[.ca] What's So Funny? (ISBN 0446401153)

Classic Dortmunder Humor Offset a Slow First Half Plot:
What's So Funny? is uncharacteristically slow in the beginning. The best Dortmunder books have a humorous crime that goes awry in the first few pages to get the book off to a flying start. It's like the opening action sequence in a James Bond novel or movie . . . it sets the mood and gets the blood pumping. What's So Funny? starts instead with an ex-cop, Johnny Eppick who advertises he's "For Hire," blackmailing Dortmunder inside the OJ Bar & Grill. It seems Eppick has a photograph of Dortmunder in felonious possession of stolen merchandise. What's more, Eppick seems to know way too much about Dortmunder for Dortmunder's comfort. The blackmail effort is for an elderly retired inventor, Mr. Hemlow, who wants to recover a stolen chess set worth millions that had once been intended for the last czar, but the Russian Revolution countered that option before the chess set was delivered. Hemlow's father and some fellow army and navy personnel sneaked the set out of the USSR during the anti-Soviet battles just after World War I. Their sergeant retrieved the set from his squad after they returned to the U.S. and disappeared with the chess set. Now, Hemlow's granddaughter, an apprentice lawyer who fancies herself an amateur historian, has located the set. Hemlow wants Dortmunder to liberate the valuable prize. Dortmunder is stymied when he learns that the chess set is locked up in a very secure bank vault in the very building where four law firms are fighting over the set. But Hemlow and Eppick don't want to let Dortmunder off the hook. Eventually, Dortmunder thinks of an angle and the story proceeds in normal Donald E. Westlake fashion. The main outlines of how the story will proceed are obvious in advance, but the humorous mix-ups aren't. Four of the sequences are marvelous as Dortmunder and Eppick miss some illegal house sitters, Dortmunder and Kelp set up to case the site of the heist, the gang is surprised while casing the joint and has to vacate the premises quickly, and the timetable for the heist is voided and Dortmunder has to improvise. To make up for the slow beginning, Mr. Westlake has larded in more than his usual humor about telephones and electronic devices, and Dortmunder's persecution complex and provided two classic malapropism sequences at the bar in the OJ Bar & Grill. There's also Stan Murch's klutzy idea for a heist to keep you chortling. Otherwise, just be patient and you'll find that the story gets a lot more interesting starting on page 95. In classic Dortmunder style, the book ends with a final irony that will stay with you. I love the Dortmunder books and adore Mr. Westlake's humor. But the weak plot in the beginning definitely drops this book for the usual five-star level for Dortmunder to only four. Have a lot of great laughs!