Bad News

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Reading
Review: "Bad News," is the first Dortmunder novel I have read. I loved it! The characters are indeed lovable. I will be reading some more of these novels.

Rating:
Summary: A delightful caper
Review: After he escapes from his own failed Jersey robbery attempt, John Dortmunder reluctantly agrees to join his friend Andy Kelp on a caper. Fitzroy Guilderpost, Irwin Gabel, and Little Feather Redcorn hire Andy and John to dig up the coffin of a deceased Native American and replace it with a dead relative of Little Feather. Before Fitzroy and Irwin can kill the duo, John and Andy leave with a corpse.

Several weeks later during Thanksgiving dinner, Fitzroy calls Andy to arrange a new deal. They meet at Jones Beach where Tiny Bulcher accompanies Andy and John who demand in on the caper. Forced to concede, they explain how they plan to obtain a share of a successful upstate New York Indian casino. Everyone agrees to the new terms, but neither side trusts the other. The edge belongs to John and his cohorts because they stand together as one unit while the other team remains divided.

The good news is that Dortmunder and friends are back in an exciting caper. The BAD NEWS is that readers will now have to wait for the next tale of what is perhaps the funniest mystery series on the market today. The story line is amusing and entertaining as John and his team engages in a battle of wits and fights with Fitzroy's finest. The support cast adds to the feel that these thieves are genuine individuals whose GOOD BEHAVIOR proves NOBODY'S PERFECT. Clearly THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN to fans of a light but taut mystery novel is to miss Donald E. Westlake's superior book, series, and other works.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Winning Resurrection of Dortmunder as Grave Robber
Review: As a mystery writer with my initial novel in current release,I am quite pleased to see Donald Westlake bring back John Dortmunder following a five year break. No one writes comic caper books better than Mr. Westlake. After Dortmunder's first attempt at crime in this novel ends in a bungled burglary, Andy Kelp approaches Dortmunder with a unique offer. As part of a complicated scam to gain control of an Indian casino, Dortmunder is asked to remove a long dead body from a grave and replace it with the equally-dead ancestor of a woman fashioning herself as Little Feather. Fitzroy Guilderpost arranged this scam over the Internet, and the story takes wild and hilarious swings from there. BAD NEWS is a terric book, and I'm glad Donald Westlake resurrected his John Dortmunder to be a grave robber.

Rating:
Summary: Winning Resurrection of Dortmunder as Grave Robber
Review: As a mystery writer with my initial novel in current release,I am quite pleased to see Donald Westlake bring back John Dortmunder following a five year break. No one writes comic caper books better than Mr. Westlake. After Dortmunder's first attempt at crime in this novel ends in a bungled burglary, Andy Kelp approaches Dortmunder with a unique offer. As part of a complicated scam to gain control of an Indian casino, Dortmunder is asked to remove a long dead body from a grave and replace it with the equally-dead ancestor of a woman fashioning herself as Little Feather. Fitzroy Guilderpost arranged this scam over the Internet, and the story takes wild and hilarious swings from there. BAD NEWS is a terric book, and I'm glad Donald Westlake resurrected his John Dortmunder to be a grave robber.

Rating:
Summary: Bad News is good news
Review: Death, taxes, and a "Dortmunder" novel from Donald Westlake -- they're all something you can count on (and the "Dortmunder" novel is a lot more fun than the other two).

Another thing guaranteed is that nothing ever goes right for John Dortmunder, a simple, honest (well, sort of), hard-working thief who never gets an even break. As with all of Donald Westlake's novels about Dortmunder and his cohorts, just hang on because it is going to be a strange and funny ride. In previous books in the series, we have seen Dortmunder stealing jewels and paintings and banks (yes, "stealing" a bank, not robbing it), but never before has he had to steal a dead Indian. Of course, it is all in a good cause -- money. And rest assured, all will come out wrong in the end. Dead Indians, live Indians, Indian casinos, double-crossing con artists, small town lawyers, big city lawyers, coffins playing musical chairs ... No wonder John Dortmunder always looks so downcast.

This one is money in the bank, folks. "Bad News" is good news for readers.

Rating:
Summary: Bad News is good news
Review: Death, taxes, and a "Dortmunder" novel from Donald Westlake -- they're all something you can count on (and the "Dortmunder" novel is a lot more fun than the other two).

Another thing guaranteed is that nothing ever goes right for John Dortmunder, a simple, honest (well, sort of), hard-working thief who never gets an even break. As with all of Donald Westlake's novels about Dortmunder and his cohorts, just hang on because it is going to be a strange and funny ride. In previous books in the series, we have seen Dortmunder stealing jewels and paintings and banks (yes, "stealing" a bank, not robbing it), but never before has he had to steal a dead Indian. Of course, it is all in a good cause -- money. And rest assured, all will come out wrong in the end. Dead Indians, live Indians, Indian casinos, double-crossing con artists, small town lawyers, big city lawyers, coffins playing musical chairs ... No wonder John Dortmunder always looks so downcast.

This one is money in the bank, folks. "Bad News" is good news for readers.

Rating:
Summary: The Old Switcheroo!
Review: Donald E. Westlake does a brilliant job here of using comedy to display the ironies of life in proving that Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong . . . will) is still in effect.

John Dortmunder is well known to Westlake fans as the break-in specialist who constantly faces unexpected misfortune to foil his "can't-miss" plans. Never has Dortmunder had so many plans upset as in Bad News. This book is my second favorite in the series, after Bank Shot.

The book's opening would make a great short story. Dortmunder is about to walk off with $1,000 worth of camera equipment from a discount store when every alarm and light in the place go off. Using his wits, he quickly improvises an alibi that will leave you chuckling for days.

Having lost that $1,000, Dortmunder agrees to Andy Kelp's offer of a job digging up and moving a body from a nearby cemetery. Andy got the job over the Internet, and it turns out that John and Andy are viewed as expendable by their "employers" -- Fitzroy Guilderpost and Irwin Gabel. In the process of protecting themselves, John and Andy decide that they should try to cut themselves in on whatever the caper is really all about.

Eventually, they become "partners" with the two, plus their accomplice, Ms. Shirley Ann Farraff, who operates under the nom de guerre of Little Feather Redcorn, the supposed last of the supposedly extinct Pottaknobbee tribe who have a potential one-third ownership of a Native-American casino on the reservation in upstate New York. They plan to pull an "Anastasia" and prove that Shirley Ann is a Pottaknobbee by burying one of her relatives in the grave of one Joseph Redcorn on Long Island. Dortmunder quickly spots lots of holes in the plan and tries to fix them.

From the beginning almost everything goes wrong, with hilarious consequences.

Like the fine comic writer that he is, Mr. Westlake invests all parts of the book with humor . . . not just the development of the crime story. There are lots of humorous examples of the ways that people outsmart themselves.

Before you are done, you will have gone through so many switches of key elements of this story that you'll have run out of fingers and toes to count them on. And you'll love it!

After you finish the book, think about a time when you tried to get something for nothing . . . and outsmarted yourself. How can you avoid repeating that error in the future?

In my case, I remember spending 6 weeks working on a national contest while I was in high school. As I just about completed the contest entry, I realized that I had made a strategic error in my work process . . . and had no chance of winning. I would have made more money if I had worked for 25 cents an hour than I did with my nonexistent gains from working on that contest. I can avoid that problem by accurately assessing whether the likely gain is worth the effort before I start.

Rating:
Summary: Another great Dortmunder novel!
Review: Donald Westlake just keeps on crankin' out the hits! John Dortmunder, the ne'er do well thief of many previous books, returns after a long haitus...and immediately becomes entangled in one botched robbery after another. The always put-upon thief always seems to come out of such foul-ups, if not a winner, then atleast a little more learned than before.

In this comical caper, Dortmunder and other assorted criminals attempt to steal a body...against Dortmunder's better judgment. He's proven right that a thief should stick to what he knows, because the grave-robbery leads into such a comedy of errors, one can only shake ones head in wonder at the hilarity of it all. "Bad News" presents Westlake at the top of his hilarious form.

Every time I open the cover of a Westlake book, I know that I will be entertained, and this one is no different. "Bad News" ranks right up there with all of Westlake's books, which I have been reading since the 7th grade, and if that's not a great testimonial to good writing, I don't know what is!

Rating:
Summary: Good News! - A new Dortmunder
Review: Donald Westlake's latest Dortmunder book, _Bad News_, proved a sound choice for vacation reading. It's very fast moving, very funny, very clever, and very much a typical Dortmunder book, which is, dare I say, good news. As those who've read previous books in the series know, the most common trope of the Dortmunder books is for Dortmunder and his gang to get involved in a crime which ends up having to be, in some sense, repeated, with different permutations, several times. For example, in the very first one, _The Hot Rock_, they had to steal the same jewel several times.

In this book, after the usual opening scene, John Dortmunder hilariously failing to get caught while failing to successfully complete a robbery, he finds himself approached by Andy Kelp with a unorthodox (for them) proposal. Andy has been hired by somebody he met on the Internet (Andy is always trying new technology, which Dortmunder hates) to help out in a certain enterprise -- they want them to dig up a grave and rebury a different body in it. This isn't much to Dortmunder's liking, but the price seems fateful -- exactly the amount of money he had expected to realize from the stolen goods he was forced to leave behind the previous night. After Andy and John complete the body switch, they foil the attempt by the villains Fitzroy and Irwin to cheat (permanently) their new helpers, and they get interested in a) figuring out what's really going on, and b) getting themselves a much bigger cut. With the help of Tiny Bulcher, they are soon involved in the scheme, which I won't detail here because finding out is much of the fun. Also involved are Little Feather, an Indian from out West, formerly a Las Vegas showgirl, and their target is an Indian-operated casino in Upstate New York. It's no surprise that the crooked casino owners have their own ideas, which involve several hilarious further iterations of the original "crime".

It's all very funny stuff, and the various schemes are pretty much as clever as usual, though depending just a bit on sheer luck. Wholly worth reading, as indeed is the entire series. I'd put this particular entry somewhere in the middle range of the Dortmunder books, which means well in the upper range of books in general.

Rating:
Summary: Good News! - A new Dortmunder
Review: Donald Westlake's latest Dortmunder book, _Bad News_, proved a sound choice for vacation reading. It's very fast moving, very funny, very clever, and very much a typical Dortmunder book, which is, dare I say, good news. As those who've read previous books in the series know, the most common trope of the Dortmunder books is for Dortmunder and his gang to get involved in a crime which ends up having to be, in some sense, repeated, with different permutations, several times. For example, in the very first one, _The Hot Rock_, they had to steal the same jewel several times.

In this book, after the usual opening scene, John Dortmunder hilariously failing to get caught while failing to successfully complete a robbery, he finds himself approached by Andy Kelp with a unorthodox (for them) proposal. Andy has been hired by somebody he met on the Internet (Andy is always trying new technology, which Dortmunder hates) to help out in a certain enterprise -- they want them to dig up a grave and rebury a different body in it. This isn't much to Dortmunder's liking, but the price seems fateful -- exactly the amount of money he had expected to realize from the stolen goods he was forced to leave behind the previous night. After Andy and John complete the body switch, they foil the attempt by the villains Fitzroy and Irwin to cheat (permanently) their new helpers, and they get interested in a) figuring out what's really going on, and b) getting themselves a much bigger cut. With the help of Tiny Bulcher, they are soon involved in the scheme, which I won't detail here because finding out is much of the fun. Also involved are Little Feather, an Indian from out West, formerly a Las Vegas showgirl, and their target is an Indian-operated casino in Upstate New York. It's no surprise that the crooked casino owners have their own ideas, which involve several hilarious further iterations of the original "crime".

It's all very funny stuff, and the various schemes are pretty much as clever as usual, though depending just a bit on sheer luck. Wholly worth reading, as indeed is the entire series. I'd put this particular entry somewhere in the middle range of the Dortmunder books, which means well in the upper range of books in general.