Books: Don't Ask By Donald E. Westlake (1993)

“Dortmunder has a job offer. He's been hired by third parties to pull off heists in the past, but never to lay his hands on anything this peculiar. Frankly, it's a bone. Not just any bone. A femur. Well, not just any femur, either. A femur which, 800 years ago, was part of a 16-year-old girl who, having been killed and eaten by her own family, was made a saint by the Church. The femur, her only relic, is all that's left. Now two small eastern European countries - Tsergovia and Votskojek - are fighting like dogs over...well, the bone. There's only room for one of them in the United Nations General Assembly, and the choice is in the hands of a powerful Catholic prelate. The country that tosses him the bone is sure to be in like Flynn. Dortmunder's first reaction to the Tsergovian ambassador's offer is to ask for more front money. His second is to round up his gang - light-fingered Kelp, master driver Murch, and man-mountain Tiny Bulcher - and case the Votskojekian mission, a former tramp steamer parked in the East River. The current repository of the bone, it will be the target of a heist carried out by land and sea, with the team displaying the finesse and split-second timing for which they're famous. It should only be that easy. Before the gang can say "Saint Ferghana's knee," they've got a major fiasco on their hands, one that will reach from the snow-capped mountains of Votskojek to a billionaire's art-crammed estate in New Hampshire. But it will show, once and for all, that when it comes to getting revenge, Dortmunder can cut to the bone."

For the most part, Donald E. Westlake’s eighth Dortmunder tale, Don't Ask, works. Its premise is somewhat the same as The Hot Rock, with some sacred object being disputed between two countries, and where Dortmunder (and his trusty gang) are hired by one country to steal it from the other. This time the two countries are Slavic, and the object (which again is in New York) is a saint's relic, a holy bone. Once again, the object must be stolen several times, lost each time for reasons reminiscent of those seen in The Hot Rock. Even though it is somewhat of a retread, Westlake is able to bring some freshness to the characters and change up the formulaic nature of the series. He also finally gives John Dortmunder some due as strategist, with our thief coming up with a clever and thoroughly brilliant revenge on the people who kidnapped him –becoming, in the end, less of a sad sack. It also seems –along with Good Behavior and Drowned Hopes- that Westlake began to pad the stories, making them longer than the earlier tales. Whether this was his choice or his publishers (higher page counts translate into higher profit), Don’t Ask feels like it went on longer than it should. What I liked about the earlier books was they were lean and thus felt more exciting, more outrageous and absurd because everything had to come together so swiftly.

It’s still a witty book, with some great prose and stupid people who think they’re smarter than everyone else.That, of course, makes John Dortmunder's job much easier.