Amongst these is the version of The Bric-a-Brac Man in the Detective Book Club series 3 Thrillers in 1. The novels are plot-driven stories where a central character is drawn inexorably into a predicament that exposes the brittleness of human equanimity and the delusion of self-determination. The structure of a Greenan story hinges, as in ancient Greek tragedy, on a reversal of fortune as likely to be caused by a fatal mistake or 'hamartia' as by a flaw of character. However, Greenan plays with the idea of the flawed character and is known for creating protagonists who appear to have lost a normal relationship with reality but whose motives impress the reader as being reasonable and even judicious. As the story progresses and the characters' fates become clear, the result is as likely to be comedy as tragedy. The author secures his readers’ trust by grounding extraordinary events in settings described in verifiable detail, often including street names of actual locations in which the author lived. The predominant setting is Boston, Massachusetts, including Cambridge and Brookline, where all the stories except Keepers and Nightmare take place. Rhode Island is the backdrop to Keepers, and Nightmare is set in New York City. Carefully researched references to antiques, art history, literature and classical history are also an important element in the novels’ construction as are the detailed descriptions of domestic chores or eating. Into this solidly founded realism Greenan introduces the flourishes of imagination – often assisted by puns and word play – that have prompted critics to describe the works variously as ‘macabre’, ‘exuberant’, ‘gore’, ‘endearing’ or simply ‘extravaganzas’. It Happened in Boston? It Happened in Boston? is the most widely published of Greenan's novels. The book is a richly detailed story narrated by a singularly brilliant artist with a passion for Old Master techniques who develops an obsession to seek divine justice through an encounter with God. From its first appearance in 1968 in the United States the book has since been printed in a further 12 different editions including translations into Dutch, German, Spanish, French and Italian. The most recent edition is being published by Diogenes Verlag in Zürich in 2010. The Modern Library- 20th Century Rediscoveries edition published by Random House in 2003 includes an introduction by Jonathan Lethem and an afterword by the author reflecting on the novel's origins in his own childhood and the reasons for