Bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr''s in love—with an exotic Eastern European beauty who shares his obsession with Humphrey Bogart movies. He''s in heaven, munching popcorn with his new amour every night at a Bogart Film Festival—until their Casablanca-esque idyll is cut short by his other secret passion: burglary.
When he''s hired to pilfer a portfolio of valuable documents from a Park Avenue apartment, Bernie can hardly refuse. But the occupant''s early return forces Bernie to flee empty-handed—and he soon finds himself implicated in a murder. Before you can say "who stole the strawberries?" he''s hunting for a killer, up to his neck in the outrageous intrigues of a tiny Balkan nation . . . and menaced by more sinister fat men and unsavory toadies than the great Bogie himself butted heads with in pursuit of that darn bird!