Today is the anniversary of the birth of arguably my favorite author, Donald Westlake who was born on this date in 1933.
Earlier today I posted a Movie Time edition which looked at 2 movies adapted from Westlake books.
This edition of Dave-El's Book Report is about one of my favorite books in Westlake's John Dortmunder series, Drowned Hopes.
A little background on John Dortmunder. John is a thief, a very clever one but he typically keeps to low level scores, just enough to keep the lights on and the rent paid. No guns, no muss, no fuss.
Dortmunder is described as tall, with stooped shoulders and "lifeless thinning hair-colored hair" and has a disreputable "hangdog" face; he rarely smiles.
His robberies are not big enough not to draw too much attention from the New York City cops.
Occasionally, he's not eluded the police and spent a couple of stretches in prison.
In Drowned Hopes, one of those times Dortmunder spent as a guest of the state has come back to haunt him. Former cellmate Tom Jimson is out of prison for his 70th birthday and pays Dortmunder a visit.
Jimson is a cold, visicious son of a bitch who is looking to get the $700,000 he stole and hid before he was sent to prison 30 years ago.
Jimson buried the money behind a library in a small town in upstate New York.
The town and the library are still there.
But underwater.
It seems in the intervening years during Jimson's incarceration, the state built a dam and a reservoir has formed over the tiny little hamlet where the dastardly crook buried his stolen money.
Jimson needs Dortmunder's help to get the money with the following plan.
Step one: blow up the dam
Step two: after the reservoir drains, dig up the loot.
There are two things about this plan that disturb Dortmunder:
- Between Step One and Step Two, the towns in the valley will be flooded when the reservoir breaks and thousands will die.
- Jimson is NOT disturbed by that. As long as he gets his money, who cares?
Knowing that Jimson will go forward with the "blow up the dam" scheme with or without him, Dortmunder convinces the old sociopath to give him some time to work an alternative plan.
So Dortmunder assembes the usual gang to work up a plan.
Couple of obstacles.
- Dortmunder and friends are urbanites through and through so they will be out of their element in buccolic upstate New York.
- Dortmunder can't swing and is deathly afraid of water.
Dortmunder assembles his crew of eternally optimistic Andy Kelp, genial, car obsessed Stan Murch and man mountain "Tiny" Bulcher as they deal with the culture clash between upstate New York and their native NYC.
"If we stay here much longer, we'll start buying one another birthday cards.''
Dortmunder's gang pursue various options for trying to get the loot without Tom Jimson blowing up van. Also taking into account Dortmunder does not know how to swim.
One option is to simply walk to the library.
Using scuba gear, Dortmunder can walk into the reservoir following the old abandoned rail line that passed right behind the library in the now underwater town.
Seems simple.
It's not.
Well, something's gotta work as Jimson is getting antsier about just blowing up the frickin' damn already.
Drowned Hopes is the longest of the Dortmunder novels that is faithful to the classic Dortmunder formula but provides some unique challenges to that formula.
Sadly Donald Westlake passed away on December 31, 2008 and is no longer with us. But he produced some of the most clever comic crime novels I've ever read.
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