After the Dresden Files, I needed a palate cleanser before I went on to another urban fantasy book, so I returned to the world’s slowest Donald E. Westlake Memorial Dortmunder Re-Read. Why Me? is the one where Dortmunder accidentally steals a ruby ring that gets everyone, and I do mean everyone, out for his blood.
This is the book that introduces Stoon—though, as I recall, we never actually meet Stoon, he’s always the hope that falls through and requires Dortmunder to deal with Arnie. It has more slurs than usual thanks to the POV of Chief Inspector Mologna, another to-be-recurring character. It’s also the book with Dortmunder and Kelp’s phone adventures, by which I mean landline because it was written in the early 1980s. Oh, and it has one of the very few queer characters in any Dortmunder book—at least, right now I can’t think of any others—in Mologna’s gay assistant, who is stereotypically flamboyant but (1) highly competent and (2) possibly playing up the swish to get on people’s nerves.
Anyway, great fun, well into the stride of the series, and just what I needed.