361 (1962)

This is the first Donald E. Westlake book I've read. A friend recommended it because (1) I dig noir and pulp, and (2) when I visit Manhattan I often stay in the area where the book opens.

These two graphs at the end of the book really caught me. The hero is in a hotel room, waiting for something to happen, filling his time with a small pile of cheap paperbacks ("action mysteries").

*** It was simpler for the lead characters in the books. They suffered, they involved themselves with tense and driven people, they handled sudden death like a commodity in a secondary market. But when it was all finished, they were unchanged. What they had walked through had left no mark at all on them.

It would be nice to believe that. But the writers were blandly lying. They weren't using up their lead character, because they needed him in the next book in the series. ***

Pretty darn meta, and left me wondering if our hero would get out of the book alive.

Westlake in his non-humorous mode, hard hitting action.

With "361" Westlake gives us another masterful presenation of the hardboiled crime novel. It's your typical revenge tragedy--narrator's father gets killed, narrator goes off to exact his revenge upon the mobsters who ordered his father's killing. In the course of his quest for vengeance, he learns a lot of startling family revelations, does some soul searching, and in the course of dispensing justice eventually finds out who he is and wants to be.

It's definitely not a particularly innovative plot, but Westlake executes it well. The characters are vivid, the action riveting, and dialogue hard and gritty. It's a great example of the hardboiled tale in its heyday. As with nearly all of the Hard Case Crime series, "361" is a quick, fun read I would recommend to anyone who wants knock out a few hours in concentrated reading.

...just don't expect to understand what "361" means. I still haven't figured that one out. ( )

Old-fashioned hard-boiled tough guy. It has its moments, but lead character's cold-heartedness makes for an unlikeable hero. ( )

Good noir fiction...where men drank like fish, talked with their fists and their guns, and women were either whores or housewives.Well presented audio version.It occurs to me...I have no idea what "361' means.... ( )