{"id":646,"date":"2009-01-04T18:24:20","date_gmt":"2009-01-04T18:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=646"},"modified":"2024-01-24T08:40:02","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T13:40:02","slug":"westlake_01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2009\/01\/westlake_01\/","title":{"rendered":"Westlake, Donald E.: (01) <cite>The Hot Rock<\/cite> (re-read)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We interrupt this re-read of the Dark Is Rising series for the beginning of the Donald E. Westlake Memorial Dortmunder re-read, starting with the first book, <strong><cite>The Hot Rock<\/cite><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>I described the plot of this one <a href=\"http:\/\/www.steelypips.org\/weblog\/2003\/08\/westlake_donald_3.php\">previously<\/a>, so I&#8217;ll just note here how I was struck by the ways that it&#8217;s <em>not<\/em> like later Dortmunder novels: though they don&#8217;t shoot people, the characters carry and use guns (I don&#8217;t think the later novels even <em>mention<\/em> guns, which may be a consequence of tougher gun laws in New York City), and generally seem much more prone to solve problems through physical intimidation. (This may have something to do with the plot&#8217;s roots as a rejected Parker story.) Also, Stan Murch gets some social skills along the way.<\/p>\n<p>Still an excellent book, but perhaps very slightly down the list of places to start because of these differences. (I started with <cite>Bank Shot<\/cite>, myself, and will see what I think of that when I get to it.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We interrupt this re-read of the Dark Is Rising series for the beginning of the Donald E. Westlake Memorial Dortmunder re-read, starting with the first book, The Hot Rock. I described the plot of this one previously, so I&#8217;ll just note here how I was struck by the ways that it&#8217;s not like later Dortmunder &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2009\/01\/westlake_01\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Westlake, Donald E.: (01) <cite>The Hot Rock<\/cite> (re-read)&#8221;<\/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-646","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\/646","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=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2576,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}