Comment on January 3rd, 2008.
As I think you know, I'm a great fan of Westlake's, though I have by no means read all his books. John Dortmunder is, of course, a kind of comic foil for Parker, the serious and deadly master criminal of the books by Westlake's pseudonymous alter ego Richard Stark. Both of them are in the same business--large-scale burglaries and hold-ups--but while Parker is sometimes successful at one of his jobs and sometimes not, the sad-sack Dortmunder seldom is (once in a while he manages to score, e.g.in a few short stories).
Of the Dortmunders I've read, my favorite has been Drowned Hopes.
You should also check out some of Westlake's many one-off comic caper novels, such as Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner. There's also his science fiction novel, Anarchaos, by Curt Clark (most easily available in the Westlake collection Tomorrow's Crimes), but this is more in the brutal mode of the Parker books.
I'd always admired Westlake's plotting skillz, figuring he carefully planned things out, but he when I saw him speak, he claimed to just figure it all out as he writes the books. "If I don't know what's going to happen next, the reader can't possibly know."
The abrupt change of point of view is a Westlake trademark. This often happens toward the end of a Parker book when Parker is playing some sort of deadly cat-and-mouse game with one or more opponents (a competing robber, a member of his gang looking to double-cross him, a corrupt lawman looking to grab the loot, or maybe even all of the above) and none has a complete picure of what the situation is.
Comment on January 3rd, 2008.
Supposedly The Hot Rock started out as a Parker novel.
If he plots on the fly like that, he's a mad genius.
I am happy to say that I found Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner abandoned on the sidewalk just last week.
Comment on January 4th, 2008.
There are too many books in the world. Stop reminding me of more I have to read!
Comment on January 6th, 2008.
You're very welcome--I'm glad you got hooked!
I don't remember exactly what spurred me to press Westlake on you--it's a year or two ago now--but if I had to guess, it was that I was expounding my pet theory that Westlake is the American Wodehouse. (Abridged version: they're both prolific authors of comic caper novels with a perfect ear for dialogue; they both have one definitive series that is only a small fraction of their total output.)
Both the Wooster and Dortmunder series can be pleasurably read out of order, but many running jokes and characters are much more enjoyable when done in the correct chronology. (I get disproportionate amounts of pleasure, by the way, from "Diddums"/"It's Welsh" every single time Westlake uses the joke.) I have completely botched the chronology with both series, reading them avidly, but out of order and haphazardly, to the point where I'm not sure which books I've missed.
Westlake is a book collector's delight: many novels, some of them quite obscure. Some are unquestionably better than others, but even the lesser efforts are fun. It can be hard to track down individual volumes, but he's been popular enough that there's quite a few copies of everything floating around, so persistence pays off in that treasure-hunt. In used-book stores, the first thing I check for is usually Westlakes.
A few random notes:
If I remember correctly, there's at least one other Dortmunder novel where he basically wins in the end, but I won't spoil the surprise by telling you which one.
A Dortmunder novel was adapted into a Martin Lawrence vehicle, although they changed the name of the character.
The unabridged Books on Tape editions of the Dortmunder novels are remarkably good; they're read by Michael Kramer, who has excellent timing and a firm handle on what the various characters, from Tiny to Stan Murch, should sound like.
Comment on January 6th, 2008.
I'll bet it was the Wodehouse comparison, since it's been hard to keep me from going on about Wodehouse in recent years.
Comment on January 6th, 2008.
A slightly atypical non-Dortmunder favorite of mine is Kahawa, centering on Idi Amin and coffee.
Comment on January 12th, 2008.
I believe Dortmunder was indeed born from a rib of Parker's. The first Parker novel was going to end with him dying, but his editor, sometime novelist Bucklin Moon, was wise enough to ask, "Can you do more of these?"
Gavin says: Westlake is a book collector's delight: many novels, some of them quite obscure. Some are unquestionably better than others, but even the lesser efforts are fun. It can be hard to track down individual volumes, but he's been popular enough that there's quite a few copies of everything floating around, so persistence pays off in that treasure-hunt. In used-book stores, the first thing I check for is usually Westlakes.
Me too--but some of them are pretty hard to find. I'm still kicking myself years later for not buying that copy of Up Your Banners because it was too battered...The Edwin West sleaze novels are also pretty tough, not to mention figuring out which Beacon sleaze novels he wrote.
Good score on finding a copy of Help... Harry Künt is one of DEW's best comic shmoes...
I never thought of comparing DEW and Wodehouse, but I can see it. Part of the appeal of both is the inevitability of the plot. We know that Bertie Wooster will always end up engaged to a woman he can't stand, alienating his old schoolmate who is madly in love with her, and will always acquire some garish item of clothing which Jeeves strongly disapproves, etc. Likewise, Dortmunder will always run into unexpected difficulties in his capers. So will Parker, only in his case a lot of people will end up meeting most unfortunate ends.
Comment on February 23rd, 2008.
A couple of other good Westlake one-offs: Dancing Aztecs and A Likely Story.
I think he's improved with practice; some of his early books (I'm thinking in particular of Pity Him Afterward) are labored, populated by stock characters, overwritten. Starting with the Parkers, though, he really hit his stride, and for a guy who's produced as much as he has, his ratio of hits to flops is amazingly high.
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