{"id":272,"date":"2004-07-24T23:04:40","date_gmt":"2004-07-25T03:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=272"},"modified":"2004-07-24T23:04:40","modified_gmt":"2004-07-25T03:04:40","slug":"westlake_donald_5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2004\/07\/westlake_donald_5\/","title":{"rendered":"Westlake, Donald E.: (12) Road to Ruin"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n

As well as a new Dortmunder collection<\/a> from Donald E. Westlake, there was also a new Dortmunder novel, Road to Ruin<\/cite><\/strong>. 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<\/cite><\/a>, was enjoyable but pretty low-key, and this one is both low-key and unsatisfying.<\/p>\n

(Put a Lid on It<\/cite> 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<\/cite>. 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.).<\/p>\n

In Road to Ruin<\/cite>, 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<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Westlake, Donald E.: (12) Road to Ruin”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,66,6],"tags":[433],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-dortmunder","category-mystery","tag-westlake-donald-e"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}