Drowned Hopes

Rating:
Summary: Westlake's a weirdo
Review: Drowned Hopes is a very odd story with Westlake's famous character John Dortmunder under the influence of an aged ex-convict Tom. Westlakes successfully ties in subtle bits of humor into the novel's strange plot. Decent book.

Rating:
Summary: Poor Plans, Ineptness and a Nasty Villain Mar the Story
Review: Drowned Hopes presents Dortmunder with a special challenge. His old cell-mate, Tom Jimson, is released from prison unexpectedly to ease crowding, and seeks out Dortmunder to rescue a stash of $700,000 buried in a casket under 50 feet of water in an upstate New York reservoir. Tom's the nastiest con to ever visit behind bars. He's rather kill than think. If Dortmunder can't come up with a slick plan, Jimson plans to dynamite the reservoir's dam and drown hundreds in the process.

The book then details the many schemes, preparations and efforts involved in attempting to recover the casket.

I found this book to be a big disappointment. Dortmunder novels are usually very interesting because Dortmunder comes up with plans to steal that are ingenious. It's only the fickle finger of fate that fouls him up, with something that no one could expect.

Uncharacteristically in Drowned Hopes, Dortmunder only comes up with plans that are obviously not going to work based on his poor planning, preparation and execution of the plans. So it's like watching the Keystone Kops as robbers rather than a Dortmunder novel. As a result, the book only provided moments of interesting plot developments for me. To give you some sense of how ridiculous the plans are, the third one that Dortmunder comes up with is probably the one you would have thought of in 30 seconds.

Another problem with the story is that Tom is too nasty a character. It's just plain unpleasant to read about him and what he has done.

The book's final problem is that it moves v . . . e . . . r . . . y s . . . l . . . o . . . w . . . l . . . y. There is not as much good material here as in a Dortmunder 240 page novel, but this one is 422 pages long.

Unless you feel compelled to read all the Dortmunder novels, I suggest you skip this one.

If you do decide to read the book, think about other places where more is less such as eating three pizzas rather then one, or walking 15 miles in a day rather than five. Where could your life benefit from doing less?

Rating:
Summary: Poor Plans, Ineptness and a Nasty Villain Mar the Story
Review: Drowned Hopes presents Dortmunder with a special challenge. His old cell-mate, Tom Jimson, is released from prison unexpectedly to ease crowding, and seeks out Dortmunder to rescue a stash of $700,000 buried in a casket under 50 feet of water in an upstate New York reservoir. Tom's the nastiest con to ever visit behind bars. He's rather kill than think. If Dortmunder can't come up with a slick plan, Jimson plans to dynamite the reservoir's dam and drown hundreds in the process.

The book then details the many schemes, preparations and efforts involved in attempting to recover the casket.

I found this book to be a big disappointment. Dortmunder novels are usually very interesting because Dortmunder comes up with plans to steal that are ingenious. It's only the fickle finger of fate that fouls him up, with something that no one could expect.

Uncharacteristically in Drowned Hopes, Dortmunder only comes up with plans that are obviously not going to work based on his poor planning, preparation and execution of the plans. So it's like watching the Keystone Kops as robbers rather than a Dortmunder novel. As a result, the book only provided moments of interesting plot developments for me. To give you some sense of how ridiculous the plans are, the third one that Dortmunder comes up with is probably the one you would have thought of in 30 seconds.

Another problem with the story is that Tom is too nasty a character. It's just plain unpleasant to read about him and what he has done.

The book's final problem is that it moves v . . . e . . . r . . . y s . . . l . . . o . . . w . . . l . . . y. There is not as much good material here as in a Dortmunder 240 page novel, but this one is 422 pages long.

Unless you feel compelled to read all the Dortmunder novels, I suggest you skip this one.

If you do decide to read the book, think about other places where more is less such as eating three pizzas rather then one, or walking 15 miles in a day rather than five. Where could your life benefit from doing less?

Rating:
Summary: Classic Westlake/Dortmunder
Review: Having read all of the previous Dortmunder novels, I found it increasingly difficult to think that Westlake would or could top himself with the genius of this series. Again, he proved me wrong with "Drowned Hopes." No one can turn a phrase, develop a character or dream a scenario the way Westlake does.

"Drowned Hopes" brings back many of the great characters from the previous Dortmunder novels and as always, throws in a few new ones to round out the brilliant cast. The story is a wild adventure unrivaled in the previous books of the series, taking our hero from NYC, to Oklahoma and even up Abe Lincoln's nose on Mt. Rushmore.

I can recommned this book in print and on audio-cassette (with a wonderful performance by Michael Kramer - reader of all the Dortmunder books on tape) where the characters come to life. This one leaves you hungry for more.

Rating:
Summary: Westlake is the best
Review: It's not entirely accurate for me to be reviewing just "Drowned Hopes" because, truly, *all* of Donald E. Westlake's comic crime novels are wonderful and entertaining. Don't limit yourself to just this one book (though "Drowned Hopes" is definitely among the better ones, as it features Dortmunder and his hapless crime syndicate). Since many of Westlake's books seem to be out of print at the moment, the library is probably your best bet to catch up on these treasures. But let's start a new campaign to reissue all of Westlake's books!

Rating:
Summary: Help from Moose and Squirrel
Review: Thoroughly enjoyed this as I have the other Dortmunders I've read. Then learned that that plot outline resembles that of an old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon -- what a great place to get inspiration!

Rating:
Summary: Dortmunder Saga
Review: Tom Jimson is a nasty piece of work. He's also an ex-cellmate of John Dortmunder's who has just been released from prison and unexpectedly shows up on Dortmunder's doorstep to ask him to help to recover some of the loot he had stashed away before going away. He'd buried it in a coffin, behind a library, in a small town almost 30 years ago. The problem is, the town and the surrounding valley have since been flooded under 50 feet of water to form a reservoir.

As an ideas man, Dortmunder's specialty is to come up with brilliant plans but this time he's faced with a perplexing conundrum. How do you sneak into a reservoir that is off-limits to the public, find a box buried in ground that is also underwater? Well, one thing's for sure, if John Dortmunder and his gang is involved, it won't go without a hitch and the results will be hilarious.

The crew backing up from previous books are the ever reliable Andy Kelp, Tiny Bulcher who's starting to seem almost human now, driving specialist Stan Murch, Murch's Mom and Dortmunder's better half, May. May seems to be playing a more important role in each successive outing and is a fine foil for Dortmunder doom and gloom attitude.

This is an unusual Dortmunder book because it is at least twice as long as any of the previous entries in the series. This serves to give Dortmunder room to come up with even more brilliant plans. It also allows us to get to know the regular cast in much greater depth. For example, we finally find out what Murch's Mom's first name is in this book. Westlake also manages to introduce us to a few more offbeat characters that complement the regular mob nicely.

As usual, Donald Westlake has given us a riotous caper that is simply a joy to read. In order to fully understand each character's idiosyncrasies I would recommend reading the earlier books first, an enjoyable task in itself, although it's not absolutely necessary. There are numerous references to earlier capers, but these only serve to give the reader the feeling of being an insider to the gang, the references don't spoil any plots.