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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrifically funny!,
By Krista Niece (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Spy in the Ointment (Mass Market Paperback)
Ever read anything by Donald Westlake? He's the author of many comedy/mystery/spy novels. This one definitely ranks among his best. An "ordinary guy" is recruited, through various machinations, to perform spy work. You get to follow him on a marvellous Jackie-Chan-meets-James-Bond kind of adventure, chock full of supercool, improbable, ridiculous gadgets and the wry Westlake humor that sometimes punches you in the gut while you're laughing. Really, if you're looking for a good read and a great time, pick this one up. (If it ever gets reprinted. :( ) You'll finish it and wish there was more!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Westlake About a Guy Confused for a Terrorist Who Reluctantly Becomes a Spy,
By
This review is from: The Spy in the Ointment (Mass Market Paperback)
Westlake is one of the greatest authors of all time, especially his standalone thriller books which have been given the name over time of comic capers. These humorous crime stories always have an unusual element to them and usually a few dimwitted villains and law enforcement characters as well. Westlake's classic 1966 adventure The Spy in the Ointment is no exception. It's not his greatest ever comic caper but it is still a great story and one any fan of a good book should not pass up. Unfortunately this book is a little bit harder to come across these days but the hunt is well worth the effort.In The Spy in the Ointment J. Eugene Raxford is the chairman of an organisation of pacifists called Citizens Independence Union (CIU). The CIU is an organisation that has lost most of its members since the Korean War ended (most were just members to avoid conscription and impress the opposite sex) but Raxford believes passionately in the cause of pasifistism. He is constantly bothered by the FBI who among other things have tapped his phone and empty his trash (which he doesn't mind at all) to find out information about him. They believe him to him to be something else other than what he is. They even have misclassified him in paperwork as a result of a typo. The very FBI paperwork which a Mortimer Eustaly has somehow come across believing Raxford to be head of a terrorist organisation. Eustaly invites him to come along to a meeting with a large number of other terrorist groups to fight a common cause with a really big event. Raxford tries to tell the FBI but they don't believe him. His girlfriend and lawyer point out if he doesn't go the other terrorists are likely to kill him off because he knows too much. So Raxford reluctantly goes and discovers their plans. Developments finally mean the FBI believe him and they leave him with no other choice but to go in under cover as a spy. Of course they have to send him on a five day training course first! This is a great novel, it is set around the era it was written so obviously some things are a bit dated in the storyline and terrorism would obviously be taken a lot more seriously today but these things reinforce the times the story is set in and make it all the more believable as well as fun. If you enjoyed this and are after a novel with a very similar sort of plot check out Pest Control by Bill Fitzhugh about a bug exterminator who is mistaken by crime lords and police to be a hit man. Pest Control like Westlake's crime capers is also hilarious. Other Westlake comic capers worth checking out are The Fugitive Pigeon, The Busy Body, God Save the Mark, Who Stole Sassi Manoon?, Help I am Being Held Prisoner, Two Much!, A New York Dance (also published as Dancing Aztecs), Enough, Smoke, Castle in the Air and High Adventure. Of course you've also got the Dortmunder series and the Parker series (under the pen name Richard Stark) and probably his greatest stand alone story novel of all time The Ax the ultimate solution to unemployment. Check out a Westlake novel today!
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