The first Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery. Introducing Bernie Rhodenbarr, N.Y.C.'s prince of thieves - who really should have known better! When the mysterious pear shaped man with a lot of uncomfortably accurate information about Bernie and his career offered him five big ones to liberate a blue leather box - unopened - from an East Side apartment, it would have been a good time to plead a previous engagement..but times were tough. Everything was straightforward - the box was where it should have been but before the liberation took place, two men in blue coats turned up. Still all was not lost, there was always a way to work things out...that was before they discovered the body in the bedroom and Bernie decided to leg it.