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.
