Books: Drowned Hopes By Donald E. Westlake (1990)

"In his day, Tom Jimson (a sort of parody of certain characters crime writer Jim Thompson used to create in the 1940s and 50s -who went unnoticed during that era but was “rediscovered” in the 1980s, years after his passing in 1977) was a hard man. He came up with Dillinger in the 1930s, and pulled a lot of high-profile jobs before the state put him away. They meant it to be for good, but after twenty-three years the prisons are too crowded for seventy-year-old bank robbers, and so they let the old man go. Finally free, he heads straight for John Dortmunder’s house. Long ago, Tom buried $700,000, and now he needs help digging it up. While he was inside, the government dammed a nearby river, creating a reservoir and putting fifty feet of water on top of his money. He wants to blow the dam, drown the villagers, and move to Acapulco. If Dortmunder wants a clean conscience to go along with his share, he needs to find a nice way to get the money before Tom’s nasty instincts get the best of both of them."

Drowned Hopes is Donald E. Westlake’s seventh Dortmunder novel and it leaves a bit of the slapstick behind (though there is still plenty of humor here) as we are introduced to a really dangerous man, the after mentioned Tom Jimson. He’s a bully, a murderer, and probably a psycho. Most of the book has Dortmunder coming up with one plan after another to try and prevent Jimson from blowing up the dam and ending the lives of hundreds of people. So Dortmunder takes the plunge –and fails. He then successfully dissuades the group from attempting to burn off the water with a huge laser. Still, feeling pressure from Jimson, he makes another attempt. And then another.

I felt the plot is sort of a variation on The Hot Rock, with one elaborate plan of Dortmunder’s backfiring for various reasons, but it’s still a fun read. John may be a petty criminal, but he does have morals and a soul, and you can't help but love his curmudgeonly ways of trying to avoid living in a world that is always moving forward. The book goes on way too long, though, and Westlake could’ve dropped one or two of the plans to retrieve the money, dropped a sub-plot here and there (Guffey was more a plot device than a character), but ultimately it’s a vastly entertaining caper.