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A review by usbsticky
The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
4.0
I got this recommendation while reading a Lawrence Block book. Its publish date is 1971 and the writing sure shows it.
Spoilers ahead:
And I don't mean showing it by the setting but by the simplistic writing. Everything is a notch simpler by today's standards. Each caper seems simplistically easy and successfully easy. For example, they're able to get a locomotive or helicopter. One of the characters is able to fly the helicopter the first time without any training, without filing any flight plan. The characters break into police stations, banks, insane asylum with ease. They steal cars with ease and never get caught. Everything is done in easy mode. I went along with it because it's escapist, you're not supposed to think too much about it!
Summary: So the 5 protagonists (planner, locksmith, driver, all purpose man, point man) are tasked with stealing an emerald for an African country. They succeed in stealing from the museum but one of the guys is caught. He swallows it and they have to break him out of prison. They do but find that he secreted the emerald in the prison, so they have to break in and get it from its hiding place.
They break in but find that it's gone because the guy told his attorney and he in turn stole it. But he registered himself into an insane asylum to protect himself. The 5 then break him out. But the attorney has put it into a safe deposit box, so they get it out of there.
I have to admit, at some point it became tedious because they have to keep trying again. There isn't a great amount of character development and the guys are just there to move the story along. And the story is supposed to be funny, it actually reads like a movie script.
At least the writing is easy to read and follow. I'm going to read book 2 to see what happens next but this is definitely not high brow stuff. It's mid-century dime store novel writing, which has a virtue of its own, just like mid century design or houses. You read this to go back in time, you read it to get that mid-century feel, and for that I give it 4 stars.
Spoilers ahead:
And I don't mean showing it by the setting but by the simplistic writing. Everything is a notch simpler by today's standards. Each caper seems simplistically easy and successfully easy. For example, they're able to get a locomotive or helicopter. One of the characters is able to fly the helicopter the first time without any training, without filing any flight plan. The characters break into police stations, banks, insane asylum with ease. They steal cars with ease and never get caught. Everything is done in easy mode. I went along with it because it's escapist, you're not supposed to think too much about it!
Summary: So the 5 protagonists (planner, locksmith, driver, all purpose man, point man) are tasked with stealing an emerald for an African country. They succeed in stealing from the museum but one of the guys is caught. He swallows it and they have to break him out of prison. They do but find that he secreted the emerald in the prison, so they have to break in and get it from its hiding place.
They break in but find that it's gone because the guy told his attorney and he in turn stole it. But he registered himself into an insane asylum to protect himself. The 5 then break him out. But the attorney has put it into a safe deposit box, so they get it out of there.
I have to admit, at some point it became tedious because they have to keep trying again. There isn't a great amount of character development and the guys are just there to move the story along. And the story is supposed to be funny, it actually reads like a movie script.
At least the writing is easy to read and follow. I'm going to read book 2 to see what happens next but this is definitely not high brow stuff. It's mid-century dime store novel writing, which has a virtue of its own, just like mid century design or houses. You read this to go back in time, you read it to get that mid-century feel, and for that I give it 4 stars.