Somebody owes me money

by Donald E. Westlake

Cab driver Chet Conway was hoping for a good tip from his latest fare, the sort he could spend. But what he got was a tip on a horse race. Which might have turned out okay, except that when he went to collect his winnings Chet found his bookie lying dead on the living room floor.

Chet knows he had nothing to do with it—but just try explaining that to the cops, to the two rival criminal gangs who each think Chet’s working for the other, and to the dead man’s beautiful sister, who has flown in from Las Vegas to avenge her brother’s murder...

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Fiction, Noir, Humor, Pulp, Audiobook

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008) was one of the most prolific and talented authors of American crime fiction. He began his career in the late 1950's, churning out novels for pulp houses—often writing as many as four novels a year under various pseudonyms such as Richard Stark—but soon began publishing under his own name. His most well-known characters were John Dortmunder, an unlucky thief, and Parker, a ruthless criminal. His writing earned him three Edgar Awards: the 1968 Best Novel award for God Save the Mark; the 1990 Best Short Story award for "Too Many Crooks"; and the 1991 Best Motion Picture Screenplay award for The Grifters. In addition, Westlake also earned a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

Westlake's cinematic prose and brisk dialogue made his novels attractive to Hollywood, and several motion pictures were made from his books, with stars such as Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson's noir classic.

Some of the pseudonyms he used include
•   Richard Stark
•   Timothy J. Culver
•   Tucker Coe
•   Curt Clark
•   J. Morgan Cunningham
•   Judson Jack Carmichael
•   D.E. Westlake
•   Donald I. Vestlejk
•   Don Westlake

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I found Tommy McKay dead, and all hell broke loose."

When an eloquent NYC cabbie named Chester Conway discovers his bookie has been murdered, before "Chet" could collect his winnings of nine hundred and thirty dollars, he becomes laser-focused on catching the real killer finding who Tommy worked for, and getting them to pay up.

This was kind of a disappointment.

I've been a Westlake fan since my teens, but hadn't read him in years.

Now I see why I really haven't missed him.

This was a mild crime novel, mild in the way that it wouldn't disturb your great-aunt Margaret. Even though this was featured in the Hard Case Crime series, there was nothing "hard" about it. In fact, if Chet had been a beautician with a couple of cats, this could have easily been a cozy mystery.

On the plus side, Westlake makes excellent use of the word "shlemozzle."

This probably would have made a great seventies movie starring Elliot Gould and Diane Keaton.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald Westlake is a terrific, fun, comedic thriller involving a cab driver, a sexy card dealer from the Vegas strip, and two warring gangs of mobsters. Westlake wrote this in a great voice that is at once easy to follow and humorous. It is not immediately clear what time period this was written in except when you realize that there are no cell phones and no computers and the story is peopled with mobsters with trench coats and heavy-set jowls. In fact, if you didn't know that this was a reprint of a 1969 novel, you might think that Westlake wrote this especially for Hard Case Crime. In many ways, although the story involves mobsters and shootings and deaths, it is a light read for a crime novel. It is light and humorous, not dark and foreboding as a Goodis or Woolrich novel might be. For example, at one point, Chet (the cab driver and erstwhile hero of this tale) and Abby (the sexy siren from Vegas) are on the run from seven mobsters in the dead of winter and you just have to laugh as they are all running (sort of running) through snowdrifts and everyone stops to catch their breath, holding their sides.

All in all, I found this to be an excellent book.

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time to meet the most talkative taxi driver in New York:

I bet none of this would have happened if I wasn’t so eloquent. That’s always been my problem, eloquence, though some might claim my problem was something else again. But life’s a gamble, is what I say, and not all the eloquent people in this world are in Congress.

Chet Conway (and please stop calling him Chester) has a story to tell, about how his habit of talking too much landed him in a lot of trouble with the gangs of New York. Or maybe it was his gambling addiction? Things are a bit unclear here but, one thing leading to another, Chet got a hot tip for the races from one of his fares, the horse went on to win at very long odds, but when our driver went to collect the prize from his friendly neighbourhood bookie he found the guy blasted to pieces with a heavy gun.

What do you mean by eloquent, you might ask?

... so naturally we got into a discussion of New York City weather and what should be done about it. I cracked a few jokes, made some profound statements, threw in a few subtle asides about politics and scored a few good ones off the automobile industry, made a concise analysis of the air pollution problem around the city, and all in all I would say I was at my most eloquent.

So now, Chet has to find out from whom he might collect the money from his lucky bet. What he gets instead is a bunch of guys threatening him with guns and abduction, police threats and even a lovely young dame from Las Vegas who tries to mug Chet in his own taxi.

What would Robert Mitchum do now, what would he do in a situation like this?

Well, Chet is not Robert Mitchum and he doubts very much that any display of courage or fighting spirit on his part will get him out of trouble, so he goes along with what the underworld criminals want him to do.
What they want is mostly for Chet to provide answers about the murder of the bookie, who apparently worked as a double agent for two rival gangs. And the girl turns out to be the sister of the victim, who is also on the trail of the mysterious killer. Her name is Abby, and please don’t call her Abigail!

Again, one thing leads to another, and Chet teams up with Abby in a joint effort to solve the murder and get the gangsters off their back. Since none of them has any investigative experience and both are more than a little addicted to gambling, they end up at the by-weekly casual game of poker with Chet’s friends, but once again the evening ends in a shootout.

You want drama, America? Forget Sunday Night at the Movies , come out on the streets, watch the gangsters chase the nice boy and girl.
The novel started by making a suggestion it wants to be a gangster movie of the sort made popular by the likes of Robert Mitchum, but the end result, even as it uses all the right ingredients of the classic recipe, is closer to the Keystone cop comedies or, even better, to one of those screwball chase movies from the sixties like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World

The connection is not accidental, since Chet himself switches from looking up to Mitchum to comparing himself to Buddy Hackett (I had to look him up, too)

This is not my first Donald Westlake caper, and it will definitely not be the last. I don’t think I have laughed so hard at a murder and mayhem story since my last Christopher Brookmyre, and to be honest, Westlake is even better – he deserves the title of Grand Master [of mischief]
Even the resolution at the end had me crack up and smile at the way he subverts the reader expectations.

“I say it isn’t fair. You wouldn’t get away with that in a detective story.”

Donald E Westlake literally gets away with murder! Too bad Hollywood is so keen on remakes and superhero blockbusters and ignores such great material.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend of mine who's a Big Fan of Donald E. Westlake said I should read one of his books and gave me this one to read, originally published in 1969. I had to go to AT&T today to deal with some problems and I grabbed this book on the way out. I certainly had enough time to read it--but people there must've thought I was loony, as I was laughing as I was reading this book. It is not only funny but I love Westlake's hard-boiled dialogues. A blurb says, "Crime fiction stripped down"--yes, that's very true.
It's a fast-paced story that kept me riveted throughout. Chet Conway is a New York cabbie who gets a tip on a horse race. He wins big but when he goes to collect his winnings, he finds his bookie dead on the living room floor. Caught between rival criminal gangs, Chet realizes there's only one way out and, that is, to find his bookie's killer...And he also gets involved with the bookie's sister, a sexy blackjack dealer from Vegas...

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so I tend to like Westlake. I just finished a really good novel by him (his last). I've enjoyed his Parker books....

Well I guess every game can't be a no hitter...or maybe this is the no hitter but Westlake is the one at bat rather than pitching???

So our protagonist a ne'er do well cab driver who likes to gamble and has gotten himself in a situation where...well where things could get a little unpleasant if he goes any farther in the hole. Then someone gives Conway (our "hero") a tip on a sure winner that will pay at least 22 to 1. At first he ignores the tip but then he gets a "hunch" a gut felling so he calls his "favorite" bookie goes $30 farther into the hole...and wins. When he calls he finds the horse has paid even better, 27 to 1. He's gonna be rich, he can pay himself out of the hole!

Until he gets to his Bookie's place to find him dead and ends up with "several" criminal gangs after him.

Now this isn't a horrible book but some how I just never got into it. Conway and Abbie (the bookie [Tommy's] sister) are on the run and in a convoluted mystery but "for me" it only got mildly interesting. Go figure. If you're into the whole Hard Boiled or Hard Case Crime thing or (like me) just into Westlake maybe try it yourself. For me, not one of his best.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crime fiction comedy rarely turns out to be actually laugh-out-loud funny; it usually falls into the range of "harmlessly amusing," and that is certainly the case with Westlake's 1969 stand alone effort Somebody Owes Me Money. The story of a taxi cab driver whose bookie is murdered before the driver can collect his long shot winnings is full of slapstick action and sarcastic comebacks that would have translated well to the big screen as a vehicle for Don Knotts or Jerry Lewis, but in print rarely elicit more than a chuckle. It's harmless fun that works best when not taken too seriously.

[Kemper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book the day before Donald Westlake died, and I left it sitting on the shelf for months. It was a reminder that he won't be writing more, and that I better appreciate any of his that I hadn't read.

One of the things that I always admired about Westlake was that he could write great serious crime novels like his Parker series, but he could also write these really funny lighter crime novels like Dortmunder.

Somebody Owes Me Money is more in the Dortmunder style, and it's really interesting to read this shortly after The Cutie HCC reprint. The Cutie was the 'serious' Westlake with a professional criminal as the hero of the story, while Somebody Owes Me Money has an innocent cabbie just trying to collect his winnings from a horse race bet and getting mixed up in a murder.

Reading the two really showed how versatile Westlake was and how he could create completely different main characters, have them narrate a first person story and they were both completely believable.

Somebody Owes Me Money isn't as good as The Cutie or The Dortmunder novels, but it is a fun, fast read that showed Westlake developing his humorous style.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was OK & kind of funny. Round & round the poor cabbie goes trying to figure out what's going on. There were a couple of good twists. All in all, it was a good read, but I doubt I'll remember it in 6 months.

As a friend pointed out, Westlake writing under his own name has a completely different style than when writing as Richard Stark. I like the latter better, but this was a nice dessert.

This edition is incorrect. I read it as one of the original HCC books, back when they still did pocket paperbacks.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

RE-READ UPDATE: Reading (well, listening this time) to this again a good half century later, it still holds up as a fun, funny and surprisingly well-plotted mystery, (although it can't help but be a little dated). Narrator Stephen Thorne also does an excellent job, nailing the dialogue and accents that were completely missing in my last audiobook, The Blinds.

Hoopla has an unbelievable 50+ Westlakes on audio, so will definitely be returning for more!

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Read a lot of Westlake in my early 20's, and as I remember it was all pretty funny stuff, especially the Dortmunder books. Don't remember a thing about this one, and didn't even remember the title — but I have long remembered one snatch of dialogue from one of his books that struck me as classic Westlake, and in Googling the phrase "love your chapeau" something called www.books.google.com (new to me) not only identified it as coming from this book, but actually provided the whole exchange:

I went over to the bar and ordered two Scotch and sodas. The bartender made them and set them down in front of me and I paid him. I put the glasses on the table while he got my change, and then went back to the bar, and he handed my my change and said "I love your chapeau."

I looked at myself in the back-bar mirror, and discovered I was still wearing the orange hat. I'd forgotten all about it. I looked like Buddy Hackett being a Christmas elf. I said, "I won it for conspicuous valor."

"I figured you probably did," he said.

Well, probably funnier in context — he was wearing one of those florescent orange hunter's hats with ear flaps — but makes me want to revisit Westlake sometime and see how he's held up. Haven't read any of them in a long time — but have read one or two of the more serious/noir-ish "Parker" stories he wrote as Richard Stark.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chet Conway, a cab driver, gets a tip on a horse instead of money from a customer. The horse is a longshot but Chet puts 35 bucks on him. The horse winds up winning but when Chet goes to collect, his bookie is dead and everyone seems to think he did it. He goes on the run with the dead bookie's sister, searching for the bookie's killer and trying to get his damn money, with two gangs and a detective on his trail. Will he ever get his money?

This was a light-hearted tale with a lot of twists and turns. Ardai's 50 to 1 owes a lot to it in terms of tone and style. Chet and Abbie were both interesting characters, if a little thin. I would never have guessed who it was that bumped off Tommy McKay. Since my initial reading, I learned that Westlake stuck the ending on after Somebody Owes Me Money got reprinted by Hard Case.

Fun stuff but not gritty at all, if that's what you're looking for.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald E. Westlake's "Somebody Owes Me Money" is vintage pulp fiction. Originally published in 1969, "SOMM" has been wonderfully resurrected thanks to Hard Case Crime, which has been faithfully publishing pulpy crime novels---old and new---for several years now.

Westlake's blend of hard-boiled and humor make this particular novel a winner.

Chet Conway is a cab driver who wins big on a horse at the races. Unfortunately, when he goes to collect his winnings from his bookie, he finds the guy dead from a bullet hole in the chest. Immediately, the bookie's wife, the cops, the mob, and the bookie's sexy little sister think he's the murderer.

He just wants his money, but in order to get it, he may have to play amateur detective to find the real killer, clear his name, and get the money.

I picture this vividly as a mad-cap '60s black-and-white comedy-noir with Jack Lemmon as Conway, Walter Matthau as Detective Golderman, and Ann Margaret as Abbie.

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cabbie -part-time leisure gambler- gets a tip on a horse race.
Follows through but fails to collect.
Action ensues.

This is a fun page-turner with brilliant dialogue.

I'd guess you haven't read this one yet.
You probably haven't even read 361.
What's wrong with you?

Read more Westlake.
Trust me.
Stark is the greatest and Coe is sublime but Westlake is a genius.

Notes previously posted:



02/25 page 85

"How hard is it for an author to write such effortless narrative
dialogue as contained in this novel?

How many re-writes?

How much whittling down to kindling is required before a grateful reader can gallop through page after page of witty passages, paragraphs, similes & metaphors & pronounce an author his favorite?
This is a flipping work of art I hold here now...
30% percent into it."

02/27
"Page 104:
"I sat up and the room was full of a man with a gun.""


02/28 page 207

"I read this at some point in my younger days. Forgot it up until about 3 pages ago. A few lines resonated. Of course, everything Westlake wrote resonates because his is the voice all others who followed imitated."

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lightweight, pleasant for a while, tedious in the end--and the author knows it. Near the end of the novel, one of our heroes asks, "Do you know this is ridiculous?" And then later she complains, "You wouldn't get away with that in a mystery story." This is not cutesy metafictional commentary; this is an author who feels compelled to apologize. But Donald E. Westlake is author enough to know that in his line of writing, you don't revise a failure. If want to keep the money coming in, you type THE END and move on to the next one.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genuinely suspenseful

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A New York cab driver finally hits big when a fare gives him a tip too good to be true - a bet on an outside horse to win at odds of 22-1. Chet, a gambling man never shies away from a bet, however, this is one piece of insider knowlede he wishes he'd avoided. Arriving at his bookkeepers to collect, Chet finds himself knee deep in murder and the target of two waring mobs who think he's the smoking gun.

Westlake wrote this in 1969, so naturally 'Somebody Owes Me Money' conforms to the genre stereotype typical of pulp novels from this era. Full of flying bullets, hardened dames, blundering mobsters, and an honest innocent nobody right in the thick of it. For mind, Abby, the vic's sister was the most interesting character, having arrived on the scene full of gusto and a handful of led only to end up a little two dimensional and easily accepting of her predicament - that said, the chemistry between her and Chet was a highlight.

The ending left a little to be desired, throughout the novel you couldn't help but think the mobsters were going to go to the mattresses as they fought over the death of the prominent bookie only to see it kind of fade out. When reading, keep in mind early events, something innocent enough holds significant baring on the stories core plot. As a whodunit - this is as good as any, with a likable protagonist who doesn't try to be the hard man, rather the man who tries to solve murderous matters with carefully crafted dialogue and swift foot. Quick and entertaining - a pulp that brings something a little different and adds a little more humour than usual. 4 stars.

[Harold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently I find myself still binging Westlake! What can I say...it's just totally entertaining.

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I'll just put Westlake into that categories of writers I have no objectivity about. Cabbie gets a tip from a customer to put his money on a horse. He's cheesed about the "tip," but decides to do it anyway -- and makes a tidy sum. The only problem is collecting the money: the bookie's dead, the mob won't pay, a woman is after him claiming that he killed her brother...

Hijinks ensue. Bliss.

[Brian Fagan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my first Donald Westlake. He wrote Somebody Owes Me Money in 1969. When you're writing something, you may not consider your era "classic", or memorable for any reason, but now, since we have so many associations with that wonderful time, I wish that he had put in more current day cultural references. As a native of the East Coast (Baltimore), I did get a kick out of his reference to somebody's front "stoop". That's sure what we called it. Apparently that holds true for Baltimore up to New York, but maybe even a larger area used that expression.

Chester "Chet" Conway, a NY cabbie, gets a tip on a horse from a customer, in lieu of a monetary tip. Chet wins on the 22 to 1 shot, and wins $980. When he goes to his bookie's place to collect, the bookie has been murdered. The bookie's sister Abigail, a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, comes to town to see to his funeral and, since the police are not making progress in the investigation, she joins forces with Chet to try to get to the bottom of the murder. Nefarious people come out of the woodwork, and the "comic caper", as Westlake's publisher refers to his oeuvre, is on.

Westlake is very good, very descriptive. Chet does the first person narration. In a scene where a character's life is in danger, he can't stop mundane thoughts from creeping into his head, like whether the big snowstorm the forecasters have been predicting is going to really hit. Westlake uses film noir backdrops, and even has a character consider what noir staple Robert Mitchum would do in the same situation. Chet is a regular guy in way over his head - kind of a James Thurber's Walter Mitty in reverse. There are dialogue scenes of Tarantinoid length, but unfortunately they aren't quite as clever and amusing as his are.

[Pop · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! What a book. Westlake is a masterful story teller. I listened to this book in awe. Why haven’t I read more of his work in the past. I don’t know but I sure will in the future. Really good book. No hardcore violence, sex or language. Just a great plot and mystery. To be sure an example of a good crime mystery doesn’t have to have have sex, vulgarity or the like to be exciting and excellent. 5 stars all the way.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 232 (of 250)
Not every book from Hard Case is a 'great find': this one is okay only because of a twist...
HOOK - 2 stars >>>I bet none of it would have happened if I wasn't so eloquent...Where I am is in a cab in NY City...driving a cab is a lot more pleasant than you might think...<<< opens the story.
Within a few pages we learn that the cab driver has won about a thousand bucks on horses.
PACE - 2: This one moves along a bit slow even though...
PLOT - 2: ...when the cab driver goes to collect his winnings, he finds a dead body. Cops appear. Chet, the driver, isn't arrested, but things go downhill fast: one mob group gets to him, then, because the author doesn't have much to go on, a second mob is introduced. It's a good twist but turns this novel into farce more than anything: who is working for who, who killed who...and is anyone telling the truth (haunts of today's political headlines).
CAST - 2: Just too many people because there isn't much of a plot so the author adds characters and more characters. Chet might be fascinating, but he is buried in names.
ATMOSPHERE - 1) The author adds nothing new to number running and horse betting and the story could be set anywhere.
SUMMARY: 1.8. An oft-told tell which isn't bad, it's just that by 1969 most of the story is old-hat.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had low expectations for this 1969 stand-alone novel by Donald Westlake, because of the title that keys me into the fact that is i the lighter, funny Dortmunder direction of his writing vs. the lean and mean Richard Stark/Parker direction, which I prefer. And it is earlier, out-of-print, reissued in the Hard Case Crime series in 2008.

Chet Conway, a cab driver, gets a tip from a guy, only it's a tip on a horse instead of money. 35 bucks on a longshot and he hits for a more than 900 dollar pay day. Except now the bookie is dead, and the cops and two rival gangs think he did it. There's a little shooting here and there and lots of chasing around, even a climb up on top of a moving train as part of one chase, but the key attribute about this book is the clever, breezy narration by Chet and his dialogue with Abby, the murdered man's va-va-voom, from Vegas, sister, that reminded me of Dashiell Hammett's Thin Man, Nick and Nora-level repartee. Westlake is funny!

There're card games throughout, the last of which is the setting for the big reveal. Much better than I expected, very funny and entertaining.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I suppose the cognoscenti among us may agree that this is decidedly minor Westlake, even minor Westlake has its "broad" appeal. Shall we say.

One opens the book and begins with a situation a lot of us can relate to, and then, rather quickly, and yet inexorably, we find ourselves, along with the protagonist, being drawn into a larger, darker, criminal world. Good thing the murdered man's sister is an appealing blonde!

Despite the alarming number of details that "date" this book, the verve and panache of the language make it as up-to-date as some of the more drab "techno-thrillers" that pass themselves off as entertainments here in the twenty-first century.

We need more Westlakes and fewer James Pattersons, if you ask me.

[Yuckamashe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book purely based on the title. It reminded me of Rihanna's "Bitch Better Have My Money". I'm really glad I took a chance on this book, it didn't disappoint. It was funny and madcap. It was like the movie Clue or Oscar with Marisa Tomei. It was a constant case of misunderstandings and mistakes. It was very fast paced and a little confusing at times to keep up with the mobsters and hitmen from rival gangs. Overall, it was entertaining and fun!

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and suspenseful. I laughed all the way through. A cab driver shows up to get his winnings only to find the bookie dead. Then rival gangs, police and others start trying to kill him or get info, thinking he has something to do with the murder. Poor dude just wants to get his money!

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was a good story, but it didn't have the wow factor for me like some of the others i have read in this genre. I did like the turns and the humor in it. I like this genre for the honesty and action it delivers.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Donald Westlake wrote some classic comedic crime romps. Some are better than others-- this one is fun, but falls short of both the great humor and while there is a decent mystery, its resolution seems to come out of left field after the author leads the reader on a strange travel through clues that have very little to do with the crime.

Chet is a cab driver who gets a tip on a horse instead of a monetary tip. He places his bet with his bookie and wins big. When he goes to collect his winnings, he finds his bookie murdered. What follows is a comedy of mixups with cops, rival gangs, and a sexy blonde. What happens after that seems like a plot from a 1940's Bob Hope film. The gangs think Chet did the deed on behalf of each other. The cops don't seem overly concerned one way or the other. Soon, Chet is being kidnapped, held prisoner, and even shot. All the while he is falling for the beautiful mini-skirt wearing blonde.

There are plenty of comedic moments-- like Chet thinking "What would Robert Mitchum do?" or the gangster hiding in the closet who leaves his gun behind.

When we finally get to the resolution-- it is one of those great suspects in a room moment-- like one would find in a Charlie Chan movie. However, none of the suspects in the room are anybody that the reader has been looking at for 90% of the book. The resolution really marred the story for me.

Still, overall, I enjoy Westlake's books.. They just can't all be homeruns. This one is more like a double-- fun, but didn't really score a lot of points for me.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

250 pages of pure early Westlake goodness. You can see the seams a bit from its original serialization but it’s still edited well and comes together. Touches on a lot of my favorite things (amateur sleuth, NYC, mob, comedy of errors) and has enough satisfying twists and turns.

[Craig Childs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald Westlake wrote over 100 books, most of them under either his real name (Westlake) or his more-famous pen name (Richard Stark). The Stark novels were hardboiled and violent and included the now-famous Parker series. The Westlake books, with a few early exceptions, tended to be lighter, funnier, and probably best described as comic capers.

The comic crime caper is hard to pull off. For one thing, murder is not usually considered a funny subject in and of itself. In trying to make it funny, it is all too easy for an author to slip into black comedy, which has to rely on creating shock value, or just descend into pure slapstick by jettisoning believability. Lawrence Block did it well in The Topless Tulip Caper, although he had the benefit with his main character of being able to fall back on a lot of sex jokes. Ken Bruen and Jason Starr wrote the hilarious Max and Angela trilogy, but it only worked by making each successive story more outlandish and unrealistic than the last. Carl Hiassen managed a good one in Striptease, but none of this other novels impressed me.

Somebody Owes Me Money was certainly impressive on a technical level because it contained a succession of funny scenes, but it never lost the thread of a very complicated but just-barely-plausible narrative. The story follows a NYC cab driver who finds his bookie murdered before he can collect on a large bet. The cabbie starts out seeking someone who will pay off the bet, but soon finds himself blamed for the murder.

It’s a farce that gives us several witty renditions of classic noir clichés: A chase scene were everybody turns out be too old and fat to run. Love triangles where everybody realizes they just don’t care enough to be jealous. Mistaken identities galore. A murderer who is so far off the suspect list that even one of the detective-characters complains it doesn’t seem fair.

My favorite line: “My first thought was that my mouth tasted like the inside of a metal garbage can behind a Chinese restaurant.”

There’s a memorable early chapter detailing a game of seven-card stud where each player’s character is revealed through how he plays his cards. A pretty female card-shark shows up, and there is genuine humor in how everyone reacts, as shown through the way their game strategy changes. It seemed like a throwaway scene, most of the characters don’t show up again until the last chapter, but it was funny and it took real writing chops.

However, the book lacks somewhat in character development; I never really got past the gags and jokes to start caring what happened to any of the characters. It also seems clear Westlake did not know much about the inner workings of organized crime (to be fair: How many writers did before The Godfather made it a national cultural obsession?) Overall, it is an entertaining if not very memorable effort from a great writer.

[PDX_love · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts off interesting enough, with an immediate hook. Chet Conway is a well read (if somewhat pretentious) non-college educated cabbie with a gambling problem. One of his fares doesn’t pay out, but instead offers an insiders tip on the horse races. It pays off big time, landing Conway nearly one thousand dollars in winnings. Unfortunately for him, when he goes to collect his bookie is shot dead, and the bookie’s wife arrives home to find Conway in her apartment with her husbands body.

The rest of the book is a continual misadventure for Conway who keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure he beds a beautiful woman, but that only seems to get him in more trouble. The police want him. His bookie’s wife wants him. At least two separate organized crime units bench men want him. As the bullets fly, the bodies keep piling up, and all Conway wants, nothing more and nothing less - is his winnings.

Westlake gives us a quick engaging whodoneit. If it lasted much longer it most likely would have lost my interest, but it didn’t! Instead it was bloody, and sexy, and a stupidly quick read, even if a more than a little predictable.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine that you are a working class guy, okay, not always technically LEGAL work, and you place a small bet on a fairly frequent basis with a friend who is also a bookie. And week after week, just as with lottery tickets, it is money down the drain.

Then suddenly, the angels sing: Hallelujah! Your horse just won on some VERY long odds! You trot joyfully up the stairs to your bookie's flat...and he's there. Dead. On the floor. It looks like a professional hit.

So...what would you do?

If it was me, I know what I'd do! I'd run like hell! NEVER MET the guy. But not our protagonist. (And this is all right there at the start, mind; I haven't spoiled a thing beyond the very beginning of the book). OUR protagonist is thinking of just one thing: he has FINALLY won a bet, and he is GOING to collect! So, whoever took this guy out must be the one who owes him money now, RIGHT? Well, where is he?

Westlake has made me laugh many, many times. I will miss him terribly, and am glad he wrote so much. I felt at least one of his novels should be on this list.