“If you’re going to commit a murder - and in the first place, I don’t recommend it - one thing you should definitely not do afterward is have sex with the investigating officer’s wife.”

Truer words were never written! However, other than the above, this may have been the least I've enjoyed Donald Westlake's writing to date. The first story, while clearly meant to be humorous, had cops bringing along a civilian to solve crimes, even though he was a suspect in a murder! And the second story, blessedly shorter than the first, had nothing to do with crime and didn't feel like a Westlake story at all. I wonder why it was in a Hard Case Crime publication at all? ( )

Two Movie-Related Novellas
Review of the Hard Case Crime paperback edition (2020) of the M. Evans & Co. hardcover, originally titled "Enough" (1977)

I've run out of Donald Westlake's (aka Richard Stark) Parker series of hardboiled noir novels but wanted to follow-up by reading several of the other books which established the prolific crime author's reputation. Double Feature consists of two novellas, A Travesty and Ordo, with the latter more of short story length. The tie-in is that they both relate to the movies. The lead character in A Travesty is a movie critic and makes regular film references. The secondary lead in Ordo is a film actress who is the lost 1st wife of the title character.

A Travesty takes more of a noir comedy angle with the movie critic covering up his accidental manslaughter of a girlfriend with increasingly complicated efforts that involve blackmail and then further murders. The police involved are incompetent and actually start using the film critic as a crime consultant to help solve other cases, apparently without a clue as to whom they are dealing with. A karmic resolution still occurs before the end though.

The oddly titled Ordo, is the first name of the protagonist Ordo Tupikos, an American sailor of Greek heritage (Westlake gives an extremely detailed pedigree of the man's family for some odd reason) who discovers that the woman who was his first wife Estelle became a movie star in her later life. The marriage had been broken up by the girl's mother who sought out the pair in order to bring the wayward bride back home. A movie magazine has found a wedding photo from that first marriage and Ordo's shipmates kid him about his lost wife. Ordo takes a leave in order to reconnect with his early lost love and discovers that the woman now with a movie star persona is no one that he recognizes. This short story is not actually a crime or murder mystery at all, so is quite different from most of Westlake's work.

Other Reviews
There is an extremely detailed review and plot summary (with spoilers obviously) of Double Feature at The Westlake Review, February 27, 2020.

Trivia and Links
This edition of Double Feature is part of the Hard Case Crime (2004-) series of reprints, new commissions and posthumous publications of the pulp and noir crime genre founded by authors [author:Charles Ardai|327544] and [author:Max Phillips|79590]. GR's Listopia is not complete (as of August 2021) and the most complete lists of publication can be found at Wikipedia or the Publisher's Official Site.

A Travesty was adapted as the television movie A Slight Case of Murder (1999) directed by Steven Schachter and starring William Macy and Felicity Huffman. There doesn't seem to be a trailer for it, but you can watch the entire film (as of early September 2021) on YouTube here. There is no apparent tie-in to the same-titled Edward G. Robinson 1938 film.

Ordo was adapted as the French language film Ordo (2004) directed by Laurence Ferreira Barbosa. A trailer (without English subtitles) can be viewed on YouTube here.

The blurb on the Hard Case Crime edition advertises Westlake as an Academy Award Nominee. This is in recognition of his 1990 Academy Award nomination for the screenplay adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel The Grifters (1963) for the film The Grifters (1990) dir. Stephen Frears and starring Anjelica Huston, John Cusack and Annette Bening. The winner of the 1990 Best Screenplay adaptation was Michael Blake for Dances with Wolves, based on his own novel Dances with Wolves (1988). ( )

Another in a series of Donald E. Westlake 1970s comic crime novels. While not to the level of his Dortmunder series, Enough is a mildly amusing yarn about a man who seems to be having more affairs than I've had hot dinners and decides that murdering a few of them is the best way to keep his life spiraling out of control.

If you must read this be sure to read the Dortmunder books first. ( )