Dwyer Murphy is a New York-based writer and editor. He is the editor-in-chief of
CrimeReads,
Literary Hub‘s crime fiction vertical and the world’s most popular
destination for thriller readers. He practiced law at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City, where he was a litigator, and served as editor of the
Columbia Law Review. He was previously an Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction. His writing has appeared in
The Common,
Rolling Stone,
Guernica,
The Paris Review Daily,
Electric Literature, and other publications.
Murphy's new novel is
An Honest Living.
At Electric Lit he tagged seven "books that capture the heady magic of walking into a bookstore," including:
The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block
Block is the quintessential New York City crime writer, still going strong on a decades-long run that spans series and genres. A few protagonists stand out from the pack, and first among them is 
Bernie Rhodenbarr, the careful thief who always seems to get tangled up with a dead body and who consistently funnels the profits of his burglaries into his Village bookshop. You can choose from just about any of the novels in the series and find the same exhilarating spirit, but I’d suggest starting with The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling. In it, Bernie acquires the bookshop and starts teaching himself the trade, and also, naturally, gets drawn into a robbery requiring an odyssey across a city populated by fences, racketeers, art experts, bartenders, friends, and foes. The story includes an elaborate heist targeting a rare volume that nobody seems to think has much literary merit, another nice twist on the genre and a wry wink to those of discerning taste.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
destination for thriller readers. He practiced law at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City, where he was a litigator, and served as editor of the Columbia Law Review. He was previously an Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction. His writing has appeared in The Common, Rolling Stone, Guernica, The Paris Review Daily, Electric Literature, and other publications.
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