Money For NothingBy Donald E. Westlake; Read by
Michael Kramer5 Cassettes - Approx. 7.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher:
Books On Tape Inc.Published: 2003
ISBN:0736693572
Themes: / Crime / Thriller / Espionage / New York /
"I am from United States Agent. You are now active."
Robert A. Heinlein popularized possibly the longest acronym anybody actually uses: TANSTAAFL (T.here A.in'ts N.o S.uch T.hing A.s A F.ree L.unch). Unfortunately for Josh Redmont, he didn't beleive it. When the first check arrived, back in Josh's salad days, it was for $1,000 and issued by something called "United States Agent." Josh hadn't earned it and didn't know who sent it, but he really needed the money. When he later did a cursory investigation into the mysterious cheque's origins he managed to discover only that it came from an untraceable bank and an indeterminate address in Washington, D.C.. His big mistake was to keep cashing the cheques after he didn't need them - they continued to arrive once a month, even after Josh had to change addresses. For seven years, each month, he'd recieved free money, with no strings attached. But on the day he was finally approached by a smiling stranger - he knew he'd now regret every last cent of it.
If you're a Westlake fanatic, like me, you'll be pleased to hear this is another of D.E.W.'s solidly entertaining standalone crime thrillers. In terms of tone, Money For Nothing falls somewhere in between Richard Stark's hard-boiled Parker series and D.E.W.'s light-hearted Dortmunder tales - fitting nicely on a shelf beside the serio-comic classics like The Fugitive Pigeon and God Save The Mark that he wrote in his early career. Josh Redmont is a plain character, a typical executive and certainly a reluctant player, forced into a plot by circumstances few could have forseen or protected against. When you are having trouble paying your rent, have no prospects of serious cash anytime soon and a nice big cheque comes with your name on it - well, I understand how it'd happen - this ramps up our emnpathy for Josh. While Josh is married, a devoted father and husband in fact, his wife and child play only a subordinate role as motivator, a kind of novelized McGuffin. The crisis is exaserbated by their existence, but their jeopardy isn't the focus of the action. Westlake's love for characters with theatrical backgrounds brings in a character remeniscent of Grofield, from the Parker series. There are a few fun villians, a senile heiress and a sexy femme fatale. Also present is the foreign intrigue Westlake's been known to use from time to time. As usual there are a lot of excllent psychologicial details for all the major characters, we at all times understand and sympathize with their various POVs. The narrative hook is planted early on, the final line of chapter one being the clincher. This isn't going to be remembered as the definitive Westlake novel, but it is funny, extremely well read and massively diverting.
Michael Kramer who'll be very familiar to anyone who's listened to either the Westlake or Stark series of novels from Books On Tape, (Kramer did every single title they released) starts off reading this like a comic caper. The villans have suitably villanous accents, and Josh, the hero, sounds like a high-pitched incompetent - but about three quarters through the novel's plot, when Josh Redmont finally has to take control of the figurative runaway train that he's on Kramer slowly pours ice all over the place. With a vocal focus he turns an unready yuppie into a hard-case-in-the-making. It is super-cool transition.
posted by Jesse
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