Dancing Aztecs

Rating:
Summary: A New York Dance...
Review: I first read this book when I was thirteen years old - the UK version called "A New York Dance" - and I loved it so much that, in the following 15 years, I have re-read it more times than I care to mention. At some point I did lend my copy (Ok, my dad's copy) of the book to a friend and never saw it again, but luckily, I found a copy of "Dancing Aztecs" in a New York bookshop in 1997. Phew, I couldn't live without a copy of this book - an all-time favourite. It is has a pretty '70s feel to it, and no real meaningful message, but it certainly fuelled my love of kitsch Americana. Westlake never really bettered this book for me, but I do also love "Good Behavior" and "Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner".

Rating:
Summary: If only it was a movie
Review: I still have the 10th printing, in paperback, circa 1978 0r '79, that I first read while visiting my future inlaws. After seeing me rolling on the floor, constantly laughing, with tears in my eyes, unable to make conversation without breaking into more laughter, they were sure their daughter was making a big mistake.
This book is completely amoral, absolutely politically incorrect, totally true to human nature and wildly funny. Hollywood can't see making a movie like this--too many characters, too many subplots and what screenwriter could better Westlake's '70s masterpiece. Whenever I feel like laughing, I pull down my flimsy copy and read it again. It never fails

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I was deployed in Iraq and this book arrived in a shipment of books. Having nothing to read I picked up this book and could never put it down. Donald Westlake is an outstanding author and I will get another Westlake novel to read in the near future. This story is a "must read". I would really love to see this in movie form.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I was deployed in Iraq and this book arrived in a shipment of books. Having nothing to read I picked up this book and could never put it down. Donald Westlake is an outstanding author and I will get another Westlake novel to read in the near future. This story is a "must read". I would really love to see this in movie form.

Rating:
Summary: Westlake Is The Master Of The Hustle
Review: Not only is this the book by which I judge every other comic crime novel I read, it is my favorite book, period. Westlake's writing is timeless in its humor, yet simultaneously, he manages to capture a snapshot of the culture about which he writes. A running theme of this novel is 'The Hustle,' the dance craze from the period in the 1970s in which it was written, as well as the more perfidious sort of hustle - a scam to smuggle one valuable artifact out of its native country in the midst of a box of fakes, and what happens when that scam goes wrong. Thick with a riot of vivid characters, I laugh and shake my head in disbelief every time I turn the page in this story. It is an amazing piece of work, and a brilliant testament to Donald E. Westlake's wit and craftiness.

Rating:
Summary: stomach hurts from laughing!
Review: OK, we have 16 Dancing Aztec Statues that are given out as awards. Then we have to recover them because one of them is the "REAL THING." Worth over 1 million dollars. Oh, the hilarity abounds. All the searchers have made me pause to collect my breath...I can't laugh that hard for so long. It hurts! This is probably the funniest book I have ever read. Yes, a plot; yes, mystery; yes, hysteria...I honestly had to stop for a while to regain my breath. Donald Westlake, you are my new hero. Please read it and weep from tears of laughter.