As well as a new Dortmunder collection from Donald E. Westlake, there was also a new Dortmunder novel, Road to Ruin. Unfortunately, the novel isn’t nearly as good as the collection. I fervently hope this is not the start of the decline of the series: the prior Dortmunder novel, Bad News, was enjoyable but pretty low-key, and this one is both low-key and unsatisfying.
(Put a Lid on It was the intervening book, a non-Dortmunder; I just read it this weekend and I’d put it about the same level as Bad News. However, there are over twenty books before it in the queue (eep! I didn’t think it was that bad until I counted), so detailed discussion will have to wait.).
In Road to Ruin, Dortmunder and the gang set out to relieve an Enron-executive-type of his collection of classic cars. That much is set up in the first two chapters, presently available online. What those don’t indicate is that there are other people with plans for this executive, and their plans end up colliding with Dortmunder’s to create an incredibly unsatisfying ending. I know nothing about the way Westlake writes, so this is not to be taken as anything but a way of describing my reactions—but it felt to me as though, either Westlake wrote himself into a corner and couldn’t or didn’t rewrite to get out of it, or his characters took the bit in their teeth and refused to cooperate. It did not feel like a Dortmunder plot.
I’ve just started this one, since it’s the next in order of the ones I haven’t read. If it’s really that bad, I wouldn’t mind skipping it — partly because I’m listening to it as an e-audiobook, and it’s not the delightful Michael Kramer (of Books on Tape) doing the reading. The new guy is not merely different; he’s not so good. Why would Annamarie(sp?) have a southern accent? She’s from *Kansas*, not Alabama.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear from your later comments that this wasn’t a permanent lapse, and that subsequent Dortmunders come back up to an enjoyable (if not peak) level.
David, it might be worth skimming on paper. There are good bits, of course, but I really found the ending lacking.
Thanks for the suggestion — I have it on hold at the library, and I’ll do just that.
BTW, last I heard, you had not yet heard any Michael Kramer readings of Westlake, but were about to. Did you? If so, what did you think?
I checked one out of the library and realized that no portrayal of Dortmunder will sound right to me. =>