Fred's Book Club: Hot Stuff.

Welcome back to the Humpback Writers, our Wednesday book blog that gets its name from the fact that Wednesday is Hump Day, at least according to some camels I know. Elephants have a completely different take.

This week we have the first book in one of the all-time great crime classic series: The Hot Rock, by Donald Westlake.

Donald Westlake was an established crime writer under multiple pseudonyms -- notably Richard Stark, author of the hard-boiled Parker novels -- when he was struck by a different arrow of inspiration:

One day in 1967 I was wearing my Richard Stark hat, looking for a story to tell about my man Parker, and I thought, he reacts badly to frustration, what if he had to steal the same thing four or five times? I started to work it out, then realized the idea was only comic and Parker wouldn't stand for it. But I liked the notion, and even -- once it was comic -- saw how to make it six thefts of the same elusive item.

Obviously he needed to come up with a hero who would be willing to go after the same item multiple times, imaginative and brave enough to pull off the heists but unlucky enough to keep losing the damn thing, and it had to be a crooked character who fit into a comic story. And so we have John Dortmunder and his band of underworld knuckleheads.

The hot rock in question is a large emerald, which Major Patrick Iko of the African nation of Talabwo wants stolen. It is in a Pan-African display in Manhattan, as part of another nation's exhibit, but the Talabwo people think it belongs to them. The Major is willing to pay the crooks well, $30,000 per man (the average U.S. salary then was $10K). Of course, the exhibit is well-guarded.

The best part about this and subsequent Dortmunder novels is not the careful plot but the wonderful characters in and out of Dortmunder's crew. Regulars include Andy Kelp, the Norton to his Ralph, who is always coming up with crazy ideas; Stan Murch, the getaway driver, who listens to record albums of race car engines; Murch's mother, who is usually quite helpful; and Tiny, a psychopathic mountain of a man whose favorite negotiating tool is to take a live hand grenade, pull out the pin, hold the clip down, and tape his hand in that position (it gets attention). Other handymen include locksman and model train enthusiast Roger Chefwick; safecracker and activist Herman X; universally loathed fence and repulsive human Arnie Albright; and in this book, utility man Alan Greenwood, who at one point swallows the emerald to keep it from the cops when he is arrested.

"Go on with your story. When did you next see the emerald?"
     "Not till the next day," Greenwood said. "I'll just sort of skip over that part, if you don't mind."
     "I wish you would."
     "Right. When I had the emerald again, I was in a cell. I guess they were afraid the rest of the guys might try to spring me right away, 'cause they hid me out in a precinct on the Upper West Side for the first two days. I was in one of the detention cells on the top floor."
     "And that's where you hid it?" the Major said faintly.
     "There wasn't anything else I could do, Major. I didn't dare keep it on my person, not in jail."
     "Couldn't you have just kept on swallowing it?"
     Greenwood gave a greenish smile. "Not after the first time I got it back," he said. 

So now, of course, Dortmunder has to plan to steal the emerald again, this time from the top-floor cell of a police station.

I have to say that The Hot Rock is not my favorite of the Dortmunder books I've read. There are 15, including a collection of short stories; I've read six. I preferred the second book, Bank Shot, in which the gang aims to steal a bank -- not rob a bank, but steal it, as the branch is temporarily relocated to a trailer during construction. The heist is so outrageous and the planning so clever, you almost feel like the hapless crew might pull it off... and maybe they will. Kidnap caper Jimmy the Kid is also terrific, and features the most extended cash-drop-off scene you will ever see, with multiple characters running up and down the highway trying to outfox one another -- that scene alone is a Westlake tour de force. But I think my favorite so far is Bank Shot. I'm not rushing through the series; Westlake cashed in his chips in 2008, so we only have these to enjoy. Fortunately he was prolific.

One of the odd things about the Dortmunder books is that, while Westlake liked to take on topical cultural currents, he didn't bother aging his characters. The first book's MacGuffin is inspired by 1960s news of postcolonial nations in trouble; Bad News (2001) is about Indian Reservation Casinos; the last book, Get Real (2009), puts the gang on reality TV. So you'd think they'd have aged forty-odd years in that time, but nope. In this first book, published in 1970, Dortmunder, a Korean War vet, is described as thirty-seven, divorced from night-club entertainer Honeybun Bazoom, and:

A little gray, a little tired, face a little lined, thin body rather frail-looking.... Dortmunder's eyes, as they met the Major's, were flat, watchful, unexpressive. A man who would keep his own counsel, the Major thought, and a man who would make his decisions slowly and then stand by them.

The same description could apply to our hero in all subsequent novels.

But not in any of the movies. Does that description sound like Robert Redford? Because he played Dortmunder in the 1972 feature film The Hot Rock. Not George C. Scott, either, who played the part (although they changed the name) in 1974's Bank Shot. Nor does it sound like Martin Lawrence (also with the name changed), in 2001's What's the Worst that Could Happen?, or Paul Le Mat (1982's Jimmy the Kid).

I've never seen any of them. The problem is always the casting. The last movie star who I think could have made a proper Dortmunder was Bogart; even Robert Mitchum was too tall for the part. Musclebound pretty boys can play Richard Stark heroes like Parker, but you need a skinny sad sack for this criminal mastermind.

Skip the movie versions and stick with the books. Westlake is a vivid writer and paints all the pictures you need.