Hero

The term “anti-hero” is defined as a protagonist who lacks the nobility of mind, spirit and action that generally characterizes a hero.

Meet John Dortmunder.

Dortmunder is the main character of some 14 novels by Donald E. Westlake.

He’s a burglar.

He’s not a very good burglar, although he generally comes out okay in the end.  He doesn’t usually gain much money, but he manages to stay out of jail.  So far (I’ve read five of the books to date), he hasn’t killed anybody (unlike the previously reviewed Jack Reacher who is more of a traditional “good guy”—with, it must be said, quite a few anti-heroic qualities of his own).

It’s hard to describe these books.  Westlake’s plots are among the most inventive I’ve ever seen.  He has a gift for idiosyncratic characters and for letting their behavior reveal their personalities.  Sometimes, you think he’s teetering on the brink of caricature—oh, who am I kidding?  He’s not teetering; he’s dangling over the edge of the abyss—but he always manages to drag himself back up the cliff.  His similes and metaphors are quirky and surprisingly apt.

Dortmunder and his gang get involved in the most insane capers.  In many respects, these are screwball comedies on paper (or Kindle, as the case may be).  I read them with a kind of breathless amazement as they set out to do a simple heist and end up stealing whole trains.  They are, perhaps, a little overly blessed by unusually inattentive and downright dumb police officers, but by the time that happens, I’m usually so involved in the intricacies of the whole plan that I am not one to quibble over how poor sad sack Dortmunder manages to escape his just deserts this time.

There have been a few films made based on these novels.  I’ve seen none of them.  In one, Robert Redford played Dortmunder—which leads me to surmise that the script was based so loosely on the book as to be unrecognizable, or somebody executed the most egregious casting error in the history of film.  Although I have to admit to curiosity, which, when you get right down to it, is probably a big part of what keeps me reading these wacky books.

How’s it going to come out? is what I keep asking myself.

You will, too.