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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious., May 12, 2005
This is a very funny book. It's the latest installment in the series about John Dortmunder, who's misadventures in crime never cease to amuse.
Summary, no spoilers:
Arnie Albright is New York fence who comes up with the plan for the perfect crime. While at a Club Med, he meets billionaire and jerk extraordinaire, Preston Fareweather. He is mistreated by Fareweather (who isn't?), and decides to get revenge.
Fareweather is hiding out from process servers who are trying to contact him at the behest of four angry ex-wives. He has not been to his New York apartment in over two years, and doesn't plan to return anytime soon.
Arnie contacts his buddy, Dortmunder, and they decide to round up the usual gang, and burglarize Fareweather's apartment and steal his BMW....since he isn't around.
As usual, with any Dortmunder scheme, anything and everything goes wrong. Enter New Jersey mobsters, mishaps at the OJ (Dortmunder's favorite bar), and the newest member of the gang, a naive but enthusiastic 19 year old named Justin. And of course the important lesson that timing is everything.
This book is highly recommended. It's funny and satisfying, and you are left with a big smile on your face when you finish the last page. Westlake at his best.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny and lighthearted!, July 18, 2005
John Dortmunder leads his crew, a cast of fascinating corkscrewed burglars. Their plan: to rob the Manhattan penthouse of billionaire reprobate Preston Fareweather, which just happens to be filled with priceless art.
Arnie Albright, is a recovering obnoxious person and fence whose family has stepped in and sent him to Club Med in the hopes that he'd become a more likable person. While at Club Med, Arnie had met an ever more repugnant guy, Preston Fareweather. A self-righteous financier, Fareweather is in exile at the Club, hiding from his five irate ex-wives whom are seeking his fortune. Fareweather in an attempt to avoid U.S. process servers flees his luxury penthouse apartment on New York's Fifth Avenue.
While Dortmunder plans the robbery and tracks down Raphael Medrick, a failed manager of the O.J. Bar and Grill and a producer of dreadful music, Fareweather uses women and loiters on the beach.
Events unfold in a tantalizing sequence when Dortmunder and his crew gather at their usual place, the backroom of the O.J. Bar and Grill on Amsterdam Avenue. Although Dortmunder receives the shock of his life when he discovers that another bunch of dangerous thieves --- a New Jersey branch of the mob is planning on stealing everything from the bar and drive it out of business.
Before they can disengage Fareweather of his treasures, the O.J. Bar and Grill must be saved from the mob!
Author Donald Westlake has certainly turned the table on crime, thus the saying: crime doesn't pay... well especially for John Dortmunder and his crew. "Watch Your Back!" will have readers rolling on the floor before they reach the end!
Reviewed by Betsie
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Westlake's Dortmunder and crew may have a tough time making crime pay but are always worth their weight in gold for laughs, September 21, 2006
Donald Westlake a gift for comic timing. It's the same kind of deadpan humor that you could have seen in an old Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton film, and yet it never degenerates into broad slapstick. The latest Dortmunder comic mystery is no exception. Westlake as always, crafts a villain so slimy, one Preston Fareweather, that you just want something - anything, to happen to him. And it does - John Dortmunder and his merry band of criminal misfits.
As you follow the misadventures of Dortmunder and crew from one catastrophe to another, you find yourself secretly rooting to just once, let them (actually the crooks !) score. Westlake really does prove with this loveable band of hapless bad guys, that while there is a certain amount of satisfaction and laughs along the way, they somehow just can't really make crime pay. In fact I've often wondered myself why they don't all just pack it in and find a nice steady job in a shoe store or flipping burgers. At the end of the day they'd probably be way ahead! But of course then we wouldn't have the pleasure of awaiting whatever calamity will befall them in Westlake's next comic masterpiece.
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