Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other - Howard of Warwick

   2014; 312 pages.  Book 4 (out of 30) in the “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Intrigue; Murder-Mystery; Historical Crime Fiction; British Satire.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

   It was a strange request.  But it came from King William’s right-hand man, Le Pedvin, so it had to be legitimate.  And Brother Hermitage is officially “the King’s Investigator” so he’s duty-bound to obey.

 

    Hermitage and Wat are requested to travel from England over to Normandy, France.  There they’ve been ordered to do some murder investigating, then locate a noble named Lord Jean Bonneville, and arrest him for those crimes.

 

    Le Pedvin doesn’t seem too concerned about who the victim or victims might be.  Any corpse will do, just so long as Bonneville’s slapped in chains, then executed for the slayings.

 

    Oh well, it’s an all-expenses-paid trip to France, a place Hermitage has never visited.  And since he is the King’s Investigator, what could possibly go awry?

 

What’s To Like...

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other is the third book I’ve read from this series, which is set in England shortly after William the Conqueror defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Hastings.  We follow a rather naïve monk (Brother Hermitage), a worldly-wise porn weaver (Wat), and an ahead-of-her-time woman (Cwen), all of Saxon heritage, as they stumble through murder investigations.

 

    This story takes place mainly in Cabourg, which is an actual small coastal town in Normandy, and which hosted a key battle by William the Conqueror on his way taking the Norman throne.  I like that this series, although lighthearted in tone, still strives admirably to conform to historical facts.

 

    The book is written in English, not American.  So fields are ploughed, buildings can be two-storey, messages are despatched, realisations can be focussed upon, and your vigour may be sombre.  I love learning foreign languages!  I also liked that, no matter which characters are involved, the dialogue was always full of wit.

 

    Our heroes are pleasantly surprised to discover that, upon arrival, they find that two murders had recently been committed in little Cabourg.  Both victims were tradesmen and the tools of their trade were left on their corpses.  A clue perhaps?  But if so, what is the message?  We’ll leave that to the King’s Investigator.

 

    The ending was quite good, with a twist or two that made it both surprising and logical.  All the murders are resolved and Hermitage and friends manage to comply with Le Pedvin’s edict that Bonneville be done away no matter how false the accusations are.  There’s a short teaser (one sentence) at the end of the story for the next book in the series.  Our heroes apparently are headed for Wales!

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 883 ratings and 100 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.37/5 based on 368 ratings and 17 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “But Le Pedvin said…”

    “And do you believe Le Pedvin?  The one who just trampled your herbs to death?” Wat asked.

    “Oh, well,” Hermitage began.  In all his investigations, well the few of them he had completed so far, people kept telling untruths.  It was both disturbing and disappointing.  If they only told the truth when they were asked, and as they should, things would be so much easier.  “You think he might have been lying?”

    “Do I think he might have been lying?  Do I think the sun will come up tomorrow?  Do I think Druids do it in the woods?  No, I’m absolutely sure he was lying.”  (loc. 489)

 

    “Are you saying the man was murdered by an ox?”

    “Certainly was.”

    Neither Blamour nor the old men on their bench seemed to think that this was in any way peculiar.

    “That’s ridiculous,” Hermitage eventually got his thoughts in some order, “oxen can’t commit murder.”

    “You tell that to the bloke who’s just been trampled to death,” Blamour retorted.

    “Being trampled to death is not the same as being murdered,” Hermitage explained.  Surely these simple country folk weren’t quite that simple.  “Being trampled to death is an accident.”

    “Not if the ox means it.”  (loc. 3224)

 

Kindle Details…

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other currently sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series range in price from $2.99 to $4.99, with the most recent books the higher-priced ones.

 

“What are you doing with your head on?”  (loc. 4778)

    The quibbles with Hermitage, Wat and Some Murder or Other are mostly a repeat of those for the previous book, which is reviewed here.  The punctuation errors are atrocious, especially comma abuse and missing periods.  Typos also abound, such as scatted/scattered; maybe/may be; Able/Abel; wrong doing/wrongdoing; and the frequently encountered discretely/discreetly and lead/led.

 

    OTOH, cusswords were a rarity, just two in the first quarter of the book, and mostly of the mild, eschatological variety.  Hats off to Howard of Warwick for being a sufficiently talented writer so that excessive profanity wasn’t resorted to.

 

    That’s about all I can grouse about.  The three books I’ve read thus far in this series have all been literary treats for me, and here’s hoping that somewhere down the line, the author makes use of a top-notch editor to peruse his manuscripts.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  If you find yourself in Cabourg, like Hermitage and his friends did, and you have occasion to mention the House of Margaret, try to do so without sniggering.

Cockroaches - Jo Nesbo

   1987 (in Norwegian), 2013 (in English); 437 pages.  Book 2 (out of 12) in the “Harry Hole” series.  New Author? :No.  Genres : Crime Fiction; Mystery Thriller; Thailand.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    It’s a delicate diplomatic situation.  The Norwegian ambassador to Thailand has been murdered.  Someone stuck a knife into his back.

 

    Unfortunately, it didn’t happen at the Embassy, nor the Ambassador’s residence.  It took place instead in a seedy motel room.  The kind you rent to “meet” a cute little hooker.  So says the motel manager who rented him the room.  So says the hooker who discovered the corpse.

 

    The Norwegian government has decided to send Detective Harry Hole to Bangkok to investigate.  His primary mission is not necessarily to solve the murder; that’s neither here nor there.  Rather, it’s to make sure that the embarrassing details of the case are covered up and kept out of the newspapers.  And they’ve drummed that repeatedly into Harry’s head.

 

    Unfortunately, Harry has a history of having trouble obeying orders from higher-ups.

 

What’s To Like...

    Cockroaches is the second book in Jo Nesbo’s fantastic Harry Hole series.  Book One, The Bat, is set in Australia, (and reviewed here); this time Harry and the reader are treated to a trip to Thailand.  It was fifteen years before Cockroaches was translated into English.  By that we mean “The Queen’s English”, not the American variant, so we have strange spellings such as kilometres, defenceless, and aluminium; and weird terms such as torches (flashlights), windscreens (windshields) and hoovering (vacuuming).

 

    Many years ago, I spent three days in Thailand, and I can attest that Jo Nesbo does a fantastic job in capturing the “feel” of Bangkok here: the heat, the humidity, the tuk-tuks, the unbelievable amount and diversity of the city’s daily traffic, and the national pride that Thais have in being the only Southeast Asian country that was never a European colony.  It’s all real, even the ubiquitous pimps showing foreigners pictures of their "working girls".

 

    The Mystery aspect of the story is done equally well.  It quickly becomes clear that this is not merely a “call-girl tryst gone bad", and it was fun tagging along with Harry as he doggedly – and against his superiors’ wishes – tries to get to the bottom of the murder.  Some key clues pop up along the way, but properly interpreting them is quite challenging, and a couple of them are red herrings intended to mislead.

 

    In addition to the British-English terms, we get to learn some words and phrases in both Thai and Norwegian, and I always like that.  One of the latter was “faen” a Norse cussword, which I’ll let you google to find out what it means.  Harry’s musical tastes are impeccable: at one point he wears a Joy Division T-shirt, and he also makes reference to the obscure prog-rock band Camel, whom I greatly like.  He also attends his first quasi-legal cockfight, which was enlightening for me as well.

 

    Everything builds to an excellent ending that’s full of both excitement and twists.  Harry’s keen crime-solving logic saves the day; to be honest I still didn’t have a clue who did it when he broke the case.  All the storylines are seemingly tied up, although there’s a teaser on the last page to make you think twice about that.  Cockroaches is both a standalone novel and part of a series.

 

Excerpts...

    ”His career has ended in a cul-de-sac.  He came from some job in Defence, but at some point there were a couple too many “buts” by his name.”

    “Buts?”

    “Haven’t you heard the way Ministry people talk about one another? ‘He’s a good diplomat, but he drinks, but he likes women too much’ and so on.  What comes after the ‘buts’ is a lot more important than what comes before; it determines how far you can get in the department.  That’s why there are so many sanctimonious mediocrities at the top.”  (pg. 117)

 

    “What is it about you Thais and heights?  According to Tonje Wiig I’m the third Norwegian to be thrown out of a house this week.”

    “An old mafia modus operandi.  They’d rather do that than plug someone with lead.  If the police find a guy beneath a window they cannot rule out the possibility that he might have fallen accidentally.  Some money changes hands, the case is shelved without anyone being directly criticised and everyone’s happy.  Bullet holes complicate matters.”  (pg. 130)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Ludic (adj.) : showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness.

Others: Alopecia (n.); Bodger (n.); Trainers (n., shoes).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.3*/5, based on 3,800 ratings and 1,478 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.73*/5, based on 50,252 ratings and 3,018 reviews.

 

“Who on earth pays half a million for a tape recorder?”  (pg. 146)

    There’s not much to gripe about in Cockroaches.  Be aware that this is a gritty, police-noir series, so there’s a fair amount of cussing (18 instances in the first 20%), violence, and adult situations, including one roll-in-the-hay.

 

    Despite all its positive attributes, Bangkok is also known as a center for child-pornography and pedophilia.  Both raise their ugly heads in Cockroaches.  Don’t read this book if this is going to upset you.

 

    About the only other thing I can quibble about is the choice of title.  I only recall two instances of cockroaches making the scene, and neither was important to the story.  I think I’m happier that they didn’t have a greater impact.

 

    9 Stars.  I still maintain that the best police-procedural murder-mysteries are written by Scandinavian authors: Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, Jo Nesbo, and others.  Cockroaches does nothing to dissuade me from that lofty opinion.

Postmortem - Patricia Cornwell

    1990; 342 pages.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Book #1 (out of 24, soon to be 25) in the Kay Scarpetta series.  Genres : Serial Killer Thriller; Medical Thriller; Crime Fiction.  Laurels: Edgar Award (1991) – Best First Novel (winner).   Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    The city of Richmond, Virginia is in panic mode.  A serial rapist/killer is on the loose, the kind who likes to break into women’s bedrooms, tie them up, assault them, and then strangle them to death.

 

    Victim Number Four has just been found, and it is particularly embarrassing for the city police department.  It appears she heard the intruder and called 9-1-1 just before he broke into her house.  But the call was deemed a low-emergency, assigned a “priority four”, and it was a couple hours before a patrol car passed by her house.  By then the crime was committed, the house was dark, and the officer reported that everything seemed normal.

 

    The blowback on this goof-up by the police could be monumental.  There’s only one thing to do: find a scapegoat, someone unpopular within the department, and shift the blame and the focus there.  But who to pick?

 

    How ‘bout that mouthy new Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta?

 

What’s To Like...

    Postmortem is the first book in Patricia Cornwell’s long-running “Kay Scarpetta” series, wherein we follow the examinations and investigations of a 40-year-old medical examiner in Richmond.  Kay is an “anti-hero hero”, which is my favorite kind of protagonist.  She smokes, is divorced, has family issues, and drinks, the latter including a glass of scotch almost every night when she gets home from work.  Amazingly, she’s not burnt out, but hey, she’s still new at her job.

 

    There’s a bunch of plot threads to follow, including (and without spoilers):

a.) Who’s killing these women in Richmond?

b.) Who’s leaking Medical Examiner information to the press?

c.) What’s with the glitter and the odor?

d.) How does the killer know when there are unlocked windows at the victims’ houses?

e.) Is there some hidden link between the victims, or are the killings random?

f.) Who’s been hacking into Kay’s computer and planting phony samples in the fridge?

g.) Who was the intended target in the Victim #5 case?

    All these threads were surprisingly easy to follow and keep straight.  Patricia Cornwell’s storytelling is Just. That. Good.

 

    Being an analytical chemist, I found the forensic chemistry details fascinating.  I also enjoyed stepping back in time to the 1990s, particularly the “ancient technology” in use back then.  Data storage is done via floppy disks, and company intranets were just getting started.  Gas stations still offer “full service”, and typewriters are as common as word processors when it came to writing up reports.  When you turned your computer on, the opening screen shows a “C prompt” because MS-DOS is the main operating system, and your reports are printed out on that ghastly green-and-white striped paper.  The police use tape recorders, not cell phones, to record conversations, and then transfer anything valuable to reel-to-reel.  My, how things have changed.

 

    I liked the character development.  The pesky newspaper reporter is not pure evil, the autopsy technician has to cope with being gay back when “coming out” involved considerable risk, and Kay's boyfriend is an attorney for state of Virginia, which makes them both vulnerable for conflict-of-interest issues.  The most interesting character of all was the cop, Sgt. Pete Marino, who is forced into having Kay as his de facto partner, a role neither one is crazy about.  Last but not least, for those of you who are Hallmark Christmas movie junkies, there’s a precocious ten-year-old girl, Kay’s niece Lucy.  Every Hallmark Christmas movie has a precocious little girl in it.

 

    Things build to an exciting ending, which includes a couple of neat twists.  The story is more of a police procedural than a whodunit.  The last 14 pages serve as an epilogue, neatly tying up some plotline loose ends.  Postmortem is told in the first-person POV (Kay’s), and is a standalone story in addition to being the start of a series that is still going strong after 31 years.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 2,268 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.01*/5, based on 221,386 ratings and 3,068 reviews

 

Things That Sound Dirty But Aren’t…

    “She’s slow to warm up this morning. … So am I, for that matter.”

 

Excerpts...

    “If it’s a serial killer, Dr. Scarpetta, doesn’t that indicate it’s quite likely to happen again?”

    As if they wanted it to happen again.

    “Is it true you found bite marks on the last victim, Doc?”

    It wasn’t true, but no matter how I answered such a question I couldn’t win.  “No comment,” and they assume it’s true.  “No,” and the next edition reads “Dr. Kay Scarpetta denies that bite marks have been found on the victims’ bodies…”  The killer, who’s reading the papers like everybody else, gets a new idea.  (pg. 4)

 

    “This is Dr. Scarpetta, chief medical examiner in Virginia.”

    “Oh.  You grant licenses to physicians, then─̶”

    “No.  We investigate deaths.”

    A pause.  “You mean a coroner?”

    There was no point in explaining that, no, I was not a coroner.  Coroners are elected officials.  They usually aren’t forensic pathologists.  You can be a gas station attendant and get elected coroner in some states.  (pg. 207)

 

I examined his wife.  I literally held her heart in my hands.  (pg. 140 )

    There are some quibbles, but nothing serious.  First of all, keep in mind the being a medical examiner is not a job for the squeamish, and neither is reading a book about one.  Corpses get cut open and examined, inside and out, and odors from doing this are the norm in the workplace.

 

    None of the murders take place on-screen, but it is the duty of the state medical examiner to get to the crime scene as quickly as possible to make firsthand observations, and the reader gets to accompany as she does that.

 

    The break in the case – the recovery of a piece of clothing – seemed a tad bit too convenient, ditto for the fact that the perp has a rare medical condition.  But maybe those are the types of lucky breaks that lead to the catching the baddy in real life.  For instance, if you go to Wikipedia, and read about the (real) “BTK killer”, who only got caught because he didn’t realize that even when you erase a floppy disk, the original data is actually still there.

 

    Finally, if you’re a serial killer trying to avoid arrest, DO NOT attempt to make the main person pursuing you your next victim!  Not in real life; not in a book!  Even though it makes for an exciting ending.

 

    9 Stars.  Don’t let my quibbles deter you from picking up Postmortem.  I found it to be a spine-tingling thriller, with a wonderful set of characters, and I got a great “feel” for the life of a medical examiner.  I’ve only read one other book from this series, Black Notice (Book 10), and that was back in 2015 (the review is here), but I now have a couple more of the books on my Kindle, and I’m looking forward to getting better acquainted with the series.

Dancing Aztecs - Donald E. Westlake

   1976; 350 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Crime Fiction; Comedic Mystery.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    It's a brilliant scam.  A New York City museum is willing to pay a million dollars for the famous “Dancing Aztec Priest”, an ancient figurine made of solid gold with emeralds for eyes (see the book cover image).

 

    Unfortunately, it presently resides in the dirt-poor South American nation called Descalzo, where the people revere it, pray to it, and are unlikely to give it up for any price.  But couldn't a skilled sculptor create a cheap plaster lookalike, and switch it out?  The only challenge then would be getting it through customs when shipping it into the United States.  And that’s where the brilliancy comes in.

 

    Why not make a bunch of lookalikes, put them in crates bound to NYC, mark the crate that has the real Dancing Aztec in it, and pay some airport hustler with access to the JFK airport tarmac to steal the designated crate before it goes through customs inspection?

 

    Finding such a hustler is easy, it’s our protagonist, Jerry Manelli, who's already doing a profitable business stealing small amounts of baggage on a regular basis at JFK.  Just have someone call him from Descalzo when the plane leaves there and tell him the million-dollar figurine is in “Crate E”.

 

    Funny thing though.  The first five letters of the Spanish alphabet are pronounced “ah”, “bay”, “say”, “day”, “ay”.  So when the native Descalzan tells the Jerry to swipe “Box ay”, guess which one he grabs?  Oopsie.  Someone else is going to get the real statuette, not realizing how much it’s really worth.

 

What’s To Like...

    Dancing Aztecs chronicles the madcap antics that ensue after the scammers become aware of the mix-up described above.  As luck would have it, the rest of the Dancing Aztecs, sixteen in all, were then all given out as “thank-you mementos” at an awards banquet given by a group called the Open Sports Committee.  That means the sixteen trophies went sixteen separate ways to people scattered all over the greater New York City area.  Good luck finding the right Aztec.

 

    Things rapidly get more complicated.  The bad guys go chasing the statues.  Our hustler-hero figures out why the baddies wanted him to hijack the special crate and he forms his own team to track down the statues.  Some of the sixteen recipients also wise up and work together to do the same, including one who even teams up with his wife’s paramour.  The baddies in Descalzo start their own caper and they have the added challenge of hijacking an airplane to get to the US, then somehow evading arrest.

 

    All this probably sounds confusing, but somehow Donald E. Westlake’s storytelling makes everything easy to follow.  It helps that he includes a handy Cast-of-Characters at the very beginning, warns you any time the storyline goes non-linear (which happens a lot), and keeps the settings limited to the NYC area, Descalzo, and a brief side trip to Pennsylvania.

 

    Weirdly, the book doesn’t have chapters, Westlake simply adds a brief header (such as: “in the beginning…”, “prior to which…”, that night…”, some time earlier…”) which lets you know you’re heading into a new section of the tale.

 

    I chuckled at the national drink of Descalzo: something called “gluppe”, which is made by fermenting rotting yam skins and lima-bean stalks.  Westlake gives us a nice “feel” for the various boroughs of NYC, and it’s a treat anytime the Olmecs get mentioned.  The book was published in 1976, and there were some neat nods to long-forgotten people from back then, including Sonny Jurgensen, Alex Karras, Shirley Chisholm, and Stokely Carmichael, the latter getting a local Squash Court & Snack Bar named after him.  There’s also a very slight “is it natural or supernatural” aspect to the tale, and I always like that.

 

     The ending is skillfully done, with a couple well-timed twists and a neat “six months later” epilogue.  Everyone lives happily ever after, or, at least no unhappier than they were before all this craziness transpired.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Agley (adj.) : awry; askew; wrong.  (a Scottishism).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 42 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.00/5 based on 513 ratings and 60 reviews.

 

Kindle Details…

    Dancing Aztecs currently sells for $7.99 at Amazon.  Donald E. Westlake has several dozen other e-books at Amazon, ranging in price from $1.99 to $14.99, the latter being for the most recent release in his acclaimed “Dortmunder” series.

 

Excerpts...

    The state trooper was driving a Fury II.  State troopers love Fury IIs.  State troopers will go on driving Fury IIs until some car company puts out a car called Kill.  Then state troopers will drive Kills.  State troopers get their self-image from Marvel Comics.  (loc. 2106)

 

    The Dancing Aztec Priest.  Three children were making fun of it, as usual; giggling at it, prancing before it, trying to imitate its stance.

    It looked so real (…)  And it gave just as much enjoyment to these disrespectful brats as had its predecessor.  What do children care whether their plaything is gold or gilt, the original or a copy, priceless or valueless?  In any event, the true original Priest long ago was flesh, and long since dead, that flesh ages ago converted to yams by the wonder of the natural order.  And we eat the yams, and we are all the Dancing Aztec Priest.  (loc. 6306)

 

Where he walks tombstones grow, and where he sits the sun never shines.  (loc. 2531 )

    There are a couple of nits to pick, mostly about things that were the norm back in the 70s or which Donald Westlake, who passed away in 2008, has no control over.

 

    For starters, there were a ton of typos.  My impression was that the publisher digitalized Dancing Aztecs by scanning the pages and converting them to “.doc” format.  Okay fine, I’ve used that sort of program before, and you still have to proofread the Word document.  They didn’t, and it shows via all sorts of annoying misprints: wife/with, sate/sale, m/in, worm/worth, well/we’ll (3 times!!), Watty/Wally, scoffing/scarfing, and many, many more.  If someone was paid to proofread this manuscript, they should be shot.

 

    There are at least a half dozen ethnic and sexual slurs, some of them done multiple times.  I cringed each time one popped up, but reminded myself that back in 1976, such language was acceptable.  Similarly, a couple of the sections are written in what might be called “jive” or “ebonics”, and for me they fell flat.  And for those who get offended by cusswords, I counted 30 instances in the first 25%.

 

    Despite all that, I thoroughly enjoyed Dancing Aztecs.  I’m in awe that the author could juggle so many separate storylines and not leave the reader in a befuddled fog.  This book is not part of his famous “Dortmunder” series, but I found it just as charming and entertaining. If you’ve never read a Donald Westlake novel, this is as good a place to start as any.

 

    9½ Stars.  It’s not a spoiler to say that the whereabouts of the missing Dancing Aztec Priest is revealed at the end of the book.  Just for fun then, try to figure out, alongside the book’s various characters, who has it.  I'm confidently betting that you’ll be wrong.

Defend and Betray - Anne Perry

    1992; 428 pages.  Book #3 (out of 17) in the "William Monk" series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Crime Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Oh my!  Someone has pushed General Thaddeus Carlyon over the banister at the top of the stairs and right down onto a suit of armor (see bookcover).  And with that halberd sticking up in the air.  Fortunately, all that did was daze him.  Until the murderer came downstairs, picked up the halberd, and buried it in his chest.

    Who would do such a dastardly deed?  His wife, that's who. She's confessed to the killing, and said she did it because he was having an affair.

    It's all cut and dried.  Why would anyone think otherwise?  That's what Investigator William Monk wants to find out.

What's To Like...
    There are three "stars" here : Investigator Monk, the barrister Oliver Rathbone, and nurse Hester Latterly.  They all share equal billing, and yet they all have their limitations.  Monk is shrewd, but he's impatient and surly when questioning people - not a good way to get them to talk.  Rathbone seems brilliant - until you meet his father.   And Hester is probably the sharpest of the three, but this is 1857 Victorian England, and women are expected to not be sharp.

    Defend and Betray has a "cozy" start - the murder and confession have already taken place as the book opens.  That's means there's little if any action, and a lot of telling-not-showing as first Rathbone, then Monk, and in some cases also Hester, question each suspect.  You may be tempted to put the book down about halfway through.

    That would be a mistake.  The story builds to the stunning climax, Mrs. Carlyon's trial, and confessed murderess or no, Anne Perry chronicles that whole proceeding with a powerful pen.  It may or may not be realistic (I have no idea what would or would not be allowed in a Victorian courtroom), but the ending will move you.

Kewlest New Word...
Discommoded : inconvenienced; put to trouble.

Excerpts...
    He was normally somewhat nervous of women, having spent most of his life in the company of men and having been taught that the gentle sex was different in every respect, requiring treatment incomprehensible to any but the most sensitive of men.  He was delighted to find Hester intelligent, not given to fainting or taking offense where it was not intended, not seeking compliments at every turn, never giggling, and best of all, quite interested in military tactics, a blessing he could hardly believe.  (pg. 11)

    "I am a servant, Mr. Lovat-Smith," she replied with dignity.  "We have a peculiar position - not quite people, not quite furniture.  We are often party to extraordinary scenes because we are ignored in the house, as if we had not eyes or brains.  People do not mind us knowing things, seeing things they would be mortified to have their friends see." (pg. 398)

"Death is often absurd.  People are absurd.  I am!"  (pg. 27)
    D&B is not really a whodunit; it's more of a whydunit.  And on a deeper level, Anne Perry asks an unsettling question - are there times when embarrassing family secrets should be kept secret?  If someone is willing to sacrifice her life to protect innocent victims from public humiliation, is it better to stand back, remain silent, and let her take the fall?

    The last third of the book more than compensates for the rather pedestrian pace of the first part. You will find Defend and Betray to be a riveting read.  But only if you finish it.  8 Stars.

Get Real - Donald Westlake

2009; 289 pages. Genre : Crime Fiction; Humor. New Author? : No. Book #14 in the Dortmunder series. Overall Rating : 7*/10.

.

What theme hasn't been tried yet as a Reality Show? How 'bout following John Dortmunder's gang of thieves as they plan and carry out their next heist? For Dortmunder and his cohorts, it's a chance to pick up some easy money as they do a scripted-for-TV caper. And maybe do a second, real job when the cameras aren't pointed their way.

.

What's To Like...

Get Real is a formulaic Dortmunder tale, but that's okay. Our lovable lugs plan a caper that can't possibly go wrong, only to find it hitting snag after snag.

.

The whole "how real is a Reality Show" issue is artfully done. Two new "partners" are written into the cast to add dramatic and romantic angles. And after initial discomfort, Dortmunder and friends find they kinda enjoy acting out their story in front of the cameras. Now if they can just steal something for real and get away with it.

.

Kewl New Words...

Gaff : to rig or fix something in order to cheat (or in this case, to steal). Zeitung : German for 'newspaper', although its usage here was unclear.

.

Excerpts...

Kelp stepped aside while the clerk was on the phone, to let the next customer, a short round Hispanic lady totally concentrated on her own business, wheel into place an enormous shopping cart piled sky-high with Barbies, all different Barbies. Either this lady had an awful lot of little nieces or she was some kind of fetishist; in either case, Kelp was happy to respect her privacy. (pg. 21)

.

As Dortmunder nodded, the doorway filled with enough person to choke Jonah's whale. This creature, who was known only to those who felt safe in considering him their friend as Tiny, had the body of a top-of-the-line SUV, in jacket and pants of a neutral gray that made him look like an oncoming low, atop which was a head that didn't make you think of Easter Island so much as Halloween Island. (pg. 48)

.

Reality is escapist entertainment at its most pure and mindless. (pg. 84)

Donald Westlake died unexpectedly in December 2008. Get Real was first published in July 2009. Sadly, it has the feel of a novel that was only about 90% finished at the time Westlake passed away. The story hums along nicely until we get to the matter of wrapping it up.

.

Frankly, the ending is a major fizzle. All the major plotlines - the reality show, the second heist, and a tertiary auto-theft operation - are hastily and unsatisfactorily addressed. One gets the impression that a ghost-writer was called in at no notice, and did a crappy job of finishing the tale. 289 pages is a bit short for a Dortmunder book; added evidence that Westlake would've ended this properly, albeit using another 40 pages or so.

.

Still, it was nice to see the whole gang in operation one last time, and Get Real was clipping along at an 8-star pace until that anti-climactic climax. We'll dock it a star for that, so 7 Stars it is.