Review of Nobody’s Perfect by Donald Westlake (The Mysterious Press, 1977)

Dortmunder is a professional thief who has been caught red-handed boosting televisions from a store. He’s going back to prison and knows it. Then a high class, celebrity lawyer turns up and miraculously he’s wriggled out of the charges. The catch is the lawyer’s paymaster, the rich and feckless Chauncey, wants Dortmunder to steal a painting - Folly Leads Man to Ruin by Veenbes - from his New York townhouse, bypassing an alarm system and a houseful of guests as part of an insurance scam. The deal is that Dortmunder keeps the painting until the insurance company settles. To make sure Dortmunder doesn’t make off with the painting, Chauncey has also hired a hitman to keep an eye on his thief. Dortmunder puts together his string of accomplices and plans the robbery. It should be relatively straightforward - in, out and away, whilst Chauncey keeps his guests occupied. Except it all goes horribly wrong, the painting lost in a throng of drunken Scot’s men as the gang make their getaway. They have six months to retrieve the painting or come up with another foolproof plan.

Folly Leads Man to Ruin would have been a much better title for this book than Nobody’s Perfect. Dortmunder’s follies pile up one after the other, each leading to a more precarious future. Westlake keeps up a steady pace, with a series of nicely constructed and clever set pieces that are strung together into a plot divided into four parts. There is a gentle humour running throughout and a few genuine belly laughs. The characterisation is well observed, with a good mix of likeable rogues. For me, the story was a little let down through a lack of edginess or grit and the book seemed to stop about ten to fifteen pages too short. Also the premise around the insurance scam as it entered the last quarter didn’t stand up to much scrutiny. Nevertheless, an enjoyable read from a powerhouse of comic crime storytelling.

Forgotten Friday: Review of The Fugitive Pigeon by Donald Westlake (Mysterious Press, 1965)

Charlie Poole is a bum. First living off his mother, he’s now tending a bar in Canarsie, Brooklyn, for his Uncle Al who’s a minor mafia figure. All Charlie has to do is operate the bar as a going concern and look after and pass on any packages given to him. The fact that the business is losing money hand over fist is of little concern. Then two hit men turn up and hand Charlie a business card with a black mark on it. Just as they’re about to send him to meet his maker a local cop calls in for his daily nightcap. The invention provides enough time for Charlie to make his escape, but nobody can hide from the mafia forever, and given that he’s no idea why they would want him dead he decides the logical approach is to track down the local godfather and correct whatever mistake has been made. The only problem is that when he does gain access to the boss, he’s a knife in his back and everybody thinks Charlie put it there. Now he’s got two charges to try and refute, to people who don’t want to listen and want him dead.

The Fugitive Pigeon is a comic crime caper. Written in a very assured, confident manner, it trots along a nice, quick pace, with a gentle humour. The plotting is well worked, although relatively predictable, the characters are quite thin and stereotypical, and the story lacks any depth. In a sense, the narrative is all surface and style, with little substance. As such, it provides a mildly entertaining diversion but little more. Which I suspect is precisely what it was intended to do. So on that level, the book works fine. I just wanted a little more – an unpredictable twist, a surprising character, some emotional depth, a bit of backstory and contextualisation. Overall, a nice piece of entertaining fluff.