Tanner's Tiger

Presenting EVAN TANNER—the first series character created by Lawrence Block, bestselling author of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES...

Ever since a shred of shrapnel did a number on his brain’s sleep center, Even Tanner has been awake 24/7. This gives him more time than your average underachiever. Time to learn the world’s languages (he’s fluent in Basque, but has trouble with Chinese). Time to embrace the world’s lost causes and irredentist movements (The Flat Earth Society, the League for the Restoration of Cilician Armenia, the Society of the Left Hand). Time to write term papers theses for students with more money than knowledge. And, most important, time to do his dreaming while he’s wide awake.

Tanner, accompanied by his ward Minna (direct descendant of Mindaugas, and thus the heir to the Lithuanian throne—but you knew that, right?) flies to Montreal for Expo, the Worlds Fair. And our lad, who slips across Iron Curtain borders all over Europe, is spotted as a dangerous subversive by Canadian Immigration Control and sent straight back to New York. But will this stop him? Of course not, and soon hes back in Montreal, where he and Minna visit the Cuban Pavilion—and only Tanner emerges. Theres a wild escape on horseback from the RCMP, and a romance with the alluring Arlette, and a plot by Quebecois separatists to blow up the Queen of England. How can Tanner possibly sort all of this out without hijacking an airplane? Hey, a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do...