“The high life for Barry and
Lola Lee is not without its share of risk as they run one scam after another to
finance it and barely stay ahead of their creditors. In a bind, Barry hatches a
scheme that will take him to Lola’s South American homeland, Guerrera, where he
will stage his accidental death and collect megabucks on his life insurance.
The death itself—a spectacular swan dive off a cliff in a rental car, with a
restaurant full of witnesses—goes off without a hitch, thanks to the
participation of Lola’s brother and other relatives, but in the days afterward,
with Barry holding new papers as Lola’s brother and in seclusion until the
insurance settlement (and lonely, lusting after the wife of Lola’s black-market
cousin), greed turns out not to be the Lees’ trait exclusively. Tipped off by a
cousin, the vivacious Luz, that his life is in danger from yet another branch
of the family, Barry accepts her offer of sanctuary—even though sexy-looking
Luz leaves him with his tongue hanging. When the hideaway is compromised,
though, Barry has to assume a third (or is it fourth?) identity and take a room
at an exclusive resort catering to foreigners. There, he comes face to face
with the insurance examiner sent to investigate his case, who doesn’t recognize
him but tells him that the jig is nearly up. With Lola looking at jail time if
the examiner succeeds, desperate times call for desperate measures—and Lola’s
murder-minded cousins show up.”
Judson Jack Carmichael is none other than Donald E. Westlake, and according to the Westlake Review site, this pseudonym came about in the late 1990s, after he had released The Ax (a hard noir thriller I’ve yet to read, one with no humor and also the return of his other pen name, Richard Stark after a twenty plus year hiatus). His publishers felt this comic insurance scam novel could not come after those two hard core novels.
It was a little comic insurance fraud novel, closest in spirit to books I’d written in the seventies. I finished it, and gave it to my editor and my agent, and the gloom could be heard to descend. (It sounds like a grounded blimp losing air.)
Gently I was told that this could not possibly be the book that would follow The Ax, nor could it be the book that followed the return of Richard Stark. I did see that.
Unfortunately, I did. I saw what they meant, and I had to agree. I had a certain responsibility now. The book I published after The Ax and Stark redux could not just be any book. I had newer readers now, who would come to that book with a certain level of expectation. They wouldn’t necessarily need The Ax again, they could certainly understand that I also had my comic moments, but there was a level of emotional truth that really should be present in whatever book was published next. -from an unpublished article found in his files; now collected in The Getaway Car.
The funny part is how anyone could’ve thought
this was not a Westlake novel. Unlike some of his Stark books, of the many
other nom de plume’s he has released books under since the late 1950s, it’s
very clear this book was written in the tone of his many comic caper novels of
the 1970s. The Parker novels published under his Richard Stark name always
seemed to carry a different voice than his comic tales released under his name.
It was like they were to different men. But any reviewer could tell that the
book was written by Westlake (it was released through Carroll
& Graf, and they tried to tantalize new readers by saying this was a famous
writer going incognito), but the Westlake Review added that they could find no
reviews that seemed to indicate anyone caught on that Carmichael was Westlake.
Still, there is nothing really new here, just a rearranging of various material he had been doing for decades. Plus it was another adventure set outside his beloved New York, and I think this why –despite some his publishers’ dismay- this book saw the light of day in 2003. It’s not a bad book by far, but it’s also a reminder of why authors do release books under pen names –because publishers’ like their authors to stay in one lane.
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