Brothers Keepers

by Donald E. Westlake

When the order's lease on the Park Avenue monastery expires, sixteen monks face a greedy real-estate mogul, and Brother Benedict falls in love with the mogul's daughter.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Humor, Noir, Religion, Novels

254 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

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

[Kemper · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small order of monks have lived on New York’s Park Avenue for almost two centuries. They managed to keep their monastery as the city grew thanks to a ninety-nine year lease, but they’re surprised to learn that the lease is almost up and that their entire block is about to be sold to build a new office building.

As part of the attempts to save their building Brother Benedict is forced to leave his beloved quiet monastery several times to deal with the family that held the lease and the business people who are buying it. When Brother Benedict meets and falls for a woman involved in the deal he finds himself questioning whether he belongs with her or with his fellow monks. He’ll also learn that all’s fair in love, war, and New York real estate.

This continues the trend I’m on of reading a Hard Case Crime novel only to find it distinctly lacking in hard case crime. Several of the recent ones have been character based stories with a few crime elements in them, and despite this being a long out-of-print novel by a legendary mystery writer it’s more of a low key comedy than anything.

That’s not to say that it’s bad. I’m a big fan of almost everything Donald Westlake did, and the man could shift gears from gritty crime stories to goofy capers and make them both entertaining. Like most of his lighter stuff it’s entertaining and provides plenty of chuckles although the ending is a little abrupt and bittersweet. It’s fun enough although I’m still scratching my head at why HCC printed it other than to put the Westlake name on the cover.

Slightly off-topic bonus thought: Reading this story about quirky monks dealing with a 1975 New York City reminded me in a weird way of a Wes Anderson movie. I’m not saying that a Westlake book exactly seems like an Anderson screenplay. More that I think that the ‘70s setting, quirky characters, and style of dialogue would be a good fit for an Anderson adaptation. Once that idea was in my head I couldn’t stop thinking of Bill Murray playing the abbot. So if anybody out there knows Wes Anderson, do me a favor and get him a copy of this.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brothers Keepers has all the earmarks of Westlake’s subtle touch, his humor, and his stark plain matter-of-factness. Don’t dare try to pin this one down and categorize it. Although definitely not a crime caper, it’s not one thing or another.

It’s a story of a small band of monks ensconced in a monastery on Park Avenue, only leaving to get the Sunday paper, and busily contemplating things. And so It went for two centuries, until the land value escalated and the lease ran out and the bulldozers approached. If only they could somehow find the lease and know for certain what their legal rights are.

And, strangely enough, in these certain respects, Westlake’s novel bears some similarities to A Canticle For Leibowitz, at least in the sense of the band of pious monks cut off from the outside world and their reverence for ancient legal manuscripts.

There’s an odd humor about this strange little book with the monks venturing out on the subway and walking miles rather than spending money on taxis. It’s as if they are strangers in this strange land which is so unlike the life of their monastery. And, stranger too, is Brother Benedict falling in love as he sets eyes 👀 on the first damsel he’s seen in ten years. His innocence and naïveté is particularly charming.

In comparison to much of Westlake’s work, there’s not a whole lot Going on, but somehow he keeps you, the reader, interested. It’s certainly one of his minor works, but there’s something enjoyable about it.

[Rachel Bridgeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting in inimitable Westlake style with a confession scene that had me bursting out laughing,this newly repackaged and republished copy of ‘Brothers Keepers’ is a pure delight to the very last page.

It captures a time in the mid 70’s that most of us would find hard to recall,especially not this reviewer, ahem, who is FAR too young to remember and heard about it from her grandparents, and that in and of itself is part of the book’s charm. This tiny patch of land, this monastery is the last bastion on Park Avenue against the encroaching tide of skyscrapers.

Brother Benedict , a 34 year old Christinian monk who has lived in the monastery for the past 10 years after converting to Catholicism to win the heart of a girl who ran off and left him anyway, prefers life inside the cloisters. It’s quiet, straight forward and the routine gives a lot of comfort to a man at odds with modern 20th Century life in New York.

He accidentally comes across the plans to demolish several buildings, including theirs, in an architectural think piece published in the Sunday Times, his weekly indulgence. The journalist is outraged at the encroachment of modern building and the underhand methods used to acquire either land,buildings or both.The monastery has stood on leased land, for 2 centuries, passing from the monastery founder to the Flattery family after the original 99 year lease expired.

Now 16 world weary, but also unworldy, monks have the fight of their lives on their hands. It’s them versus the Flattery’s as they battle to preserve their way of life in a world that no longer recognises the rights of this minority religious order.

Shot through with humour, it’s very much a tale that is timeless despite being 44 years old. I feel that we are still fighting to have  and maintain our own space in a paradoxically shrinking, yet expanding world -we can travel the world without leaving our homes thanks to the internet, but the payoff is that unknown forces can see every move that you make.

How far do you compromise your principles and bend sacred vows to do God’s work? A 67 story office block versus a band of 16 monks trying to hang on to their home-it’s a foregone conclusion…or is it?

If you have never tried Donald E Westlake before, or his alter ego Richard Stark, this is a great jumping on point for the author about whom Stephen King says -‘A book by this guy is cause for happiness.’

[Liam Mulvaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an original read.

Brothers Keepers is my first Donald E. Westlake read. It won't be my last.

A well-deserved ⭐⭐⭐⭐.

This book is sometimes hilarious but also an honest work of fiction. The book is character-driven. All characters, incredibly the culprits, are handled with the utmost care. Surprisingly, I did not dislike any of the characters from the book. It was so much fun.

It is about a group of monks settled in a monastery in New York. The monastery is on lease and owned by a wealthy benefactor from the Flattery family. The monks learn that they are old monastery is on the receiving end of a bulldozer, a high-priced area fit for construction. What follows is a series of mishaps, confrontations, and comedy.

[Hans Ostrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gem. A group of monks discovers that developers are about to obliterate their monastery in Manhattan. Complications ensue. It's a remarkable comic-satiric novel in several ways. Published in 1975, it and it's satire hold up well. It manages genially to mock both monastic life and the insanity of urban life and hyper-capitalism. And the comedy never goes over the top. Westlake, best known as a crime novelist and screenwriter, is superbly deft at dialogue and pacing. He's also really smart and well read. The cast of monkish characters itself is worth the ride. The Order's founder insisted that Travel be a subject of prayer and reflection but that the Order itself rarely travel. During the pandemic, and as it eases, the novel's meditations on Travel are uncannily relevant.

[Jiří Pavlovský · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jedno je jisté. Ještě v čtvrtém tisíciletí budou archeologové objevovat dosud nevydané nebo zapomenuté knihy Donalda E. Westlakea. Tvůrce Dortmundera a Parkera se rozhodně neflákal. Stvořil spoustu ikonických děl, pár špatných a dost... prostě jen příjemných.
A tohle je jedna z nich. Má to zajímavý nápad, klasické westlakeovské postavy... ale už tam trochu absentuje příběh.
Hlavní hrdina je mnich, který si žije svůj klidný život v klášteře uprostřed Manhattanu. Dokud se z novin dozví, že jich útočiště má být zbouráno a místo něj bude vystavěn kancelářský komplex. Je na čase, aby mniši, kteří se ve svém životě vymezili proti Cestování, vyrazili do ulic - a do boje.

Částečně to asi byla moje chyba. Na základě upoutávek jsem získal pocit, že půjde o příběh, ve kterém budou mniši vylupovat banky, prostě Dortmuder v hábitech. Což není. Jsou tady sice hodně povědomé postavy, které jsou něčím absolutně posedlé a cpou to do každé konverzace, i autorovy suché popisy bizarních scén a zuřivých dohadů, ale jinak je kniha hlavně o tom, jak mniši putují po New Yorku a snaží se ukecat podnikatele, aby jim klášter vrátili. Je to zábavné popsané, o tom žádná, ale většina knihy popisuje cesty metrem... či později dokonce i letadlem. Je to v podstatě hodně civilní příběh s hodně podivnými postavami.
Ani ve finále nenastane žádná akce, spíš to celé zvážní. Jde o morální volby, o rozhodnutí, kterým směrem se člověk vydá... a i úvahy o tom, co je vlastně správné. A pak už přichází konec, který je vytažený z rukávu čistě proto, že by kniha nějaký konec měla.
Brothers Keepers má všechny klady Westlakeova vypravěčského stylu, ovšem bez příběhu, o který by se ten styl mohl opřít. Má sympatického hrdinu, zvláštní prostředí, dobré hlášky... a k tomu, aby se kniha mohla zařadit do Westlakeova top tenu... nebo spíš top padesátky či stovky... jí chybí silnější děj.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Donald Westlake noir so I picked this one up. I wouldn't say it's quite noir but definitely was enjoyable. A monk has to choose between his faith and a femme fatale in order to save his monastery. I know that sounds serious and it sometimes is but I found myself laughing a lot with this one. It was actually quite satirical. Good stuff.

[Alexander · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fun read altho a bit long drawn.

Since the pandemic I have not been able to travel as extensively as before. So it was refreshing and interesting to read about a group of monks with this vocation (anti-travel).

[Vincent Lombardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I love Westlake, a story about a group of monks trying to save their home wasn't the thrill I was hoping for. Works very slow and didnt give much of interest unitil the last quarter of the novel. It doesn't help that I was rooting against them the whole way.

They are religious men but their whole purpose seemed self centered.They were guilty(in my mind) of two of the deadly sins. Pride one of the sins, which seemed their main reason to stay when they had many options available. Plus even when revealed that the neighborhood will benefit from the development deal they still only thought of themselves, Greed.

Ok Yes the owner was a bit crooked but it didnt seem enough to change my mind.

[David Freas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve read a lot of Donald Westlake books over the years and liked them all.

Brothers Keepers isn’t one of them.

Everything here is a bit off – as if Westlake is trying too hard. The story itself seems to ramble instead of heading for a conclusion. The characters all seem to come from central casting. The humor here is subtle (which can be a good thing) but falls flat (which is a bad thing).

This wasn’t Westlake’s first novel. It came out almost 10 years after his first book. So, could it be Westlake’s publishers told him they needed a book, and he dashed off this mediocre tale?

Had this been the first Westlake book I read, I would have never read another one. And that would have denied me the pleasure of all the terrific books he’s written.

[Andy Lind · Rating 2 out of 5]

It has Westlake's humor, but it's nothing like his other novels. A group of monks living in a monastery that is owned by someone other than The Catholic Church is an unlikely story to begin with. A monk falling for the first woman he has seen in over 10 years, yeah that's likely.

The story really isn't a mystery and the story seems to do nothing but go in circles.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the book hinges on a crime, this isn't a typical crime novel. It's one of the satirical novels that Westlake was writing in the '70s in which actual crime takes a back seat to satire. The book has some laugh-out-loud moments of hilarity.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Brothers Keepers takes place in a monastery and takes its title from a scriptural concept, it is not essentially religious. Rather, it uses the structure of a religious society (a small, obscure cell of monks) to pose broader questions of progress, purpose, and perhaps, “providence.” The term “perhaps” is used to suggest that the conclusion of Brothers Keepers is somewhat ambiguous and not altogether satisfactory. Yet, Brothers Keepers is more than the black comedy with which we usually associate the work of Donald E. Westlake or the noir masterpieces which he could paint with verbal ease; it is an exploration of faithfulness (more than faith) and sacrifice (albeit not consistently demonstrable throughout the work).

The story begins as a rather unimportant member of the monastery discovers that their monastery, albeit dating back 200 years (at the time of the novel’s writing, that would have predated the conclusion of the War for American Independence), is slated for sale and subsequent demolition to be replaced by a minimalist office building complex. Matters seem relatively cut and dried, but nothing in a Westlake novel is ever cut and dried. To add sizzle to the steak, the monastic setting allows Westlake to make sarcastic observations about modern society in the sense of being a comedic Thoreau. For example, he describes one section of New York as being “Babel.” The protagonist, Brother Benedict, observes: “…they spoke such a confusion of tongues we might as well have been in Baghdad or an evangelist’s tent.” (p. 51)

At other points, he observes how walking distances are subjective, depending on whether one is used to using a car or walking. The former walk less, hence those distances which seem short to the latter seem far to the former. This point is brought home all the more effectively because one of the monastery’s core beliefs was to be careful with “Travel.” So, they generally walked as much as possible with commuter trains seeming strange to Brother Benedict when he was forced to travel and his airplane trip seeming even stranger.

The airplane trip had a hilarious description of cultural disconnect: “…the Razas were under the impression they had come out for a picnic rather than a plane trip. Baskets of food, shopping bags of food, boxes of food, all blossomed into existence as though in some parody of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes.” (p. 215) The plane trip also, unfortunately, indicates an instance of bad editing. On p. 196, Brother Benedict is given a one-way ticket and $200 with which to procure his return trip, but on p. 202 he is said to have a round-trip ticket in his possession and on p. 228, he is said to have no money.

Westlake saves his best zingers for big business. At one point, he “punfully” suggests that the clamor for more and more office space is “an edifice complex” (p. 74). I particularly liked Brother Benedict’s summary of business reporting: “I soon noticed they had a tendency to use the word ‘aggressive’ to describe activity of which they approved. Another form of behavior they felt positive about was belt-tightening.” (p. 76) Benedict goes on to suggest that all U.S. businesses were doing one or the other. That way the business reporters could be positive about both styles. At another point, one of the brothers addresses the morality of business when he is told that someone has a very good business head. “’Sometimes,’ he said, ‘a business head can make us lose sight of more important values.’” (p. 59)

It goes without saying, but I’ll type it anyway, that Brother Benedict goes through something of a crisis/test of faith. From the humility present when he, initially, seems edged out of the decision-making process on resolving the monastery’s difficulties (“Not only was I unbowed by this double evidence of my own worthlessness, I actually gloried in them both.”—p. 106), he finds himself torn between the possibility of leaving the monastery for sake of an attractive woman and his desire to ascertain his sense of vocation. Westlake’s approach seems somewhat more tolerant on such matters as fornication than I believe Catholic theology is likely to be, but the ambivalence is part of what makes Brothers Keepers fascinating.

Brothers Keepers is a successful comedy in the style of the old M.A.S.H. television show (but with more parody than wisecracks). It is less a “Crime” novel as printed on the spine as it is a comedic commentary on the vacuity of modern life without an inner sense of purpose.

[Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a bad sign when you are begging the Fates for the stamina needed to finish a book. Donald E Westlake’s Brothers Keepers had a lot of charm and humor but it became an incredibly tedious read. I honestly don’t think I can chalk all of my poor reading experience up to Covid, sorry folks. Not recommended.

[Neil Fulwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite a set-up and a cluster of early chapters which promise comedy crime caper shenanigans, ‘Brothers Keepers’ soon reveals itself as a wry but often profound meditation on belief, belonging and the confusing temptations of the material world. A slightly perfunctory ending robs it of some of its impact, but there are enough grace notes to merit recommendation.

[Steve Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, Westlake tosses everything including the kitchen sink into his book and creates a literary feast. The opening internal conversation as a brother confesses his “sins” to a priest is hilarious.

The order is on the brink of losing their home of the last 197 years to a developer ready to bulldoze the monastery for a monstrosity. Home to sixteen brothers, they try to find their lease, a nearly two century old original document, to see if there is any way they can preserve their order. Of course, the abbots have been more concerned with prayers than papers, so digging through the accumulated treasures in random piles is a Sisyphean effort. In the meantime, Brother Benedict has been offered help from the attractive daughter of the current leaseholder. Wait til he has to figure out that confession.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really 4.5 stars - I really liked this book, full of capers ala Donald Westlake. This book was written in 1975 and I saw it at our library as a re-issued book. Monks are faced with loss of their Manhattan monastery and try to find a way to retain it.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Are you a fan of Donald Westlake? In particular, his humorous Dortmunder series? If so, this one is for you. As for me, a fan of the author in all of his guises, this one fell a bit short.

It contains the wackiness of a Dortmunder novel but somehow fails to capture the former’s rhythm and pacing. There are far too many pages that just don’t move the story forward, and despite the fact that it picks up the pace nicely towards the end, it’s just a little too late to raise my rating beyond three stars.

I still enjoy the author and always welcome an opportunity to read one of his novels. However, this one was simply less engaging than many of his other books.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

First things first: I got a free advance copy of the re-release of this novel thanks to the good folks over at Hard Case Crime! I collect HCC books as a hobby and am on their mailing list. I won a contest for a free copy of this one. They are awesome and know how to reward loyal customers. Much love to Charles Ardai and all the good folks over there.

Donald Westlake is the kind of writer I would love to be, someone who’s métier is crime novels but who also writes about an assortment of other topics in thriller/suspense/mystery fashion. This one has a strong religious bend to it and is another winner from the master himself.

The story focuses on a fictional monastery in the 1970s that operates on prime Manhattan real estate. The owner of the land is looking to pull a fast one on the unsuspecting monks who live there by selling it without their knowledge. When they find out, they do all they can to stop it.

The charge is led by Brother Benedict who is worldly enough to be fun and holy enough to respect the premise of the novel. He seeks to stop the deal from happening and along the way gets entangled with the landowners daughter. The predictable secular temptations ensue, making it a bumpy finish for an otherwise enjoyable book. But Brother Benedict is a fun character nevertheless and seeing the struggle of the monks trying to keep their building through his eyes is the best part of the book.

This isn’t some Left Behind Christian fic. Westlake respects the sacred nature of holy orders; he is neither affirming nor patronizing. He is simply using this as a vehicle for a story. And it’s a familiar one to me. I’m a Pastor and I’ve done community organizing in the past. I know how monumental it feels to take on massive companies who have money and power and an interest only in their well being. It was a struggle that felt real to me. This may not be the most exciting Hard Case Crime novel for most but it resonates to this particular reader.

Not really a thriller or a mystery, Brothers Keepers is hard to classify. I guess it’s suspense as you don’t know until the end if they’ll make it or not. The stakes are low to the world but high for these men and Westlake does a great job of examining this, trusting the reader to be smart enough to make their own inferences. A fun book from a legendary, versatile writer.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a traditional Donald Westlake novel. There is a bit of a mystery and the usual Westlake humor. However, this novel is much more about life in a monastery and the mystery takes a distant second to this life. Westlake describes the life of contemplation, meditation, and dedication with great, almost loving, detail.

A group of monks, (not priests) discover that the property that they have leased for two hundred years is up for sale. They don't want to lose their monastery and start trying to find ways to block the sale. The key is a missing copy of the old lease. There is something nefarious going on, but the monks have restrictions against lying, stealing, fighting, etc.

The monks also have a problem with "travel." Their entire world is the monastery. The furthest they travel is to the nearby newstand for the newspaper. Riding on a bus, a subway, or even in a car is practically unheard of for them. They are perplexed by the hustle and bustle outside of the monastery.

And that is the primary focus of this novel. The perplexed monks are overwhelmed by the challenge and the hero, Brother Benedict, leaves the monastery to try to find a way to stop the sale. Outside of the monastery he is very conflicted and that is really what this book is about. Its theme makes this novel complex and full of emotional conflict and confusion.

As the novel reaches its climax, the reader sees a number of possible resolutions approaching. It is almost as if the author himself was uncertain which path he would chose until he actually wrote that final chapter. This gives the novel a touch of final tension and the resolution was a surprise to me.

A good novel-- but being published under the Hard Case Crime label is a two-edged sword. First, it is great that this novel gets to be back in print. Second, it does this novel an injustice to make it seem like a crime novel.

[Girard Bowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my money, Westlake is the king of comic crime novels - sorry Elmore, Carl, Jimmy and Lawrence. That's interesting because he does hard-boiled crime very well too. Although, Brothers Keepers is not exactly a crime novel - at least not a typical one. Still well done, and more interestingly told by one of the brothers in first person. His observations as he Travels are great.

[David Joseph Mikels · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine book to read, not his best by far but not too bad either - i was hoping it would have been funny-er

[The Professor · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The lady or the monastery”. Slight but amiable. By no means prime Westlake – I was skimming pages by the end – but the writing within is still several notches above a lot of modern mass market fiction. If, like me, you recently binge-watched series 2 of “Fleabag” this novel too features a love affair between a man of the cloth and a civilian but was published in 1975 ten years before Phoebe Waller-Bridge was born. Yet, if you read the reviews, she’s a zeitgeist-defining genius. “It isn’t the world that Christ had in mind”.

An Order of meditative – and nicely characterised (“Couldn’t we, oh, I don’t know, maybe put on a show?”) – Brothers who abjure travel receive news their New York city monastery has been scheduled to be flattened and no one thought to renew their lease. A first foray out into the real world (“How complex the world is, once one leaves the familiar and the known”) and a meeting with the Flattery family who made a gift of the monastery to the Order in the first place yields diddlysquat as does infiltrating the HQ of the property development company Dwarfmann Investment Management Partners. Dwarfmann himself proves to be no slouch in the Biblical quotations department leading to an amusing quote-off between him and the head of the Order. Meanwhile the cash-strapped Flatterys are not above bugging the monastery, thereby gaining intel when the Brothers find an illuminated replacement copy of the missing lease and dropping lit matches to be rid of it. Brother Benedict experiences an uprising south of the Equator for the complicated Eileen Flattery, pursues her to the Caribbean and thanking his lucky stars, if not God, he’s not a full on Catholic priest has a high old time necking rum and diddling his squeeze. Nice work if you can get it. There’s a genuine romance, much discussion of the nature of travel and a new member joins the order towards the end, revitalising the community. It’s not high drama, the beats are welcome when they come and the lease is eventually...well, no spoilers but it happens a little too easily.

If there’s one structural issue I have with “Brothers Keepers” it’s that Brother Benedict has been in the order for only 10 years – i.e. not that long – and yet when he eventually embarks on his great expedition he’s flummoxed by details such as train doors opening on their own. Structurally, Westlake can’t have him be a member of the order since boyhood (like, say, Christian Slater in “The Name Of The Rose”) and a total naïf but at the same time he has to be sufficiently confounded by modernity for his expedition into the world to be a challenge. I think that choice of 10 years is quite deliberate. I still didn’t really buy Benedict’s continual bewilderment at the world but honestly when you’re reduced to that sort of level of nit-picking the material has to be pretty water-tight to start with. The central premise is the same as “Fleabag”’s - will God or romance win out? – but “Brothers Keepers” does a better job of forcing Brother Benedict into a position where he cannot avoid making the big choices, because his entire community depends on it; he can’t walk away at any moment. The nameless priest in “Fleabag” was only kept in play by what was in his pants; Westlake could teach Waller-Bridge a thing or two about basic storytelling. And thanks to Daniel Craig requesting her for Bond 25 they could both talk 007.

Yet another great but misleading cover for the Hard Case Crime reprint. Even though it’s a lesser novel from the man who gave the world the Parker series “Brothers Keepers” is still very welcome although why “Adios Scheherazade” hasn’t had a reprint is a mystery to me. “The world is insane, it really is.”

[Bookreporter.com Mystery & Thriller · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Hard Case Crime functioned only as a postmortem memorial press for Donald E. Westlake, that would be more than enough to justify its ongoing existence. Of course, this publishing imprint founded by Charles Ardai in 2004 is much more than that. It’s just that Westlake has created a body of work under his own name and others that remains enviable from both a qualitative and quantitative standpoint. Hard Case Crime has seen fit to rescue various titles of his from the concentric circle of hell known as “out of print” on a regular, if not frequent, basis. This brings us to the underappreciated jewel known as BROTHERS KEEPERS.

This newly republished stand-alone caper novel with a twist is full of quirky characters and Westlake’s trademark humor. It’s somewhat different from his other books in that it centers on the Crispinite Order of the Novum Mundum, an obscure order of monks who live in semi-cloistered self-sufficiency in the midst of Manhattan. Their monastery is two centuries old as BROTHERS KEEPERS begins but does not appear likely to get much older.

The story, as told in the first person by Brother Benedict of the order, is that the city has grown up around the monastery, so much so that the venerable building sits on some extremely prime Manhattan real estate and is in the way of a proposed high-rise office building. The lot on which the monastery rests has been sold out from under it. The monks discover this at the 11th hour and learn that they have less than a month before they are to be evicted. The new owner of the property is more than willing to aid them in finding another place to live and relocate them. To the order, though, such a proposition is unthinkable. The original lease agreement entered into way back when may provide the order with a legal basis to stay, but it has gone missing.

Brother Benedict, a reliable worker bee for the small order, is the one who discovered that the demolition of the monastery was in the works, and is an integral part of a series of ever-changing plans to either legally prevent that from happening or convince the new owner to change its corporate mind. He finds himself in contact with the outside world a bit more than he would like to be. That environment has its temptations, of course, and chief among them are those of the flesh. The good brother eventually falls in love, and as BROTHERS KEEPERS proceeds, there is a decent chance that he will sleep with the enemy…or at least the daughter of the enemy. Such an action would go against his vows, but it may be the only way to keep the monastery from being bulldozed and the Order moved. What to do? The answer is what you think, but not quite, and you will have to read this wonderfully written work to find out.

BROTHERS KEEPERS was penned in the mid-1970s. That said, one reading it in the late-2010s is struck not only by how much has changed but also by how much has stayed the same. Westlake was remarkably prescient in a number of ways. Still, those of delicate sensibilities may find themselves experiencing a bit of retroactive and arguably much-needed culture shock. At the end of the day, however, two things stand out here. One is the manner in which Westlake can illustrate, with a few paragraphs or a vignette or two, why New York is by turns the best and worst place to live. The other is the variety of instantly memorable and entertaining characters that he was capable of conjuring up in book after book, including this one. It’s a quiet little gem that you'll want to keep and reread.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

[Craig Pittman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Donald E. Westlake since I was a kid and first read "God Save the Mark." I enjoyed parts of this one, but I have to say parts felt like padding and the ending was a letdown.

Our narrator for this book is Brother Benedict, who joined an order of monks when he was jilted by a fiancee 10 years ago. He's been content in the contemplative life ever since. His one major vice is leaving the monastery to buy a copy of the Sunday New York Times and do the crossword puzzle. One evening he brings back the NYT and discovers, via a story from the paper's architecture critic, that their Park Avenue monastery is about to be torn down and replaced by a pair of office buildings, and all the monks will be evicted.

This provokes quite a crisis among the monks. There are 16 of them and one of the problems of this novel is keeping their identities in mind as you read. When I first started the book, I wondered if Westlake would use these holy men as a crew to pull off some elaborate heist, since that's the style of writing he's best known for. But he doesn't do that. Something I read in a blog said that that's what Westlake intended to do when he began this book -- it was going to be a monastery full of former crooks -- but the characters didn't gel right for that and he went a different way. (The monastery of former crooks does get a shoutout, however.)

The founder of the monastery wanted them to think about Travel and what it does to us humans, and in the end I guess that's what Westlake wanted to contemplate as well. He sends Brother Benedict this way and that to try to save the monastery. Before the book is over, he will have walked long distances, ridden in a police car, taken a few trains and a bus, even flown to Puerto Rico in a commercial jet. There's even a disgruntled travel agent who pops up at the end.

Along the way, he falls in love with a feisty Irish woman named Eileen, a divorcee in her early 30s who's also the daughter of the man who's intent on tearing the monastery down, whose name is Flattery. (Westlake has some fun with the names of characters in this book -- Eileen says she's "the sincerest form of Flattery").

SPOILER ALERT:

I say this book was a letdown because, unlike most other Westlake novels I've read, the hero does NOT wind up saving the day and winning the woman of his dreams. Benedict saves the monastery but in doing so he loses Eileen. They don't even have a satisfying parting scene.

When I hit the end of the book and realized what had happened, I sat staring at the words "The End," wondering if I'd missed something. But I had not. Benedict goes back to the monastery and prepares to go to confession where he will detail the many sins he committed, and we're left to wonder why Westlake delivered such a bittersweet conclusion to the book.

In thinking about this, I began to spot some holes in the plot, too. While this is a Hard Case Crime book, there's hardly any crime in it. Someone steals the monks' copy of their lease. plants a bug in the abbott's office and then burns up all the lease's supporting documents. The person gets a smack in the jaw and that's about it. But why did he bother to steal the lease in the first place? How did he know it was important to steal it? Westlake never answers that question. As a result, I have to say this is one of the weaker entries in the Westlake ouvre, and I would not recommend it to anyone who was not a completist.

[Craig Childs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brother Benedict belongs to a monastic order on Park Avenue devoted to "contemplation and good works and meditation on the meaning of Earthly travel." Life is easy and usually uncomplicated. He says, "Our meditations on Travel have so far produced the one firm conclusion that Travel should never be undertaken lightly, and only when absolutely necessary to the furthering of the glory of God among men--which means we rarely go anywhere."

But when an unscrupulous real estate developer threatens to evict them to make room for a new office building, Benedict becomes convinced one of their order has betrayed them. His odyssey to save their home will take him far from the confines of the 200-year old monastery (to Long Island and Puerto Rico, among other far-flung places) and challenge everything he holds dear about his chosen way of life…

Hard Case Crime has done it again… They have unearthed another nearly-forgotten crime novel that pushes the boundaries of what the genre is capable of--all the while delivering a funny, unforgettable story.

I suppose this could be considered a comic caper. It certainly has its laugh out loud moments, such as when the monks first try to understand the parlance of high finance. Or the heated 'conversation' between Abbot Oliver and the head of an investment management firm: they hurl a string of out-of-context Scripture verses at each other. My favorite scene featured a drunken burned-out travel agent confessing to Benedict on an airplane that Travel has ruined his life.

In general, however, this is a leisurely, reflective, wry, slightly sardonic narrative that is content to ruminate on topics such as service to God, earthly love, self-fulfillment, and of course Travel in all its forms. Above everything, it is the story of one man simply trying to find a community to which he can belong.

The world feels remarkably lived-in and full of complex interpersonal relationships. Westlake's prose is, as usual, sparkling and memorable. In one of my favorite scenes, a beautiful woman catches Brother Benedict staring at her with obvious interest. She asks:

"How long have you been a monk?"
"Ten years."
"Well," she said, "that's either too long or not long enough."

Here are some other great passages:

"The retaining of souvenirs is the surest sign of a luxuriating relationship with Travel."

"I glanced at Business Week, a magazine I'd never seen before. I soon noticed they had a tendency to use the word 'aggressive' to describe activity of which they approved. Another form of behavior they felt positive about was belt-tightening. As I continued to read, it seemed to me that all American business was divided into two camps, those who were aggressive and those who tightened their belts, and that Business Week, unable to choose the better from the worse, had given its unqualified blessing to both."

"I was feeling queasy and light-headed, and I wasn't sure if that meant I was in love or had the flu. The symptoms seemed to be the same."

"Meditation under the influence of rum tends to be more wide-ranging but less substantive than meditation taken straight."

"I knew the transition back to celibacy was going to be a difficult one. But it had been difficult the first time, ten years ago, until gradually the itch had faded, as it would do again; abstinence makes the heart grow colder."

Highly recommended. 4 and a half stars.

[William Leight · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Maybe 4.5, I really liked the bits about Traveling]

Amazingly enough, this excellent Westlake mystery is about a monk struggling with his vocation. Brother Benedict, our hero, is a member of the (entirely fictional) Crispinite Order of the Novum Mundum. Their special mission, bequeathed by their founder, is to contemplate Travel -- always capitalized in the book -- which they do from their monastery in central Manhattan. Naturally, this contemplation doesn't leave much time for Travel itself: Brother Benedict is unusual in that he leaves the place once a week, to walk a block and buy a Sunday New York Times. However, their real estate is, of course, extremely valuable, and due to a complicated concatenation of circumstances, they are vulnerable to being kicked out by a developer. In an effort to block this, Brother Benedict finds himself doing quite a lot of Traveling, always accompanied -- he narrates -- by funny and insightful comments on the concept and the particular Traveling that he is currently engaged in. Perhaps unsurprisingly -- Brother Benedict is the youngest of the order, most of the members having joined it in middle age or later after already having done quite a lot of Traveling of their own -- this Traveling, and its necessary exposure to the wider world, has an impact on Brother Benedict's own outlook. By the end of the book, the question is not just if the Order will be able to keep their building but also whether Brother Benedict will be able to keep his vocation -- there is a woman involved, of course, Eileen, the daughter of the developer who owns the land the monastery is on -- and the Order its internal unity. Unusually for a Westlake hero of this era, Brother Benedict has sex with Eileen during the book: perhaps that's a sign that he is going to end up going back to the monastery and leaving her behind.

The edition that I read was released by Hard Case Crime, which is a bit confusing because it's hard to imagine a less hard-boiled book than this: the protagonists are pacifistic monks, there is no murder and only a couple of acts of violence. Instead, the appeal lies in everything else. For instance, the way that Westlake manages, quite impressively, to create a decidedly unusual monastic order without ever giving the impression that he is making fun of the monks or their faith. Or the way that Brother Benedict's crisis is never depicted as him coming to his senses, or realizing that the attractions of the monastic life and his faith aren't real: instead, it's the logical result of a young man with little worldly experience suddenly having such experience thrust on him and realizing that maybe he was hasty in abjuring it. And the bad guys -- real estate developers are always bad guys in New York City -- are just as good as the monks: repellent, sure, but they make sense, they're never cartoonish. "Brothers Keepers" is definitely one of Westlake's best.

[Elite Group · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book!

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” “Oh No!” I thought, “I’m going to be buried in a religious book. Help!” And yes, I was, to a degree, because the monks of the Crispinite Order of the Novum Mundum have been told that the land on which their monastery was built by their founder, Israel Zapatero in New York City in 1777, has been sold to a property developer so that a skyscraper can replace it and the two similarly old buildings alongside it.

This devastating news is received with utter shock and dismay by the sixteen brothers who reside in the monastery. They hope that the lease which meant the land was on a ninety-nine-year basis since its inception, would help them discover a way to save the sale from going through. Unfortunately, the lease is missing. It appears to have been stolen but how and by who? Could one of the brothers have given it, only copy to the prospective land developer?

Brother Benedict relates the story from the moment he finds a snippet in the property supplement of the Sunday Times announcing the sale of the three properties to DIMP and the turmoil the sale of their bit of land, stuck in the middle of this package of land, has on each of his fellow brothers.

I’m so grateful that Titan Publishers have decided to re-publish this masterpiece by Donald E Westlake. It’s filled with wonderful characters, each and everyone as vital to telling the story as Brother Benedict. However, he stole my heart, thanks to his desire to save the monastery but at the same time having serious doubts about his commitment to his vow of celibacy after meeting Eileen Flattery, the daughter of the man who owns the land.

This book made me laugh loud and heartily. It’s funny, wise, filled with unexpected characters who have found solace behind the monastic walls, but who still have a bit of worldliness about them. A story guaranteed to fill your heart with joy.

Dietes.

Breakaway Reviewer received a copy of the book to review.

[Rhiannon Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you keep up with my blog and my reading lists, you will note that I've read one of Donald E. Westlake's books and reviewed it here before.  If you're interested in hard case crime novels, as I sometimes am, you should check him out. 
But, being that this novel was written quite some time ago, a reader must understand that the language and the story itself is very much a product of its time. For example, in the second chapter of Brothers Keepers, there is a small section where a monk is writing a letter to Miss Ada Louise Huxtable of The New York Times. There are many starts and stops to the letter, but the letter itself is set up in a style in which not many younger people today might recognize with a name and address in the left corner, date in the right, and a formal letter following. I was taught how to write a business letter in high school, but a lot of schools aren't teaching this skill today and it's becoming lost in translation with email writing as a preferred method of conveyance and text messaging coming in a close second. Obviously, it takes on a second to figure out what's going on, but the difference in the times might come as somewhat of an amusement to some and makes this story even more fun to read. 

A world without cell phones and internet in every device? How novel. 

Mostly,  Brothers Keepers is a timeless story. The monks themselves are all very well written and their attitudes toward their home being scheduled for destruction in order to make way for modern growth within their city are well portrayed. Westlake's writing--and the humor within--is absolutely delightful as usual. Whatever feelings and anxieties over a dire situation the monastery went through in the story can easily be translated into the issues and goings on of today. The story and characters will resonate well with a newer generation and likely generations to come. 

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard Case Crime has re-published some of Donald Westlake's back catalog. This is an enjoyable romp through 1970s New York City. There is no actual crime occurring, unless you consider unfettered capitalism a crime.

Brother Benedict is a monk in the order of St Crispin, living peacefully in a monastery on Park Avenue. Suddenly the 16 monks discover that the lease on their 200 year old monastery is about to expire and the owner is planning to sell it to a real estate developer planning to put up an ugly office tower. The monks will be relocated to a derelict college campus in upstate New York, or alternatively a prison like structure in Pennsylvania.

Although one of the tenets of their order is to avoid Travel, they must do what they can to preserve their way of life. In the month they have left, Benedict struggles with his vocation as he falls in love with Eileen, daughter of the owner. He learns more than he wants to about the world he left behind 10 years ago.

Like most Westlake novels, there is a dry sense of humor behind his writing.

As Brother Benedict meditates on the people he meets

If one were to Travel every day, would one go on meeting such richly intrusive personalities? How could the ordinary brain survive such an onslaught?
I was meditating on the possibility that perhaps ordinary brains did not survive such a onslaughts, and that the coming of the Age of Travel produced by the end of feudalism and the social changes of the industrial revolution had in fact created a mass psychosis (a theory that would explain much of the world's history over the last few hundred years).