Donald E. Westlake Watch Your Back

Watch Your Back

Donald E. Westlake

Mysterious, April 2005, $24.95, 310 pp

ISBN 0892968028

The family of New York fence Arnie Albright is so fed up with his obnoxious nasty personality that they stage an intervention and send him to the resort island of Club Med in the Caribbean to get a personality transplant. There he meets Preston Fareweather. The wealthy venture capitalist has been living on the island for three years to avoid being served the subpoenas, injunctions and other legal papers from his four ex-wives who have banded together to get even with Preston and take him for all he is worth.

While on the island, he treats Arnie so terribly that when he returns to New York he decides to have his revenge on the man who made him feel worthless. He contacts Dortmunder and explains that Preston has a penthouse with exclusive art and antiques easy to rob because nobody lives there. Dortmunder and his crew accept the job but they get sidetracked when the mob takes over the O.J. Bar and Grill, their meeting place. While Dortmunder is fixing that problem, his ex-wives lure Preston off the island and he is heading to his penthouse at the same time Dortmunder and his crew plan to rob the place.

Donald E. Westlake scores again with another deliciously ironic crime caper where criminals are trying to steal from one another. Preston, a white collar crook, is no different than his mob counterparts or Dortmunder and his misfits. The screw-ups outwit both the mob and the venture capitalist through some hilarious maneuvers. WATCH YOUR BACK is a crime thriller that will have readers chuckling out loud.

Harriet Klausner