Synopses & Reviews
So many heists, so little time...
"Horse Laugh": Dortmunder always avoids thefts that involve four-legged creatures. Then why is he somewhere out in New Jersey, listening to sirens wailing in the distance, holding on for dear life to a runaway racehorse's rear end?
"Too Many Crooks": Dortmunder plans for everything. But when he started digging a tunnel under a bank, the one thing he didn't think of was coming out a hero...
"Party Animal": Desperate? On the run? Chased by the police with a handful of loot? For every emergency, Dortmunder has an answer. This time it's slipping into a party and helping a comely caterer serve anchovy logs until the cops come in...
"Now What?": There's a guy riding the New York subway with a ham sandwich in a paper bag. The guy's name is Dortmunder and the sandwich has a $300,000 brooch inside. It all started at a celebrity wedding party in Manhattan...
"Art and Craft": Nothing good had ever come from dealing with a crook named Three Finger Gillie. Now that Gillie has turned into a downtown artist, it's even worse. He wants Dortmunder to steal his own paintings and Dortmunder just knows that something's wrong...
On a literary landscape filled with cunning criminal masterminds, Donald E. Westlake's John Dortmunder is in a league of his own. With no scam too outrageous to contemplate, and no plan too simple to go wrong, this quirky career thief has stolen everything from money buried under a reservoir to a bank the whole bank. Now the ultimate repeat offender returns in a first-time collection of short stories that prove that just like bagels and donuts, with Dortmunder it's always better by the dozen...
Review
"Irresistible. After reading about a certain card game herein, there's probably not a mystery reader alive who wouldn't beg to sit at Dortmunder's poker table." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"All the usual Westlake suspects are back in another fine mess, or in this case in a delightful collection....These stories are real jewels an excellent introduction to Dortmunder for a wide range of comic crime and mystery readers." David Wright, Booklist (Starred Review)
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"A load of laughs....Westlake's characters [are] endearingly quirky, entirely believable, and outrageously funny." San Jose Mercury News
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"Westlake has a genius for comic strategy...a lunatic brilliance." Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
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"If there is any funnier mystery novelist around, I can't imagine who it might be." USA Today
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"A brilliant writer." Seattle Times
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"Donald Westlake must be one of the best craftsmen now crafting stories." George F. Will
Synopsis
Featuring Westlake's hapless hero John Dortmunder, this original compilation of short stories ties in to the author's latest Dortmunder hardcover, The Road to Ruin.
About the Author
Donald E. Westlake was born in Brooklyn in 1933. After serving in the U.S. Air Force he began his writing career with The Mercenaries in 1960. He has written dozens of novels over the past thirty-five years, under his own name and a rainbow of pseudonyms. Named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 1993, he lives with his wife, the writer Abby Adams, in rural New York State.