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Sep 15, 2012loudem rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Another kidnapping story. Seems ordinary. But Westlake turns it into something more on the human side, with a big slice of humor as the tragedy unfolded. I found it a tad long; but maybe it had to be this long for it to work. The interaction between Koo and Mark is the main subject here, not the kidnapping. And the last pages, while everything is flying and falling apart, the slapstick they do is just side splitting. Westlake has achieved a tour de force. With nothing more than a dull kidnapping, he has put down some serious issues mixed with humor, terror, and human emotions. I wonder why (really) this book wasn’t published at the time. This is a Westlake that I didn't quite know. And I’ve read more than 50 of his book, if you include books written by Westlake’s nom de plume Richard Stark.