The Road to Ruin

By Donald E. Westlake

The Dortmunder gang is once again trying to pull off a successful heist, although, given their past record, it seems a vain hope.
So one of the gang members has come up with a very tempting opportunity. A very wealthy man has become a social pariah (because of his financial shenanigans that cost a lot people a lot of money) and can't find enough people to take care of him and his household.
The gang has inside information, including that the man, Monroe Hall, has a fabulous collection of very valuable cars. The plan is the gang members will get hired on as Hall's servants and, when the time is ripe, they will steal the cars.
It's a beautiful plan that can't go wrong. Except it does. Unbeknownst to the Dortmunder crew, a group of disgruntled investors and workers have a plan to grab Monroe Hall and extort all their lost monies out of him. Working at cross-purposes, the second group manages to screw everything up for everyone, including Monroe and his faithful wife, Alicia.

This was an typical & entertaining Dortmunder story. I was really hoping old John would finally come out on top, but, as per usual, John Dortmunder gets nothing for all his hard work. It was interesting seeing the gang of crooks trying to act like ordinary workings stiffs. Some of them even seemed to actually enjoy their new roles, a first step on the road to redemption? Nope.
I usually do enjoy Westlake's stories and this one was quite enjoyable too.

Review from Publishers Weekly.

Kaleidoscope

By Dorothy Gilman

This is the second book in the Madame Karitska series. In this book, Madame is settled into her apartment and seeing plenty of clients who wish to avail themselves of her psychic talents. A parade of troubled people come and go from her apartment, including the abused wife of a cultist, a policeman (who is a friend), a rich man with a spoiled and willful daughter, a government man investigating terrorist activities, and a murderer, just to list a few.
With the help and backing of her police friend, Madame Karitska gently nudges people onto the right path and helps bring miscreants to well-deserved justice.

This is mostly a collection of short stories tied together by means of being clients of Madame. And even though short stories are not my favorite form of reading, I still enjoyed this book a lot.

Tricky Business

By Dave Barry

Extravaganza of the Seas is a cruise ship whose main purpose is to deliver drugs to organized crime boss, Lou Tarrant. Its cover is that of a floating casino, taking its passengers out beyond the three mile limit and out of the jurisdiction of the government.
Wally and his band members have a steady job performing on the ship. These guys, all competent musicians, have never hit the big time, to their disappointment. Wally has recently left his wife and moved in with his mom. He feels like his life is going nowhere good.
Fay also works on the ship as a cocktail waitress. Like Wally, she is also struggling and coping with life after marriage. She too has moved in with her mother.
Bobby Kemp is a sleazy businessman who owns the ship, but in name only. He purchased the ship, thinking it was a good investment. But then mobster Lou Tarrant muscled in on Bobby, revealing the true purpose of the trips out to the three mile limit, the transfer of money and drugs. In fact Tarrant muscled in on all Bobby's questionable businesses and this has made Bobby very unhappy. So unhappy that he has come up with a plan, a plan that he will put in force on a night when the Extravaganza of the Seas sails off into a dangerous tropical storm, loaded with its usual complement of devoted gamblers, Wally and the band, Fay the cocktail waitress and two old guys who have escaped from their retirement home. A good time will not be had by all.

This was a very entertaining story, although at one point I put it down when it got a little too gruesome for me. Lots of action, lots of humor, complicated plot and a satisfying ending add up to a very enjoyable read, except for that one really nasty part.
For another review see http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-399-14924-5.

Shark Skin Suite

By Tim Dorsey

Serge Storms is a strange and dangerous man. Very intelligent and creative, he is a bad guy's worse nightmare. He toys with them and tortures them and eventually kills them, in twisted and sickening ways. But, really, Serge isn't a bad guy himself. He just prefers to cut out the middle man and be judge, jury and executioner all in one.
Meanwhile, young attorney (and former flame of Serge's) Brook Campanella has gotten her first big case involving the shenanigans of a large banking institution and mortgage foreclosures. She and another young attorney have brought a class action law suite against the bank. But their investigation gets a little too nosy and Brook's fellow attorney ends up dead. Fortunately for Brook, Serge Storms is about to walk back into her life and deal some street justice to the bad guys.

This was my first time reading a novel by Tim Dorsey and it seemed rather similar to the books written by Carl Hiaasen, some of which I have read. Dorsey's book had its amusing moments and also paints a vivid image of life in Florida. I did find the plot a bit hard to follow and I didn't care for the elaborate and creepy ways the hero, Serge, used to take out the bad guys. Too gruesome for me. Overall, I liked the book but not Serge's Rube Goldberg death contraptions.

For more, see http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2015/01/fresh-meat-shark-skin-suite-by-tim-dorsey-florida-serge-storm-series-neliza-drew.

Pagan Babies

By Elmore Leonard

Father Terry was a Catholic missionary in a village in Rwanda during the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus, two tribes in conflict. Holding mass one Sunday, Hutu killers entered the church and slaughtered the Tutsi congregation in front of Father Terry and he was helpless to stop it.
Some years pass and Terry receives word that his mother has died. His mother was the reason Terry became a priest, it was her dream, not his. So he returns to the States.
Once there it soon transpires that Terry has a lot of old baggage he needs to deal with including a felony charge connected to smuggling and old friend who wants his $30,000 dollars back that Terry apparently absconded with when he went (fled) to Africa. A new added complication is Debby, an ex-con who has a serious grudge against her con-artist ex-boyfriend, who conned her out of $67,000. Debby and Terry join forces, Terry to raise money for his mission in Africa and Debby to get back her money from her ex.

I pretty much enjoyed this book. It is an interesting combination of grim reality and goofiness. The Rwanda part is horrifying and terrible and the interactions of the characters in the US are pretty goofy. Terry is a complex guy who is having a struggle trying to understand where his loyalties lie, with his own self-interest, with the people he left behind in Africa or with his family and friends, old and new, back home in Michigan. It remains unclear which way Terry will go and what his true intentions are, even to himself, until the very end of the story.
For another review, see: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/17/reviews/000917.17desilvt.html.

Get Real

By Donald E. Westlake

John Dortmunder is the head of a criminal team. There's  Stan Murch, the driver, Andy Kelp, the locks and safe man, Tiny, the muscle, and the Kid, Judson, who is fairly new to the group and adds the youth perspective.
Murch's Mom, who drives a cab for a living, has made a connection with a reality TV show producer, Doug Fairkeep, who wants to do a reality show about a gang of criminals committing a crime. Stan's mom thinks the guys should sit down with the guy and see what he has to say.
Naturally, being career criminals, the last thing they want is to be filmed while committing crime. But the producer talks them into it, under certain conditions and restrictions. And the money he is promising is very,  good. Fairkeep takes the guys on a tour of his firm's building and they are quick to spot lots of opportunities for a little side work. Seems like something suspicious is going on and Dortmunder and friends think they can work it to their benefit, with the TV show money as a nice bonus. Of course, this being a Dortmunder story, nothing works out quite like envisioned.

Westlake takes a whack a reality TV and produces another fun and engrossing Dortmunder caper novel. This is the last Dortmunder novel, alas, as Donald Westlake died in 2008.  Unlike many successful writers as they get old, Westlake maintained the quality and verve of his earlier works. I have been reading Dortmunder stories for years now and I will greatly miss reading about the shenanigans of Dortmunder, Andy, Murch, Murch's Mom, Tiny,  new guy the Kid and Dortmunder's common law wife, May.

Con Ed

By Matthew Klein

Kip Largo is trying to keep out of trouble. After doing hard time for fraud, the one-time con man just wants to go straight.  But some cons are just to hard to resist and when doing the con means saving your son's life, well a man's got to do what a man's got to do.
So Kip proceeds with his con, in the hopes of preserving his son from the revenge of the Russian mob, and if things don't go exactly as planned, at least he and his son are getting to know each other a lot better.

I can't say I really enjoyed this book all that much. Like most of the books about cons that I have read, the mechanics of the con were hard to grasp. Although I did enjoy the brief explanations of various cons that the author gives at the beginning of the chapters.  Also, like other con man stories, I sort of lost track of who was conning who. And finally, I didn't care for the ending. I guess I would rate it a fair read. Might be more interesting for those who can keep track of the various twists and turns of the story.

Drowned Hopes (A Dortmunder Novel)

By Donald E. Westlake

Back when he was a young man, Dortmunder shared a prison cell with Tom Jimson. Jimson was in for various crimes and should have spent the rest of his life behind bars. But some twenty years or so later, Jimson was released, due to overcrowding. All those years behind bars didn't do a thing to improve his disposition either. He went in a bad guy and came out a bad guy.
One of the crimes Jimson committed (but for which he was not convicted) was the robbery of an armored car that resulted in a take of $700,000. It was buried in a casket behind the library in a small rural town in New York. But in the many years that Jimson was locked up, a lot changed in that small town. Mainly it is covered by a whole lot of water. A dam was built downstream of the town and now the town is at the bottom of a resevoir.
After all those years in prison and given his penchant for killing off his co-conspirators and now an old man, Jimson is going to need help getting his money. Otherwise, as he tells Dortmunder, he will simply blow up the dam and drain the lake and get his money that way and too bad for all the people living downstream of the resevoir. Dortmunder, who knows perfectly well what kind of person Jimson is, feels pressured to come up with a plan that will rescue the money and keep Jimson from creating his devastating flood. But this is way out of Dortmunder's comfort zone and he and his usual gang will find themselves doing things for which they are ill prepared.

This was a very funny story. Dortmunder tries to learn to scuba dive with indifferent success. He brings the usual gang along to help: Andy, who also learns to scuba dive, and Stan the driver, and Tiny the muscle. They also need the help of a couple of new characters: Wally, a computer nerd and Doug, a diver. But even with the help of these two experts, the challenge of digging up a buried casket under fifty feet of water in a dark and murky lake is going to test the gang to the very limits. Even Dortmunder's girlfriend May and Stan's Mom get entangled in the plot, playing key roles. This was just great fun to read and I really enjoyed it.

Everything She Ever Wanted

By Ann Rule

Pat Taylor was spoiled and pampered as a child and, as an adult, apparently believed that if she wanted something she could do whatever it took to get it, even if she had to kill for it. Seeing herself as a modern Scarlett O'Hara, she used her good looks and charm to manipulate and destroy.
Her first marriage failed but she found a man she thought could provide her with the lifestyle she wanted. Tom Allanson and Pat were married in costume, she as Scarlett and he as Rhett. But Tom's wealthy parents didn't approve of the marriage. They ended up dead, perhaps through Pat's manipulation of the situation, setting son against parent, and Tom was convicted for the crime.
With Tom & his parents out of the picture, Pat set her sights on his grandparents. She tried to poison them but she was caught and sent to prison. She may also have burned down her own home to get the insurance money.
After prison Pat got a job as nurse to a wealthy couple. Once again she used poison and the man died. Pat was caught for that too but plea bargained her way out of a murder charge.

Pat Taylor is quite a piece of work, selfish, desperate and heartless. Her pretty facade hid an ugly, cruel soul. Reading about her was pretty interesting, an exploration of a classic sociopath.

Lethal Guardian

By M. William Phelps

What one wouldn't do to protect an innocent child. Beth Ann Carpenter was willing to end a life to save her little niece, Rebecca, from Rebecca's abusive step-father, Buzz Clinton. Beth Ann vamped her besotted boss, Haiman Clein, not only into finding a hitman but also paying the hitman's fee. All Beth Ann had to do was provide a photo of the intended victim, Buzz Clinton.
This tale of love turned to obsession (the obsession of Beth Ann for her little niece, Rebecca, and the obsession of Haiman Clein for Beth Ann) really starts with the Carpenter family. As the author says, in the Carpenter family, Beth Ann could do no wrong and her sister, Kim, could do no right in their parent's eyes. So when Kim gave birth to a girl with developmental problems, of course her parents stepped in to care for the baby since Kim was a loser who was, according to them, an unfit mother. Kim, not known for her strong character, let them run roughshod over her and she pretty much surrendered her responsibilities to her parents and her sister, Beth Ann.
The picture changed when Kim met Anson "Buzz" Clinton. Buzz provided the backbone that Kim lacked. With his encouragement, Kim moved to bring Rebecca back into her life and home, igniting a custody fight with her parents & Beth Ann who were now not only trumpeting Kim's unfitness but also claiming that Buzz was abusing both Kim and Rebecca. This despite repeated investigations into the abuse allegations that never revealed any trace of abuse.
The Carpenters were further alarmed when they found out that Buzz was planning to move Kim and the kids to Arizona, a long ways from Connecticut and a state where grandparent's rights didn't weigh much with the courts.
Not only is this case interesting because of the desperation of the Carpenters to protect Rebecca from a person they saw as an abuser, but also because of Beth Ann's involvement of Haiman Clein. Haiman Clein was completely enamored of Beth Ann, a young, pretty lawyer who had recently started working at Clein's law firm. Clein was not the upstanding citizen he appeared to be at first glance. An officer of the court he may have been but he lived as though laws were for everyone but himself. Embezzling clients' monies, abusing legal medications and using illegal drugs, involved in wife-swapping and other sexual shenanigans, Haiman Clein was quite a piece of work. It is not surprising that when Beth Ann suggested that Buzz Clinton should be taken out that Haiman Clein was all for it. He even had the perfect guy to go to for it, his drug dealer, Mark Despres.
This is a riveting tale, one that almost makes one believe in fate. So many times in this story, if one person would have stood up and said, "Enough!" then maybe Buzz Clinton wouldn't have been shot to death and left to lay on the highway. The author presents the case clearly and tells the tale of the untimely end of Buzz Clinton in such a way that leaves little doubt that justice was served when Beth Ann Carpenter, Haiman Clein and Mark Despres received their sentences for murder.

Review from True Crime Book Review:   http://truecrimebookreviews.blogspot.com/2009/03/lethal-guardian-by-mwilliam-phelps.html.

What's So Funny?

By Donald Westlake

John Dortmunder is one of life's failures. First off he is a career criminal. Secondly he is cursed with bad luck. It's too bad, because he is pretty good at what he does: he's a burglar. If it weren't for his bad luck, he would be a wealthy man. As I have followed his dubious career as told in the Dortmunder novels, I have seen him come so close to the big score only to have it all slip through his fingers, usually do to some unexpected twist of fate.
In What's So Funny, Dortmunder and gang have the opportunity to steal an extremely valuable gold and jeweled chess set that had been originally made for the last czar of Russia. But the revolution ended the czar and the chess set ended up in a warehouse where it was discovered by a group of American soldiers during World War I. They smuggled the chess set back to the USA only to have it stolen by one of their confederates.
At the start of the story, the descendants of one of the soldiers, Mr. Hemlow and his granddaughter, have finally tracked the chess set down and they come to Dortmunder to get him to grab it for them. But the chess set is being fought over by the thieving soldier's descendants and has been locked in a very secure bank vault pending litigation. Dortmunder knows he can't bust into a bank vault, but Johnny Eppick, the ex-cop who is working for Mr. Hemlow, has compromising photos of Dortmunder pulling a heist, and Dortmunder is forced to do the impossible.
Helped by his usual pals, Andy the lock man, Stan the driver, Tiny the muscle and others, Dortmunder comes up with a brilliant plan. Breaking into the bank vault is out. But what if he can arrange for the chess set to be brought out of the vault? This is a surefire, can't fail plan...or will another fortune slip through Dortmunder's sticky fingers?

I enjoyed this novel, just like I have enjoyed the previous Dortmunder stories. If you are a fan of the series, you won't be disappointed in this new installment. But I keep hoping that one day Dortmunder will finally pull off the fabulous score that will set him and his gal May and the rest of the gang up for life. But knowing poor, doomed Dortmunder...

Review from Curled Up with a Good Book:    http://www.curledup.com/whsofuny.htm.

Nature Girl

By Carl Hiaasen

This books starts off wrong and keeps going wrong. At the start, a young Seminole is taking a man on a tour through the swamp. Somehow a snake falls on the man and he dies of a heart attack. So instead of reporting it to the authorities, he takes the man's body and sinks it in the ocean. So right off, the book makes no sense.
The main character, Honey Santana, is a nutcase. She hears music that isn't there and she has an over-developed sense of right and wrong that keeps landing her in trouble as she charges about on one-woman crusades to make the world safe for her son, Fry. She is supposed to be on medication but she doesn't take it and then lies about it. This headcase has custody of Fry which makes no sense. I wouldn't want this woman in charge of a baby turtle, much less a human child.
One evening, Honey gets a call from a telemarketer, Boyd Shreave. She gets upset at him because the guy calls right at the supper hour and he responds rudely. So she concocts a plan to lure this guy to Florida and teach him a lesson.
He takes the bait and travels to Florida with his lover, Eugenie Fonda, a woman with a dubious past. Honey takes Boyd and Eugenie on a camping trip in the swamp.
Meanwhile, the Seminole, Sammy Tigertail, is being haunted by the guy he dumped in the ocean. The dead man is unhappy and complains about being nibbled on by crabs and fish. To clear his head, Sammy too goes camping in the swamp. He also has a guilty conscience, and fears the cops are after him to question him about the man's disappearance. Somehow Sammy ends up sort of kidnapping a college girl who was in the area with some friends. That part of the plot didn't make any sense to me. If Sammy is trying to hide out and avoid trouble, why would he saddle himself with this loopy girl? (Just like Honey, this girl seems to live in a world of her own creation.)
Also in the swamp is a detective hired by Boyd's wife to get the goods on her errant husband. And Honey's horny ex-boss is there too, chasing after Honey. He tried to cop a feel and ended up with his fingers bitten off by crabs set on him by Honey's ex, who is still very protective of her. Another bit of stupidity in the book has the surgeon operating to reattach the digits during a power shortage and the ex-boss ends up with his pinky where his thumb should be and his thumb where a finger should be. This premise stretches credibility too far for me. No surgeon would do that, I pretty sure.
Somehow all these people, including Honey's ex and her son, Fry, end up on the same little island. Another point in the story that made no sense to me: Fry gets hurt and has a concussion and busted ribs. His father, instead of placing Fry with some responsible person to look after him, hauls him out in a boat into the swamp looking for Honey. This is just nuts. No responsible father would do that to a child suffering from a concussion and broken ribs. Anyways, people get hurt, people die, and Boyd remains a conceited ass.

Usually I really enjoy Hiaasen's stories but this one just had too many illogical events and too many coincidences. I didn't like the main character, Honey, because she is portrayed as a loving mom, but still endangers her child by refusing to take the medication that keeps her from losing touch with reality. That doesn't make her a good mom, that makes her a selfish and careless mom. Neither Honey or her ex-husband seemed to act like real parents. I just found a lot of the story unbelievable and too unrealistic and finally, uninteresting.

Review by W.R. Greer on Reviews of Books. com:   http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/nature_girl/review/.