The Hook

"The Hook" is a clever and amusing work that seems like it could have been as much fun to write as it is to read. It features two writers of fiction who make a Faustian deal that gets the better of them. Bryce Proctorr is a successful author with a bad case of writer's block, not to mention a trophy wife who is taking him for all she can get in their pending divorce. Wayne Prentice is a fading author who can't interest publishers in his manuscripts. Bryce offers a deal: if Wayne gives him is unpublished manuscript, he'll publish it under his own name, and the two can split the profits. But there's a catch: Wayne also has to murder Bryce's soon-to-be ex wife.

Things go right, up to a point, and then they go very wrong -- the plan was a show more good one, but didn't take into account the flaws and peculiarities in the two protagonists. To say more would ruin the story, but suffice to say that the ending -- five chilling words -- is both shocking and funny.

The similarity to Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train" is purposeful, and gives the tale a Hitchcockian flavor, but with elements of wit. Westlake has fun with his two main characters; they are (in effect) two sides of same coin, or better still, represent the two personas that each struggling writer wrestles with. The characters have similar names (Proctorr and Prentice), and tongue-in-cheek hints to their twinness abound, e.g., with titles of their past books ("The Two Faces in the Mirror," "The Shadowed Other," "The Domino Doublet, "An Only Twin," "Two of a Kind," and "The Pollux Perspective.").

Westfall is a novelist that I've only recently sampled, but he is now on my list of popular writers not to miss. show less

Bryce Proctorr offers to publish another author’s book under his name, and to split the million dollar advance with him. He also wants the other author to kill his almost ex-wife to keep her from getting half in the divorce. The other author, Wayne Prentice, with his wife’s approval (!), agrees!

Faint echoes of “Strangers on a Train” by Patricia Highsmith. A lot about the process of writing, sort of a primer of how to write a novel by Donald Westlake. But what kept me interested and entertained is that I kept trying to figure out where the story was going! Who was going to crack? Who was going to slip up? What would do what to whom? And to prove my enjoyment of my struggles of the direction the story was going:

GREAT ending! show more Totally unexpected! show less

Bryce, a formerly successful author, has been blocked for more than a year, and his publisher is nagging him to complete his new book. He is also distracted by the nasty divorce he is involved in.

He coincidentally meets up with an old college friend, Wayne, who is also a writer, albeit less successful than Bryce. Wayne was considered a "mid-list" author, and ultimately, as his books began to sell fewer copies, published several books under various pseudonyms to modest success. Now, however, Wayne can't find a publisher for his latest book under any name. Bryce tells him, "You have a book and no publisher....I have a publisher and I don't have a book." You see where this is going. And a plot is hatched.

Bryce will submit Wayne's book as show more his own; it will be a sure-fire bestseller, and Bryce and Wayne will split the proceeds. But there is a condition: "With one condition," Bryce said..."My wife must be dead."

I'm a newcomer the works of Donald Westlake, who was very popular in the last 25 years or so of the 20th century. The two or three books I've now read by him remind me in tone very much of Patricia Highsmith, and I would recommend him if you are a Patricia Highsmith fan. I enjoyed this particular book.

3 stars show less

I found this to be a light little suspense novel, quite entertaining while I was reading it, but probably forgettable soon after I was done. It starts off a la Alfred Hitchcock, with two writers meeting by chance, and one—the successful, rich but blocked one—offering the other—the failed but talented one—the deal of a lifetime if he will only agree to let the successful writer publish his novel under his name. And kill the writer’s troublesome wife. He does both, and the novel takes a psychological turn as it follows the aftereffects of the crimes on both men. Curiously, it is the one who didn’t do the murder who begins to crumble, while the other enjoys a renewed career.

Two writers, one successful and one struggling, make a Faustian pact and there is hell to pay. I won’t go into the details because part of the pleasure of any Westlake novel is letting it reveal itself in its own good time, but it seems that the central theme of the book is the devouring ego success brings. A lot of old-school publishers and writers lament the current state of publishing in the computer age and there are a few details on that bleak subject, along with some interesting insights into the writing process.

The Hook provides beautiful suspense, but for real chills nothing beats Westlake’s The Axe. Brrr.

That was a quick, easy read.

I got interested in Donald Westlake because Dan Simmons had dedicated a book to him, so I looked him up and read two of his books. This one was published in 2000, and was similar to the other in that Westlake's fiction is easy reading, and things that seem like they should be harder to make happen, happen very easily. Fiction.

Donald Westlake writes very well. Crisp, clean simple sentences without lots of adjectives. Just the way I like it. Westlake is a good storyteller and it is evidentin The Hook. Worth a detour.