Pioneer Library System

Are you looking for some indoor amusement? Well, Bob has another great book recommendation for you. This time he is switching things up with a mystery novel by well known author Donald E. Westlake. Check it out and find out who did it!

The Road to Ruin by Donald E. Westlake

Unfortunately for his fans, Donald Westlake died this past December. Fortunately for his fans he left a large body of work that we can continue to enjoy. The Road to Ruin is Westlake's 11th of 15 books in the Dortmunder series. It features one of my favorite fictional characters, John Dortmunder a rather inept thief. Dortmunder surrounds himself with interesting characters such as Andy Kelp, who never met a lock he wouldn't pick and who entertains himself reading safe manufacturers' catalogs; Stan March, the driver, who always describes in incredible minutiae his trips around Manhattan; and a full sized, intimidating Tiny Bulcher. Tiny, in describing why he doesn't have to trust another character says,"I don't have to trust you. I just have to find you, if I want to, and you got found once, so you could get found twice."

In The Road to Ruin the gang are out to rob Monroe Hall of his very expensive vintage automobile collection. To pull it off the gang all go to work as servants at the Hall estate. The jobs are all available because Monroe Hall, a corrupt CEO who has milked his company dry is so obnoxious to his employees that he can't keep help, good or otherwise. As his wife explains:

"The problem is that the Inquisition has ended, or at least its really active years had ended before the founding of the United States, so on this side of the Atlantic there was never that drilled-in terror over generations to make people eager to obey orders."

The Dortmunder gang isn't alone in attempting to get to Monroe Hall. There are also representatives of the union whose pensions he has destroyed and two venture capitalists that he has laid low. They all interact to provide good entertainment and a satisfying ending.