clientele of the bookshop in question. And it was certainly a fun read from go to woe. And it was a Christmas story, after all, so we don't want too much blood and gore in our reading chairs.

    Full marks for this fine, fun, festive fable.

    BFN Greggorio!
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Greggorio!
    5.0 out of 5 stars A FINE, FUN, FESTIVE FABLE!!!!!!!!
    Reviewed in Australia on April 4, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    This short is a delightfully fun filled pseudo mystery, involving the disappearance (and recovery) and of an unpublished manuscript written by Cornell Woolritch. The story is set in the world’s finest mystery bookshop, which is located in (arguably) the world’s finest city. Written, of course, by the world’s finest writer of mysteries. How appropriate. The story is narrated by the up and coming writer wannabe Chip Harrison, who works as an assistant to Leo Haig, who also happens to be a damn fine solver of a certain type of mystery...

    Anyway, the suspects are all gathered together by invitation back at the crime scene. With Haig firing the right questions at just the right person at the right time, it is not long before the reader learns what happened (no one dies here, so I cant use the term, “whodunit”). In some respects the solution is a let-down, but at least Mr Block played it safe by protecting the integrity of the clientele of the bookshop in question. And it was certainly a fun read from go to woe. And it was a Christmas story, after all, so we don't want too much blood and gore in our reading chairs.

    Full marks for this fine, fun, festive fable.

    BFN Greggorio!
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