Bad News is just darn likeable. There’s no better way to describe it. It’s like that guy who everybody seems to be friends with and you can’t really say anything bad about him because he’s just so likeable. And you like him, too, you know? Almost despite yourself. Bad News is that. It’s not mind-...
Good Behavior I had one of those commuter days where I had to change trains a lot in order to get to Chicago’s McCormick Place in order to meet a friend. Knowing I was going to spend a large part of my day on trains, I took Good Behavior with me. I finished it on my way home that night. That mean...
This is the longest Dortmunder novel coming in at 422 pages in the 1990 Mysterious Press edition. In The Hot Rock length is achieved by having the team perform multiple jobs to cope with a cascading series of problems. Each new caper is tightly defined and once the initial disbelief is overcome, ...
Why Me is the fifth book in this series. I’ve read the first three in order, but couldn’t easily get a copy of the fourth novel, Nobody’s Perfect. That’s too bad as some of the later book’s characteristics (e.g. Andy Kelp always letting himself in to John & May’s apartment) must have been establi...
Dortmunder and company get hired to steal the femur of St. Ferghana so that Tsergovia will get the favor of an archbishop and be admitted into the United Nations. Unfortunately, things go south, Dortmunder winds up kidnapped and Andy Kelp leads the charge to steal the bone a second time. Will D...
With the third installment the author decided it wasn’t sufficient to cause the gang to fail based on their own. No, this time, he makes them fail while following a caper that appears in a crime novel. Andy Kelp has been in a local pokey for a few days and while he was eventually let go, he had...
Αυτό είναι μόλις το δεύτερο βιβλίο του τρομερού Ντόναλντ Γουέστλεϊκ που διαβάζω, μετά το ξεκαρδιστικό Βοήθεια! Με κρατούν φυλακισμένο που είχα διαβάσει πριν από τρία και πλέον χρόνια. Ο Γουέστλεϊκ έχει γράψει με το ψευδώνυμο Ρίτσαρντ Σταρκ την πασίγνωστη αστυνομική σειρά Πάρκερ και με το κανονικό...
The Hot Rock introduces John Archibald Dortmunder, the thief whose capers never quite come off, as he and his convict friends plot to steal the fabulous Balaboma Emerald.
Like many before it, I was inclined to try the “Dortmunder” series by reading Dan’s comments about it. (At least I got that part right.) For some reason, when I went to order a couple of the books, the newest electronic catalog software presented me with only a subset of all of the novels.(Aside ...
Although I have been steadily working my way through the Dortmunder canon, it’s hard to believe that I know only have two to go. Watch Your Back! Is the twelfth novel in the series and tries to freshen up a bit by adding a few new players and expanding the action (if ever so briefly) to the Carib...
Imagine a man, a wealthy man, who began life with sufficient money, but chose to live his life solely in the pursuit of even more money and did so using his one bona-fide talent: fleecing other people, companies, and governments. Couldn’t happen here could it? Well, with that premise, Donald W...