The Busy Body

by Donald E. Westlake

From Kirkus:

Charlie Brody is missing. And right after the organization had given him ""Not Just a send-off, a modern send-off...""an A-1 Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza of a funeral. They had also unwittingly put to rest a quarter of a million worth of heroin in Charlie's burial suit. And when Aloysius Eugene Engel, the organization's top man's right hand and reluctant grave digger finds the coffin empty it's the signal for a madcap series of events that almost make poor Aloysius a reluctant substitute for the corpse. Merriment, mayhem and a plot that really keeps you guessing...

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

179 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

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

[Charles van Buren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended

Not a busybody but a busy body which is missing from its grave. The mobster tasked with finding the body is a little slow on the uptake but this is still a classic Donald Westlake romp.

[Pop · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Westlake books, and I have to say I am hooked on Westlake. What a story, Not a dull moment, never knew where the plot was going to almost the very end. The reader was excellent. Am looking forward to more of Westlake books if I have the time 🙏

[Craig Pittman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting from when I read "The Hot Rock" as a teenager, Donald E. Westlake was one of my all-time favorite authors, and this was one of his funniest books -- and cleverest plots. The funeral scene is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The Busy Body” was one of Westlake’s more successful comedic crime efforts. What makes it successful is that he adopts an authentic mobster voice and you as the reader readily accept that Aloysius Engel is a mobster who puts in work as he’s told.

The story opens with a huge funeral given for Charlie Brody and what follows is a bit of slapstick gangster humor because it turns out Charlie was a courier. He’d bring the money down and a quarter million dollars of uncut heroin back. The money was sewn into his special blue suit on the way down and the heroin sewn in on the way back.

His widow, a former prostitute, who with his death is being shepherded back into the business, knew nothing about the suit except that it was or appeared to be his favorite suit. So she gave it to the funeral home to bury Charlie in. In the excitement of Charlie’s death, everyone forgot about the quarter million dollars of drugs sewn into the lining.

So (and Engel can’t believe it either) Engel is ordered to dig up Charlie’s grave, open the coffin, pull the blue suit off the corpse, and fill the grave back in. Only problem is when Engel in the dead of night digs up the coffin, he’s shocked to find there’s no body amid thus no suit.

Engel becomes an investigator seeking the missing body and the suit that goes with it. Only problem when he goes to question the undertaker, he’s shocked finds another corpse (or rather the first corpse he actually found), the police think he killed the undertaker. Also, the mobsters don’t believe Engel’s story about the missing corpse and think he’s got the corpse and the blue suit. So Engel is on the run and everyone is after him. This thing is a comedy on so many levels.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Donald E. Westlake wrote in the neighborhood of a hundred novels, publishing both under his own name and six pseudonyms. I'm a fan Richard Stark, the Westlake persona that wrote the Parker novels, stories of a master thief and alpha predator whom the reader observes with rapt attention and fascination. I had never read a "Westlake" novel, so I picked up this one from 1966.

I was slightly disappointed. I knew Westlake novels were known for their almost screwball comedy. The crooks in these stories are none too bright and the situations escalate into absurdity. This story, that involves the missing body a dead drug runner, is very funny. The characters are believable gangsterish oafs (self-important, clueless, murderous ), and the story moves at an admirable clip. It contains, however, one improbability that made me question the whole thing. This drug runner has been buried in a suit containing a quarter million dollars worth of heroin. His immediate boss in the organization says that he just didn't think about the suit until after the funeral, which was conveniently closed coffin because of the badly burned body. I assumed this fingered the boss as the guilty party, but no. He is telling the truth and his boss is inexplicably content to let him live. The Busy Body is a fun story, but I'm not buying it.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

His work never gets old.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Westlake's better stand-alones, with a vibrant feel for an era of New York City disappearing over the cusp of memory into history.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I want a mystery with noir notes, a great sense of humor and deft plotting, I know I can turn to master writer Donald Westlake for an easy and entertaining read.

In this novella from about half a century ago, Westlake features Aloysius Engel, who has become the righthand man to mob boss Nick Rovito in New York. Engel's assignment: dig up the body of one of the family's recently deceased members, after Rovito discovers he has mistakenly been buried wearing a suit with thousands of dollars of heroin sewn into the lining.

From the start, though, Engel's attempt to carry out his boss's orders is snakebitten. He and another man open the grave, only to find it empty, and that sets Engel off on a quest to find out what happened and why, but not before he himself has to go on the run.

I don't want to ruin the fun with too many details, but as with other Eastlake novels, this one doesn't depend on the intricacy of the mystery plot, even though there are plenty of twists and turns. Instead, it relies on his uncanny ear for dialogue, his sharply drawn characters and a delicious string of small chapter-ending cliffhangers as Ray lurches toward a revelation.

In the right hands, this could still make a great little movie, but in the meantime, sit back and enjoy the show.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the mid/late 1960s, Donald E. Westlake's publishers were sometimes billing him as a humorist rather than a crime writer, and The Busy Body is his first humorous novel where I get the joke. The differences between The Busy Body and Westlake's previous novel, The Fugitive Pigeon, are instructive. I thought that the allegedly humorous Pigeon was poor because it so closely resembled a traditional hardboiled novel that it seemed like just a watered-down version of the real thing. In The Busy Body, on the other hand, Westlake adds enough absurdity to the mix that the difference is transformative. The Busy Body seems like a new sort of thing rather than a tepid version of something old.

[njpolizzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel well in the style of Westlake. Pure entertainment, where criminals do not look like bad people, and with a plot where strange things happen continuously.
One of those books that help improve the mood, a police novel with many touches of humor and hilarious characters. Short and easy to read.
Recommended as a good way to spend your time. Nestor

[Magnus Stanke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little Westlake caper - not literally a caper narrative, though. It's more like an early version of The Sorpranos, injecting humour into a mob story, albeit one that came even before The Godfather.

It's a fast read, not as laugh-out-loud funny as some of his other books, but a breeze all the same.

[Kristy Hurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Original copyright is 1966. My copy is from the 1973 printing. I mention this because I would have never come across this book if I hadn't inherited it from my grandparents when my grandfather passed in late 2021. This is a rich, entertaining, easy read! I am definitely going to read his other works I inherited.

[Dylan Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Westlake is fun. He gives you just enough danger, just enough grit. Everything ends up squared away (fairly) neat and ends well. If you’re used to darker crime fic, stories like this are almost like a cleanser after all the heavy stuff. Having read a few from him, I never felt like his style is reheated.

[Carla]

Lively characters (the women are great), very funny and tightly-plotted. Look forward to reading more Westlake soon.

[Mtm66]

2.5

[Joseph Badal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Westlake 's Fantastic

If you want pure entertainment, read The Busy Body. Great characters and dialogue. Great fun. This was a quick, enjoyable read.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been enjoying Donald E. Westlake's novels (including his more noir-ish Parker novels for which Westlake used the name Richard Stark) for close to 50 years, and there has never been anyone who could match Westlake for witty caper novels. This one, written in 1967 but re-released in 2021, is very funny, absurdly plotted and features the great dialogue for which Westlake has always been exalted. It's about a gangland fixer who is charged by his boss with recovering a dead person's burial suit because it contains heroin - a LOT of heroin. Sounds simple, but it's the jumping off point for a work of near comic genius in Westlake's hands.

[Andrew Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever had a perfect meal at a great restaurant? You know what to expect, and nothing is all that surprising, yet the experience is great because the food is delightful food and the service superb. Everything arrives in flawless order, the staff is friendly yet efficient, and one delicious course after another leaves you feeling immensely satisfied. Even the little chocolates at the end are good. Well, let me introduce you to Donald Westlake's "The Busy Body". Is this molecular gastronomy? No. Will it wow you with freeze dried sweetbreads and vaporized lettuce? No. For that, please see Foster Wallace & Joyce's. I hear their food is memorable. But this little book makes a fine meal: funny, flawlessly paced, with a plot that's put together better than a plate at the four seasons. What a master. My compliments to the chef!

[Ronnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one seemed a bit rushed in production. Editorially, it's one of the sloppiest books I've ever seen published (typos galore, a "their" that should've been "there," etc.), but the copy I found was suitably dog-eared and age-yellowed, and I'm guessing later editions had some of those issues cleared up. It's saying something, though, that even with all such glitches the madcap story prevails and does in a mostly amusing way what all good pulp fiction does, which is make you want to keep turning the pages. I'm a fan of Westlake in all his authorial guises, and I'll keep trying out all the dog-eared copies of his books I can find.

First lines:
"Engel's knees hurt. This was the first time he'd been inside a church in twelve years, and he wasn't used to it any more."

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another delightful Westlake story blending humor and bad guys together in a frolic of inappropriate assumptions and cross-purposes. This was a wonderful listen as a well-respected member of the local mob organization is asked to dig up a body to retrieve a suit the dead mobster has been buried in; it contained a lot of heroin sewn into the lining. Problem is the coffin is empty and he gets accused of selling out his boss. Soon he's running from everyone including a Deputy Inspector Callahan, a determinedly honest cop. It's a romp.

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early Westlake, and a blast. Al (Aloysius, to his mother, and to his mother only) Engel is Nick Rovito's righthand-man in the New York Mob: all in all, it's a pretty cushy gig, affording him a nice apartment on Carmine Street, nice clothes, nice booze, and a very nice class of female companionship. One day, he is given an entirely distasteful assignment, one that includes manual labor (and a car with a manual transmission), and his life becomes a Kafka-esque nightmare, with too many widows (especially his mother) dogging his every step.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think D.E.W. is my literary hero. I thought it was Elmore, but I dunno...it is just SO impressive that Westlake could write stuff like the Parker novels and then switch gears and write something like "The Busy Body." They are polar opposites! Anyway, I laughed my way through this book and wish it wasn't so difficult for readers to find.

[Bobby Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but I may be burned out on Westlake.

He's my literary god—the consummate pro—but sometimes his lighter stuff really reads too much like one another. Still, I had fun reading it, and isn't that one of the things commercial fiction is all about?

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great premise, with a few nice surprises. I did feel like I was one step ahead of the main character, though. It got frustrating having to wait for him to figure out what was going on. Dialogue veers into pure exposition by the end, which left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am late to the game on Westlake, Very fun, fast read. Good story

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

fun read.

[William Leight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusually for Westlake — at least, for his funny writing — the hero of “The Busy Body” is a gangster. Not, like Dortmunder, a small-time professional thief, but a fully-fledged member of an organized crime group. This poses a challenge for Westlake: how to turn a mobster — again, not a wannabe hanger-on, but an important figure in an organization that routinely settles business disputes by killing people — into a sufficiently sympathetic figure that he can be the hero of a humorous crime novel. The answer that Westlake came up with is that Al Engel is the son of a minor mobster who drifted into being a minor mobster himself and then was suddenly promoted to being second-in-command when he revealed to Nick Rovito, the head of the organization, that Nick’s current second-in-command was planning to take him out, and then shot that former second-in-command in self-defense. (Also, it’s his mother’s fault: she wants her son to do well, and this is the world that she knows.) All of which strains credulity, but the part that really doesn’t make sense is that Al is pretty much still the same person he was before his sudden promotion. Being second-in-command of a mob presumably means that Al is forced to be a lot more violent, directly or indirectly: after all, if he doesn’t adapt, there are doubtless plenty who would like to take his place, and while Nick is certainly grateful, he was also careful to preserve the gun Al used to shoot his predecessor with its incriminating fingerprints, so he’s not going to let gratitude cloud his judgment. On the other hand, being the #2 man presumably comes with an extremely significant raise: more money than Al, whose father never made it very high up the ranks, has ever seen in his life. But neither the pressures nor the perks of his new job seem to have touched Al at all: he’s still the same querulous small-timer he used to be. It doesn’t really work, which is why Westlake throws us straight into a fairly frenetic plot, involving the disappearance of a dead body wearing a suit worth containing a quarter million dollars worth of drugs, and escalating from there. There are some very funny set-pieces — the scene in which Al discovers a body — in a funeral home, natch — and then has to run from what feels like half the cops in New York is a classic — but the plot never quite achieves liftoff, largely because none of the other characters are all that interesting. The gangsters are all various flavors of cliche, and there’s no romantic interest: Al does have an exotic dancer girlfriend, but she appears only via the medium of the increasingly angry notes she leaves on his door. The ending throws a curveball at you, but it’s too late to matter. “The Busy Body” is still quite readable, and very funny in spots, but it’s undoubtedly one of Westlake’s weaker efforts.

[Jiří Pavlovský · Rating 4 out of 5]

Začíná to funusem. Jak se newyorské války gangů uklidnily, nebylo dlouho koho pohřbívat, takže když umře jeden drobný gauner (na infarkt), šéf jedné z organizací toho využije a uspořádá mu honosný funus. Jenže nastane jeden drobný problém. Ukáže se, že oblek, ve kterým byl mrtvý pohřbený, je ten samý, ve kterém převážel drogy z jedné strany Ameriky na druhou. Ano, drogy jsou zašité v obleku. Čili je nutné mrtvolu opět vykopat – aby se zjistilo, že mrtvý už v hrobě není.
A tím samozřejmě problémy jen začínají.

Busy Body je zvláštní mezikrok mezi komediálním Westlakem a drsnoškolovým Westlakem. Zápletka, popisy a jednotlivé situace jsou jako stvořené pro Dortmundera, ale přece jen jsou tady sázky o dost vážnější. Hrdina (pro kterého byl zločin kariérní volba) je hned na začátku pověřený zabít jednoho z členů organizace, a i když nerad, je ochotný to udělat. Je tedy pravda, že obětí má být člověk, kterého by s radostí lopatou umlátil každý, ale stejně. Podobně jsou navýšené i sázky – v mnoha situacích jde hrdinovi opravdu o život. Jde po něm policie, jeho vlastní organizace, čím dál naštvanější přítelkyně… a ještě do toho mu ustavičně volá matka.

Možná kvůli tomuhle střetu se z knihy nestala až zase tak velká klasika – i když to patří rozhodně k tomu lepšímu od Westlakea a má to i poměrně uspokojivé řešení (ale to říkám i proto, že jsem byl celou dobu přesvědčený, jak jsem chytřejší než autor – a nebyl). Asi bych to nebral jako vyloženě komediální knížku, spíš lehkou kriminálku z gangsterského prostředí psanou s velkou dávkou nadsázky.

[Andy Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice little thriller. I had read the Richard Stark novels before but don't think I had read a Westlake before. Smart, pacy and witty and with not too many suspects and a nice neat tie up. Kind of saw the final twist but it was nicely managed. The hero is the reluctant mafioso right hand man to the local Mr Big. He is tasked with a bit of grave digging (the suit of a mafia drugs mule has been accidentally buried with him). Or had it. The body is missing. There follows the search for it from mortuary with dead mortician to the bed of the dead man's widow. Soon with frame up after frame up cops and mafia are after him. An escape on a mobile fairground ride is one of the more memorable. The final squaring away of frame ups and framers is perhaps a little convenient and quickly achieved but I thought it was a nice read. I saw a film of it but it is a quite old fashioned comedy thriller with Sid Caesar and not really a patch on this. There is a Westlake about the coffee industry that I'd like to read.

[RJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charlie Brody was the first in the organization to die in several years. The Boss, Nick Rovido thought this would be a good time to have a great sendoff. Unfortunately, Charlie was buried with something important to the Organization. Fred Engle, Al’s father arranged a meeting with the Boss. Given some condemning information from his father, Al replaced Nick’s existing right-hand man. Four years later, Engle was to retrieve something important for Nick and to rub out Willie Menchik, a truck driver for the organization who talked too much. Engle was to do both jobs at the same time. The situation went from bad to worse. What Nick wanted Engle to retrieve disappeared, along with clues to where it went. All the Boss wanted was the item and it was up to Engle to get it. The story wandered all over, seeming to have nothing to do with the plot. Confusing twists and turns, make me wonder if it will eventually come together.