Jimmy the Kid

The sheer giddy glee of Westlake doing a crossover between his comic criminals and his serious hard-boiled criminals remains one of the great joys in all of crime fiction as Kelp reads a book by one Richard Stark and decides it's the perfect template for a job and ropes Dortmunder in for a kidnapping caper. A delight.

3.5***

John Dortmunder is at it again. Talked into a “perfect” kidnapping plot by his “friend” and previous cohort, Andy Kelp, he tries everything to pull of the big caper that is certain to make the gang a fortune. Recently, while a guest of the county for possessing burglar tools, Kelp came across an interesting mystery story in the prison library. Child Heist by Richard Stark outlines a perfect crime – the kid is unharmed, and the kidnappers get away scot free. All the details are there, they just have to follow them in real life! What could possibly go wrong?

A lot.

I love Westlake’s writing, and particularly enjoy the comic capers of John Dortmunder and his gang of inept accomplices. Of course they’ll pick a kid who is show more smarter than all of them put together. Jimmy’s resourcefulness and superior intelligence serve him (and the gang) well. The cops are as hapless and unlucky as the gang.

As I was reading, I kept thinking what a fun movie this would make. Obviously not an original idea – it’s been adapted THREE times: in Italy (1976), in the US (1982 – starring Gary Coleman!), and in Germany (1998). show less

Fun, and funny! It's a book within a book, and a movie of it all too!

Basically, Westlake gives us a Dortmunder and gang book called "Jimmy the Kid" that follows along another "book" by Richard Stark (wink,wink!) titled, "Child Heist" which features Parker! Kelp wants to use "Child Heist" as a blueprint for their next "job", but of course, the Dortmunder gang has an entirely different experience than the Parker gang! Loved the double layer of this story, great humor, and fun ending too! Definitely a treat to have the Westlake/Stark worlds collide!

Another solid Dortmunder offering in which Dortmunder and the gang stage a kidnapping based on the plan outlined in a book about a fictional kidnapping. It does not all go according to the book. The result is very funny as the 12-year old Jimmy proves to be smarter than the whole gang combined.

"Jimmy the Kid" was my entree to the world of John Dortmunder and his cohort of thieves in New York. Dortmunder has been funnier than here but full points for Westlake's pisstake of his own pseudonymously published novel "Child Heist".

Dortmunder's gang decide to follow the plot of "Child Heist" and kidnap a kid for ransom. Of course, in "Child Heist" everything goes right for the gang but sadly not so in "Jimmy the Kid".

NB: I saw the film "Jimmy the Kid" starring Garry Coleman" many years ago and I can't remember it following the book's plot too closely.

This is the least good Dortmunder novel in the series so far. The characters are getting stale --- Rollo always describes people by what they drink, Murch only talks about what routes he drives, etc --- but it's fun enough. A problem with so many books with a "twist" is that they try to subtly point out to you that there will be a twist, without explicitly saying what. But there is only ever one possible twist, and so knowing there will be one is sufficient to learn what it is. Jimmy the Kid falls to this problem, which makes the third act predictable and rather boring. All in all, it's a fine read, but I wouldn't have picked it up if it were a standalone novel.

Westlake gets a bit meta as Dortmunder and friends plan a kidnapping based on a Richard Stark book, 'Child Heist.' This one was long out of print until Mysterious Press reissued it last year, and I think it's the only Dortmunder book I hadn't read.

It's what you'd expect from a Dortmunder novel - nothing goes as planned, there's a bit of humor, and things turn out generally OK in the end. Westlake includes some chapters from the fake Parker novel, which read as a Stark novel would (although I have trouble imagining Parker would go along with a kidnapping - it just doesn't seem like his style).

A couple minor quibbles with this particular edition. For some reason, British spelling is used throughout (colour and tyres, for example), and show more there are a few minor layout errors. It looks like Mysterious Press is reissuing most of the Dortmunder stuff in uniform trade paperback editions, which aren't quite as nice as the University of Chicago Parker reissues. show less