Books: The Road to Ruin By Donald E. Westlake (2004)

Chester Fallon –an old friend of Andy Kelp- used to work as a chauffeur for a man named Monroe Hall, who ran the energy company Somnitech, a conglomeration that also dabbled in other things like communications and manufacturing (its Westlake’s take on the Enron scandal). When it’s discovered that Hall has been caught embezzling from stock investors, depleting union pension funds, the company collapses and thousands of employees lose not only salaries, but their pensions. Now Monroe Hall is a virtual prisoner on his huge Pennsylvania compound as he awaits trial and Chester wants revenge –or at least some of the money of all cars that Hall stores on his land. But to get that, he needs help and calls Andy, who gets John Dortmunder, Tiny and Stan involved a caper to get those cars. But how will this happen, considering Hall’s compound is surrounded by hills, mountains, security and electrical fences?

Due to Hall’s company going bankrupt and due to the fact that he can’t keep staff because of his stealing ways, John and his team come up with an idea: They’ll get hired on as butler (Dortmunder), private secretary (Andy Kelp), security guard (Tiny Belcher), and chauffeur (Stan Murch) to Monroe Hall. But the problem of how to get the cars off the estate without anyone noticing gets further complicated by Mac, Buddy, and Ace, out to avenge the union losses, who plan to kidnap Monroe and demand ransom. Add bilked investors Mark Sterling and Oz Faulk, who also plan to kidnap Monroe until he gives them the password to his offshore bank account, and Dortmunder and the boys won’t have an easy time of it, even before Monroe’s personal trainer, irate at his employer for reasons best known to the IRS, joins forces with the union trio and the investors. Before Dortmunder and his gang can set their heist in action, Monroe and Dortmunder the butler are kidnapped. Oops, there’s also an assassin running loose. If you think he’s after Dortmunder, you’re almost right.

While not as funny as previous Dortmunder books, The Road to Ruin is still filled with Westlake’s trademark talent for observational humor, but it’s still a somewhat disjointed, sometimes rambling tale that might’ve worked as a short-story or just a shorter book (a ton of subplots could've been excised or shorted, and I found the last minute addition of an assassin odd and pointless, though I'm curious if this plot point and Lieutenant Orville will pop up in later books. Still Westlake's Dortmunder tales are somewhat episodic, with everything wrapped up in the end, so I'll see). I’ve noticed that these last few Dortmunder titles are seemly longer than the ones from the 1970s and early 1980s, and I can assume he was sort of asked to make them longer by his publisher, if only to justify the hardcover price tag. But writing comedy has always been hard, but writing a long comedy –especially one like this, which has a very elaborate premise and a lot of characters- seems harder. With so much going on, with so many plot threads to weave, the eleventh Dortmunder tale is not as fun or satisfying as the earlier tales.

Also: Most of the Dortmunder books usually had three to five year gaps between releases (though there was as little as two for the early titles). Starting with The Road to Ruin, which was released in 2004, Westlake began a run with the final four titles (including collection of short stories, Thieves’ Dozen, which also released in 2004, featuring Dortmunder), with book twelve released in 2005, book thirteen released in 2007, and book fourteen released posthumously in 2009.

Much like his return to writing Parker novels under the Richard Stark name, I wonder if Westlake sensed his time left on this mortal coil was close and he needed to push out as many books as possible before the strings were cut.