On Crime

Lifting a pint to the late, great Westlake

By Hallie Ephron, published in the Boston Globe July 26, 2009

GET REAL

By Donald Westlake
Grand Central, 288 pp., $23.99

A PLAGUE OF SECRETS

By John Lescroart
Dutton, 432 pp., $26.95

MISSING MARK
By Julie Kramer
Doubleday, 288 pp., $25.00

Endings are hard, and I took my time reading “Get Real,’’ knowing that it’s the last Dortmunder novel from Donald Westlake. In this one, the mellow, amiable New York City thief and his colorful buddies get sucked into doing what they do for a reality show.

Producer Doug Fairkeep explains that Get Real Productions (“a shiny but small bauble on a lower branch’’ of corporate behemoth Monopole) wants to tape the gang pulling off a heist. “When you’re committing a felony,’’ Dortmunder patiently explains, “the idea is you don’t want witnesses.’’ But when he hears how much money they’re going to make just for being themselves, he caves. Soon he’s seduced by the medium, too, and by the challenge of figuring out how to collect their pay while stealing Get Real blind.

Get Real doesn’t make up the story line, Fairkeep explains. That’s up to Dortmunder and his pals. Get Real takes what they do and “shape[s] it and make[s] it entertainment.’’ By the time Fairkeep realizes that Dortmunder’s caper is a lily that needs no gilding, it’s too late to turn back. What ensues is a cat-and-mouse game in which the producers try to stay one guess ahead of thieves who are intent on eating the hand that’s feeding them.

In this romp, there are laugh-out-loud descriptions, like the names of cars that gang members “find’’ and appropriate: the “Chevy Gazpacho’’ and the “GMC Mastodon hybrid.’’ If Westlake had been in automotive marketing, American automakers would still be thriving. And then there’s the beer - Dortmunder’s and his pals’ essential prop. They do with beer what Sam Spade did with cigarettes.

Sadly, Westlake died in December. His wit and inventiveness, legendary in the annals of crime fiction, will be sorely missed.

Everyone has something to hide in “A Plague of Secrets,’’ John Lescroart’s new legal thriller featuring ex-cop/lawyer Dismas Hardy. The book opens with Hardy kicking back in his San Francisco home, his law firm “humming along as though it were on autopilot.’’ The reader knows this can’t last. A plea from a friend brings him to the aid of Maya Townshend, the wealthy, politically connected absentee owner of Bay Beans West, a coffee shop at the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets. The shop’s manager, Dylan Vogler, has been shot to death. His marijuana-stuffed backpack tips off the police to the coffee shop’s lucrative side business, one that Maya claims to know nothing about.

When the police come calling, Hardy’s advice to Maya - just tell the truth - backfires badly. A gung-ho, inexperienced police detective and a politically motivated DA soon have charged her with murder.

Showing shades of Patty Hearst, Maya has a past that she is desperate to keep hidden. She refuses to explain why she paid Vogler an exorbitant salary, leaving Hardy and the police to conclude that Vogler was blackmailing her. Despite her secrets, Hardy finds himself wondering whether she’s that rara avis of legal clients: a defendant who is, in fact, innocent.

The story is complex, and I found myself having to make lists of characters in order to keep them straight. I imagine fans of the dozen or so other series novels will have less trouble. The characters maintain interest, but the plot takes off when court proceedings begin. It’s great fun watching Hardy wrangle with Assistant DA Paul Stier, aka “The Big Ugly,’’ and with Marian Braun, the one superior court judge whom Hardy despises. Courtroom drama delivers the satisfying snap of a “Perry Mason’’ ending, and justice and tragedy are served up in equal measure.

Julie Kramer’s “Missing Mark,’’ her second novel featuring Twin Cities investigative TV reporter Riley Spartz, should come with a warning: Suspend disbelief, all who enter here. The story gets off to a promising start. Riley responds to a want ad - “For sale: Wedding dress. Never worn.’’ As Riley observes, “mystery and emotion, all in one line.’’

Riley doesn’t want the dress, but she masquerades as an interested buyer in order to find out the story behind the sale, hoping to find a winning human interest story for sweeps week. She meets wealthy heiress Madeline Post, whose fiancé, Mark Lefevre, an aspiring standup comic, left her waiting at the altar. Turns out no one has seen Mark since the night before the wedding day. Her interest more than piqued, Riley begins to investigate.

The book’s search for the missing groom is seasoned with multiple additional plot lines, including the impending bloom of a rare corpse flower that smells like rotting flesh, the theft of gigantic big mouth bass from an aquarium at the Mall of America, the shooting of a narcotics detective, and a suspicious weekly yard sale. Meanwhile, Riley trips over no fewer than six bodies.

The book is meant to be over the top, and all of this could have worked if the reader had felt any real emotion at stake in Riley’s search for the killer. But for this reader at least, the novel misses the mark.