Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Originally published in 1974 and out of print for three decades, this classic comic crime novel tells the story of a prison inmate who stumbles onto a wild conspiracy. Years ago someone built, in secret, a tunnel under the prison that leads across the road to the basement of a house. Since then, the prisoners who are in on the scheme have been using the tunnel to come and go, living part-time in the outside world. Harry, our hero, is thrilled to be welcomed by the tunnel gang but rather less thrilled to learn that the gang is planning an audacious bank heist. Harry, not a bad sort, who's behind bars because he pulled a harmless stunt that wound up embarrassing some important people, does various things to stop the robbery, while hoping desperately that nobody figures out what he's up to. This is one of Westlake's best stand-alone novels, a wildly implausible story rendered entirely plausible by his easygoing, matter-of-fact storytelling style. He doesn't try to convince us this could happen; he just says it is happening, and we believe him. The novel offers so many gifts to the reader wonderful characters; a wide-eyed, goofy sense of humor; some delightfully hysterical wordplay that the publisher has done readers an enormous favor by bringing it back into print. Here's hoping Hard Case Crime follows up with more of Westlake's lesser-known gems.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
MWA Grand Master Westlake (1933-2008) is good even when he's not at his best, as shown by this reissue of a 1974 heist caper. Harry Künt is an inveterate practical joker, but when one of his jokes-leaving a nude female mannequin sprawled on the hood of a car parked on the verge of the Long Island Expressway-results in a 17-car collision and 20 injured, he's given a sentence of five to 15 years in the state pen. In the prison gym, Harry meets a disgruntled crew of seven inmates, led by Phil Giffin, who share a secret tunnel that allows them to visit the outside world. The real fun begins when Harry learns that Phil's group is planning to rob two banks, and Harry is expected to help. Poor Harry tries, secretly, to thwart the bank job; participates in a wacky robbery of Camp Quattatunk, an army base; is almost undone by another practical joker; and survives prison as only Westlake, master of the absurd, could devise. Fans both old and new will be tickled. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Westlake, nine years dead but still enjoying a very productive season (Forever and a Death, 2017), returns in a bright reprint from 1974 that shows him working the field in which he remains unrivaled: the comic caper in which Murphy's law reigns supreme.A practical joke gone wrong got Harold Knt five to 15 years in upstate New York's Stonevelt Penitentiary. Even though he can't control his compulsion to play jokes on everyone he can reach, Harry also wants to keep his head down, do his time, and return to society. Not happening. He stumbles on a group of seven cons who've commandeered an undiscovered tunnel, not to break out of the prison, but to leave one or two at a clip on self-appointed thefts and furloughs and return before they're discovered. It's nice to be back in the outside world, especially among oblivious citizens who call Harry "Harry Kent." But it's not so nice to hear that Phil Giffin, Joe Wheeler, Max Nolan, and the rest of the gang plan to break out just long enough to rob not one, but two banks, Fiduciary Federal Trust and Western National, taking advantage of the fact that they all have the ultimate alibi. The thought of pulling off a robbery gives Harry the willies; every single way he can imagine the plot ending looks disastrous. Nor can he pull out of the heist his fellow prisoners have generously allowed him to buy into without arousing their suspicions. Worst of all, Harry's reputation has convinced Warden Eustace B. Gadmore that he's the one who keeps working signs announcing "HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONER" into preposterously unlikely settings, and it's only a matter of time before the warden lowers the boom.Instead of sharing the hero's fears, fans of Westlake's Dortmunder series, which got started around the same time with The Hot Rock (1970), will appreciate the author's consummate blending of comedy and suspense, often within the same sentence, and rejoice that more Westlakes are slated for resurrection. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
