“The Byzantine Fire is much more than a ninety-carat
ruby. As a stone it’s worth over a million dollars, a value vastly increased by
its pure gold band—but its history makes it priceless. A ring that has been fought
for with sword and pen, and passed from nation to nation by all manner of theft
and trickery, it finally made its way to the United States. The US has agreed
to return it to Turkey, but it’s about to be stolen twice more. A gang of
Greeks armed with Sten guns burst into the security room at JFK Airport and
escape with the priceless stone, which they deposit in the safe at a small
jeweler’s shop in Queens. A few hours later, unlucky thief John Dortmunder,
expecting a routine robbery, steals it again. Much blood has been shed for this
little ruby, and Dortmunder’s could be next.”
Why Me is the fifth Dortmunder novel (and the third I’ve read) by Donald E. Westlake and is a
well constructed heist novel that sort of changes the character of Dortmunder.
I mean, it’s a funny book, filled with both colorful rubes and a pretty nasty and
very frightening Tiny Bulcher (the universe between Westlake’s more comic world
of Dortmunder and his more serious noir world of Parker seems to be thinning
here), but Dortmunder seems to go from competent crime planner who just happens
to be having a run of bad luck to a sad sack for whom nothing goes right. This then
forces John to rely on the maddening and oddly odd sidekick of Andy Kelp. Still, John’s eventual solution to his dilemma is achieved with the help
of Kelp's electronics (ah, the early 1980s) is very clever and very funny. But
it’s is also exasperating for his opponents (the NYPD and the FBI) and you’ll
laugh out loud at how stupid some of them truly are.
This may have been a great
short story, though, as Westlake introduces many sub-plots and minor characters
that seem only to work half the time. There’s this whole bit involving rival groups of
foreign agents and terrorists trying to get the ruby back, and while it’s funny, it
ends up never really going anywhere and is never resolved. Still, despite some of these shortcomings, it’s a
wonderful book, sly and often hilarious and silly at the same time.
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