Books: Nobody's Perfect By Donald E. Westlake (1977)

“The priceless painting is titled ‘Folly Leads to Man's Ruin,’ and its owner, the rich and careless Mr. Chauncey, wants it stolen for the insurance payout. That's why he hires Dortmunder, who has a foolproof plan. Just in case, Chauncey also recruits a hit man to make sure he gets the painting back. Too bad Dortmunder doesn't take the painting's message to heart. He gets stuck in an elevator, and the painting vanishes. Now he's got a few more days to live, unless he comes up with the painting -or another foolproof plan.”

After being caught in the act of stealing TVs out of a repair shop he –and facing more jail time -a high-priced defense attorney suddenly shows up and does the kind of court room magic that keeps the criminally rich out of jail and running around loose for years. But while John Dortmunder is astounded at his luck, he knows that his freedom came with a job. And for once, this job (not coming from Andy Kelp, who John is starting to believe is a jinx) seems simple and easy to pull off.

Of course, as the saying goes, the best laid plans seemly go askew. And this time, a simple unplanned trip in an elevator, sets off a chain of events that has Dortmunder and his Band of Misfit Toys scurrying around New York and England in search of a painting that seems not want to be stolen.

While I enjoyed Westlake’s Parker book I recently read (which is a more hard-core heist theme, with death and violence replacing the humor), I do find myself enjoying the Dortmunder books a bit more (even if they’re a bit formulaic). There is not much in the way of laugh-out-loud hilariousness in Nobody's Perfect, but like the previous ones I’ve read, it does eventually turn into outright farce. But Westlake’s often perfectly-timed dry wit (which I’ve always loved) makes up for some the silliness that sometimes happens towards the end. Still, as always, I love John Dortmunder, who is a principled thief afraid of change and the future -he's like some relatives I once knew. It’s this low-key charm that makes me want to pick up the next volume in the series just to find out what sort of good trouble he’ll end up next in.

Also with this fourth book in the series, I noticed that the first three took place a year apart form each other, as John is 37 in The Hot Rock and 40 by the time Nobody's Perfect begins. This brought up an interesting thing for me, as Westlake wrote Dortmunder (and Parker as well) over a 40 year period. I did a bit of research and discovered after this fourth book, Westlake kept Dortmunder and his crew at relatively the same age. He would do this for his Richard Stark persona as well, as Westlake wrote 16 Parker books in a twelve year period before taking a twenty-two year hiatus before the next Parker tale, 1997's Comeback.