Get Real

Donald Westlake

Sadly, Westlake, who was born in New York in 1933, died last year, so this is the last Dortmunder novel, unless his publisher has a few manuscripts stashed away. Dortmunder is the depressive hero of a group of crooks who operate in a small but efficient way, eluding detection, staying calmly ahead of whatever game other crooks are trying to pull off. In Get Real, the other crooks are television producers trying to build a reality show around the activities of this relatively mediocre gang.

The entertainment offered by Westlake lies not only in his own enjoyment of the gang’s ability to outwit sophisticated organisations, but in the subtleties of his characterisations. These men and women – Dortmunder’s partner lives her own life, but stands by her man, while the taxi-driving mother of the group’s talented car thief keeps her ears open for potential sources of business – are bound in a temperate acceptance of one another’s gifts and failings. The humour is one of Westlake’s most endearing and enduring qualities as a writer.

Although Dortmunder’s pals recognise violence and imprisonment as career risks, they usually see trouble coming and dodge its worst manifestations. But Westlake isn’t always so amiable. His novels as Richard Stark are just that: stark, austere, written with descriptive, but evocative, economy. They have their own morality – as do Dortmunder and his sidekicks. These Dortmunder stories are often described as “crime capers”, which demeans them, for, like the darker Richard Stark books, which have yielded such films as Point Blank and Payback, they are closely plotted and tight with tension. Westlake has left a wonderful legacy, including 14 Dortmunder titles.