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A review by mburnamfink
The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
3.0
I love heists. I've got Leverage on more or less infinite repeat, I'll watch any heist movie on TV, and "pull off an excellent heist" is on my bucket list. That said, The Hot Rock is a genre classic, but I thought it was only an okay book. If I had a physical copy, I'd probably leave it on the plane or in the beachside cabana because re-shelving it would just be more effort than its worth.
Master theif Dortmunder has just gotten out of Sing Sing when he gets hired to steal a priceless emerald for a small African nation. He assembles a perfect team (drive, locksmith, hitter...), a perfect plan, and of course everything goes to pieces and Dortmunder has to keep stealing the gem from ever escalating situations. There's a lot of fun to be had, but the writing isn't quite hardboiled enough to be hardboiled, pulpy enough to be pulp, or heart-pounding enough to be a thriller.
Master theif Dortmunder has just gotten out of Sing Sing when he gets hired to steal a priceless emerald for a small African nation. He assembles a perfect team (drive, locksmith, hitter...), a perfect plan, and of course everything goes to pieces and Dortmunder has to keep stealing the gem from ever escalating situations. There's a lot of fun to be had, but the writing isn't quite hardboiled enough to be hardboiled, pulpy enough to be pulp, or heart-pounding enough to be a thriller.