Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable Reading
Review: There are some things that are certainties: death, taxes, and on a lighter note, that a new book by Donald Westlake will be a good thing. In Bad News, the latest in his Dortmunder series, Westlake is as consistently great as always.In this novel, the hapless burglar is recruited into doing some grave robbing for a group of con artists. The con artists are certain that Dortmunder and his pal Kelp are just a couple of dumb crooks, but they are smart and pros...just very unlucky. Soon Dortmunder and his usual gang are involved in a scam to get part ownership in a successful Indian casino, taking them out of their usual field and into the new area of grifting. The irony that pervades this and the other Dortmunder novels is that Dortmunder winds up working harder as a thief and with less rewards than if he got a legitimate job. The idea of honest work, however, never even crosses his mind. In this book, once again, the simple jobs get ever more complicated and the payoffs are never as great as hoped. This is a fun book and a funny one, a fast and entertaining read. For those who like a good caper novel, this is a book to read, another delight from one of the masters.
Rating:
Summary: Another great Westlake book
Review: There are some things that are certainties: death, taxes, and on a lighter note, that a new book by Donald Westlake will be a good thing. In Bad News, the latest in his Dortmunder series, Westlake is as consistently great as always. In this novel, the hapless burglar is recruited into doing some grave robbing for a group of con artists. The con artists are certain that Dortmunder and his pal Kelp are just a couple of dumb crooks, but they are smart and pros...just very unlucky. Soon Dortmunder and his usual gang are involved in a scam to get part ownership in a successful Indian casino, taking them out of their usual field and into the new area of grifting. The irony that pervades this and the other Dortmunder novels is that Dortmunder winds up working harder as a thief and with less rewards than if he got a legitimate job. The idea of honest work, however, never even crosses his mind. In this book, once again, the simple jobs get ever more complicated and the payoffs are never as great as hoped. This is a fun book and a funny one, a fast and entertaining read. For those who like a good caper novel, this is a book to read, another delight from one of the masters.
Rating: 
Summary: Dortmunder lives!
Review: There are very few writers who can sustain a humorous novel. It is a talent wildly under-appreciated until one seeks out those few examples of truly funny books: currently, David Lodge, last century, P.G. Wodehouse. A few others. And then there are the Dortmunder novels by Westlake, who takes the mystery genre and turns it into clever, lovable, hilarious adventures of these star-crossed robbers. This one, his most recent, returns to the level of his earlier ones, those memorable ones like the serial robberies in HOT ROCKS and "bank-robbing" taken too literally in BANK SHOT and the un-robbery of WHY ME? These are shamelessly shallow feel-good lovable entertainments: a rare accomplishment for any novelist in any period. This one, about DNA and Native Americans' casinos, is a splendid hoot.
Rating:
Summary: Dortmunder lives!
Review: There are very few writers who can sustain a humorous novel. It is a talent wildly under-appreciated until one seeks out those few examples of truly funny books: currently, David Lodge, last century, P.G. Wodehouse. A few others. And then there are the Dortmunder novels by Westlake, who takes the mystery genre and turns it into clever, lovable, hilarious adventures of these star-crossed robbers. This one, his most recent, returns to the level of his earlier ones, those memorable ones like the serial robberies in HOT ROCKS and "bank-robbing" taken too literally in BANK SHOT and the un-robbery of WHY ME? These are shamelessly shallow feel-good lovable entertainments: a rare accomplishment for any novelist in any period. This one, about DNA and Native Americans' casinos, is a splendid hoot.
Rating:
Summary: Westlake's Brilliant (Criminal) Career
Review: What's bad news for John Dortmunder, the talented but unlucky thief, is good news for mystery readers. It's been five years since we've heard from Donald Westlake's creation, but while he's been away, Dortmunder hasn't lost any of his zip, whether evading police inside a Sam's Club-like megastore to planning the burglary of a mansion guarded with the latest high-tech security measures. It wouldn't be giving too much of the book away to say that "Bad News" could also be subtitled, "Or, the Last of the Pottaknobbees." That is the scam Dortmunder stumbles into while switching bodies during a contract job in a Long Island cemetery. Soon, he and his confederates -- the massive Tiny and the smooth car thief Andy Kelp -- are freezing in the woods of upstate New York, helping to pass off a Las Vegas casino dealer as the last of her Native American tribe, and therefore the one-third owner of a reservation casino worth millions. It's not an easy task, dodging stake-outs, the police, the casino's owners and the trio's reluctant partners, but "Bad News" hums along as Dortmunder and crew maneuver -- on eggshells sometimes -- among a gallery of rogues, imbeciles and everyday misfits. Westlake has been around long enough that it may be difficult to realize just how truly inventive and consistent he is. He's delivered the goods in works ranging from comic novels ("Baby Would I Lie?") to his hard-edged Richard Stark series, to caper novels that tread a fine line in between the extremes ("Kahawa," set in Idi Amin's Uganda), and the corporate satire, "The Axe." "Bad News" is another welcome addition to Westlake's collection of must-read and must-re-read books.
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