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Bad News

Westlake, Donald
Dortmunder once again doesn't get the big score as an Indian woman tries to get a share of a casino.

Read:

12/2004

Bank Shot

Westlake, Donald
The Dortmunder gang steals a bank. Lots of cigarette humor. Very funny!

Read:

7/1998

Read:

10/2023

Call Me A Cab

Westlake, Donald
A book edited and published posthumously. A woman decides to take a cab from New York City to Los Angeles so she can have more time to decide about a proposal of marriage. Pretty darn funny with some very good quotes, two of which I shall share below.

Quote:

What a strange feeling, to drive along on a person's work of art.

Quote:

..."Wait a minute."
Oh oh. I drank water and looked as innocent as possible. "Mmm?"
"You knew about the Holiday Inn."

Read:

7/2023

Castle In The Air

Westlake, Donald
Hard Case Crime has the most intriguing jacket illustration on this one. A woman holding a pistol, fashionably attired in bra and panty, with garters, which are not connected to any hose. In high heels. I'm not sure which character this represents, either.
Well, that's all I remember from this book!

Quote:

Speaking in Spanish, so that Manuel could understand her, Lida said, "Oh Manuel! I had given you up for dead"
"Even death could not keep me from my swan, my Lida,"said Manuel, who in his own language was some shucks.

Read:

8/2023

Drowned Hopes

Westlake, Donald
70-year-old Tom enlists his former cellmate Dortmunder, and the "gang", to help him retrieve a stash of loot that is now under a reservoir.

Words I Had To Look Up:

big sixteen-wheeler (pg. 218) -- I cannot visualize the wheel arrangement on that.

W.R. Burnett's Dark Hazard (pg. 268) -- A book Tom is reading on the train. It's about a man with a gambling problem. His racing dog is the title character. Edward G. Robinson was in the movie, in 1934.

Icepick, Long Island (pg. 293) -- Refers to the state mental hospital in Islip.

Toyota Chemistra (pg. 293) -- Huh, I don't remember that model.

bar of magnesium is welded (pg. 413) -- Turns out you CAN weld magnesium.

Pontiac Prix Fixe (pg. 418) -- What a minute...

Datsun S.E.X 69 (pg. 418) -- Now I think Westlake is having fun with us.

Smoke Quote:

Her left hand pretend-smoked, fiddling with an imaginary cigarette, flicking ghost ashes on the floor, something she hadn't done since just after she quit. (pg. 3)

Read:

7/2012

Get Real

Westlake, Donald
Dortmunder and the gang are offered roles on a reality series about a gang doing a robbery.

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9/2009

Read:

10/2023

God Save The Mark

Westlake, Donald
A guy who falls for every con-man's scheme inherits a tidy sum from his con-man uncle. Originally published in 1967. Not a great story, but hot a bad one either.

Read:

7/2004

Humans

Westlake, Donald
God decides he is quite bored with humans and so sends the angel Ananayel to arrange for the humans to bring about their own destruction.

Words I Had To Look Up:

scrofulous fleas (pg. 123) --
milk and mell (pg. 156) -- It is explained in great detail two pages farther. It's honey.
mezuzahs (pg. 191) -- A small piece of parchment inscribed with biblical passages that is rolled up in a container and affixed by many Jewish households to their door frames in conformity with Jewish law and as a sign of their faith.
marplot (pg. 251) -- An officious meddler whose interference compromises the success of an undertaking.
vassalage (pg. 272) -- The condition of being a vassal.
schismatic (pg. 271) -- One who promotes or engages in schism.
hospodar (pg. 272) -- 1. A Slav. word meaning lord, master. 2. A title borne by the princes or governors of Moldavia and Wallachia before those countries were united as Rumania.
rustling claque (pg. 273) -- A group of persons hired to applaud at a performance.
quasistable (pg. 334) -- More often used with a hyphen between quasi and stable, a term formerly (before the discovery of charmed particles) used for elementary particles that cannot decay into other particles through strong interactions and that have lifetimes longer than 10-20 second. Also known as semistable elementary particle.
subsumed (pg. 337) -- To classify, include, or incorporate in a more comprehensive category or under a general principle.

Quote:

Like Hans Brinker himself, he could skate with aplomb over the occasional patch of thin ice, such as plant safety or disposal of contaminated wastes, awing and distracting the populace with the grace and assurance of his arabesques. (pg. 129) First Hans Brinker simile I've ever seen. Loved that book!

Read:

9/2010

Levine

Westlake, Donald
Six stories about Detective Levine of the NYPD, who is rather concerned about his heart that skips beats. Very good stories, sad ending.

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12/2005

Memory

Westlake, Donald
Another Hard Case mystery. Dude gets into a fight when he is caught with another man's wife. In bed. Loses his memory. The ending was happy (sorta)/sad.

Read:

8/2023

Money for nothing

Westlake, Donald
Josh gets a check each month for seven years in the amount of one thousand dollars. He doesn't know who or why. Read again in 2010, THAT'S why it sounds familiar!

Read:

7/2006

Read:

9/2010

Put a lid on it

Westlake, Donald
Meehan, a thief up on a Federal beef, is recruited by the CREEP to steal some incrimidating materials. LATER: Read it again, still good!

Read:

4/2003

Read:

7/2006

Sacred Monster

Westlake, Donald
A very strange recounting of the life of an actor, told in strange flashbacks. The crime is revealed at the end, never fear.

Words I Had To Look Up:

crapen neck (pg. 30) -- Does not seem to be a "real" word. Is crapelike at dictionary.com.
steep hills serving as the only redan against the proles of the Valley (pg. 69) -- A v-shaped projection from a fortification.

Read:

7/2010

Smoke

Westlake, Donald
Freddie gets turned invisible, which has its good points, as he is a burglar, and its bad points, as it freaks out his girlfriend. And then there all those people who want to use him for their own nefarious projects... With a cigarette company playing a central part in this story, one would think there would be some good Smoke Quotes.

Words I Had To Look Up:


Oriel -- A bay window projecting from an upper floor. (pg. 98)
Boniface -- The keeper of an inn, hotel, nightclub, or eating establishment.(pg. 107)
Ferslugginer -- Confounded, darned, wretched.(pg. 118)

Quote:

It was a thirty-gear bike, a virtual thesaurus entry of power and speed, adaptable to any terrain known to man; there was probably a gear for going across ceilings. (pg. 354)

Quote:

Around the curve he went, shifted into the good-level-road gear, and hit forty-five without working up a sweat.(pg. 358)

Read:

1/2008

The Axe

Westlake, Donald
A downsized-man commits murders to elimate possible job competitors.

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12/2004

The Comedy Is Finished

Westlake, Donald
Published after the author died, but written in the 80s. Radicals kidnap a popular comedian to get prisoners released. Things go wrong.

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7/2012

The Hook

Westlake, Donald
A famous writer without a book with a bad divorce going on runs into an old friend who is a writer with a book and no publisher. Good story.

Read:

3/2001

The Hot Rock

Westlake, Donald
Well, I've seen the movie several times, I've read the book AT LEAST once before, at least, but I guess it was before I started this data base. Great story, five stars!!

Quote:

Afghanistan banana stand.

Read:

10/2023

The Road To Ruin

Westlake, Donald
The Dortmunder Gang tries to steal a collection of valuable cars.

Read:

9/2004

Thieves' Dozen

Westlake, Donald
A collection of Dortmunder tales, mostly. I can't have too much Dortmunder!

Read:

4/2010
20 books displayed
[Abadzis - Aiken] [Aiken - Allinghamc] [Alvarez - Angelou] [Anthony - Atkins] [Atkinson - Backman] [Backman - Balliett] [Balliett - Barnard] [Barnard - Barnes] [Barnhill - Barr] [Barr - Beanton] [Bear - Beaton] [Beaton - Beaton] [Beaton - Berendt] [Berger - Block] [Block - Block] [Block - Bonham] [Bonham - Box] [Boyle - Brown] [Bruchac - Bujold] [Bujold - Bujold] [Bujold - Canales] [Cannell - Card] [Card - Caunitz] [Caunitz - Charles] [Charles - Clancy] [Clancy - Coben] [Coben - Cole] [Coleman - Collins] [Collins - Connelly] [Connelly - Connelly] [Connelly - Cook] [Cook - Corin] [Cornish - Crais] [Crais - Creech] [Crew - Crusie] [Crusie - Cussler] [Cussler - Davidson] [Davidson - Dickinson] [Dickinson - Dorsey] [Dorsey - Dorsey] [Dorsey - Draper] [Duane - Elkins] [Elkins - Eszterhas] [Evanovich - Fairstein] [Fairstein - Fenner] [Ferber - Flanagan] [Flanagan - Flint] [Flint - Foster] [Foster - Francis] [Francis - Francis] [Francis - Frazier] [Freedman - Gaiman] [Gaiman - Gash] [Gash - Going] [Gold - Grafton] [Grafton - Grant] [Grant - Greenwald] [Greer - Grimes] [Grimes - Haddix] [Haddix - Hale] [Hale - Hallinan] [Hallinan - Harland] [Harper - Hebden] [Heinlein - Heinlein] [Heinlein - Henry] [Henry - Herriot] [Hershon - Hiaasen] [Hiaasen - Hillerman] [Hillerman - Hobbs] [Hobbs - Horowitz] [Horowitz - Hyland] [Hyman - Jemisin] [Jenkins - Joyce] [Kaaberbøl - Kaminsky] [Kaminsky - Kerasote] [Key - King] [King-Smith - Koch] [Kollin - Kraus] [Krueger - Larson] [Larson - Leblanc] [Leblanc - Lefcourt] [LeGuin - Lescroart] [Lescroart - Linsdau] [Linville - Lovelace] [Lovelace - Lutz] [Lutz - MacPherson] [MacPherson - Marcinko] [Marcinko - Martini] [Marusek - Mazer] [McAlister - McCammon] [McCarthy - McCullough] [McDevitt - Meyer] [Meyer - Monninger] [Montgomery - Moon] [Moore - Moulton] [Mowat - Neville] [Ng - Northcutt] [Norton - O'Brian] [O'Brian - O'Brien] [O'Brien - Osman] [Osman - Paretsky] [Paretsky - Parker] [Parker - Parker] [Parker - Patrick] [Patron - Paulsen] [Paulsen - Pelletier] [Pelletier - Philbrick] [Philbrick - Powell] [Poyer - Poyer] [Poyer - Pratchett] [Pratchett - Pronzini] [Pronzini - Pullman] [Pullman - Quinn] [Quinn - Reeve] [Reeves - Ringo] [Ringo - Rodman] [Rohmer - Rowling] [Rubens - Ryan] [Ryan - Scalzi] [Scalzi - Schmidt] [Schmidt - Scottoline] [Scottoline - Setterfield] [Shaffer - Shusterman] [Shute - Smith] [Smith - Sparks] [Specht - Stark] [Stark - Stephenson] [Stephenson - Stroke] [Stroke - Strunk] [Sturgeon - Taylor] [Taylor - Townsend] [Tracy - Updale] [Urban - Van Name] [van Vogt - Walsh] [Walsh - Weber] [Weber - Wells] [Wells - Westlake] [Westlake - Westlake] [Westlake - Willis] [Willis - Wodehouse] [Wodehouse - Yep] [Yep - Zusak] 

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