Jesse and Misha Burnett talk about The Rare Coin Score by Richard Stark AND Money For Nothing by Donald E. Westlake
Talked about on today’s show:
1968 and 2003, 40 years apart, Trent Reynolds, the last of the nephew novels, a mode, somebody’s nephew, The Fugitive Pigeon, a character caught up in someone else’s problem, The Spy In The Ointment, Up Your Banners, the Dortmunders, driving a Toyota Avalon, a driver’s license with no picture on it, Claire is the same Claire, good female characters, quite good, that’s gotta be it, she’s saying similar things, that’s fine, kill the guy in the garage, don’t tell me anything, two guys, roaming over the country, a threesome going, fucking up punks on the boardwalk, making the fight last longer, a call from Handy McKay, there’s something wrong, all the books are great except for The Hunter, a few of the phrases, The Philosophy Of Parker, the vocabulary of what makes someone a *good* person, “self-contained”, Lempkie, the eunuch, Billie, wearing a gun to the meeting, lusting after a girl who obviously doesn’t want him, French is a mirror of Parker, respects until he has to kill him, nothing personal, what makes French a less good version of Parker, getting stupid, getting too hungry, into his stake, heist the heisters, the ultimate no-no, knowing he was going to kill them at the end of the job, we’ll deal with that later, something awesome about the creation of Parker, no first name, part 1 chapter 2, looked like a machine not yet turned on, thinking about nothing, lay waiting in the dark, self-possessed, very remote and cool, Mr. Lynch?, a fateful exchange, I would have fucked you and fucked off, she convinces him, they fuck anyways and he doesn’t fuck off, if the Parker series is a series where the character develops, a white sandy bitch named Belle, New Orleans, always good openings, Biloxi, mentioned again?, the first of that 4 series, a woman tied up on the bed, untie me I need to pee, plans to meet with Claire in 3 months, they’re compatible, Parker’s mentality, home team and away stuff, a deeper insight, she’s not moral she’s squeamish, she just wanted a stake, airline pilot, crashed into a mountain somewhere in Europe, there’s no insurance, an important word in the Westlake universe, as amoral as Parker, confirmed thesis, weird connection, Ayn Rand is a weird lady, The Fountainhead, the characters in it are not humans, the architect, ruin his career, mad enough to rape her, about the art of the building of the beautiful building, we only come together as sexual beings because of our mutual interest, fucking bizarre, inhuman and super-interesting, bizarre, the machine that is Parker, super-ignorant, outer space, how many moons Jupiter has, insurance, he has Claire explain something to him, casing the joint, African violets on the sill, he has to perform, he’s like an autist, he knows what people expect so he performs for them, engraved letters, MCMXLVII, what’s the number?, Diablo Tours, pretend to be honeymooners, she’s a part of the heist, why is that in the book?, Parker doesn’t know anything about things that don’t matter, she’s not a robot, she’s something else, she has to contain her annoyance, she takes out her feelings examines them and puts them away, she’s the opposite of Billy, Westlake’s so good at this, this book in relief, the opposite, trying to put out fires, just goes along, a new hero arises to solve it, the actor, he loves actors and acting, putting on accents, four fifths, pick up a gun and make some decisions, locked up in the estate with the thug outside his door, tricked into it, a manipulation scene, the gun is right there in front of him, maybe I don’t want to die, Jeremy and the wife, toodling along in life, the opposite kind of a book, cut-outs, things that happen in this book, what’s the name of the Stan, Freddy the absolute dictator afraid of a gypsy curse, play along fun, when he goes to the Barnes and Noble, George R.R. Martin, taking a little dig, what happened to publishing, Fire Island, New York, Too Much, And The Band Played On, contrastive books, as much play, Billy Levetard, Bank Shot, Kelp’s nephew Victor, the same sort of character, roly-poly, sweaty, unattractive and pathetic, Nobody’s Perfect, the mark is the finger, insurance scam, sneakin around in alleys dressed in black, the glamour and excitement of the job without doing the work, a serious pro or a poseur, take over the plot, Josh is so passive, everthing sort of happens to him, hapless, a deeper understanding of the english language, hap is luck, what happened, very happy, Josh is just going along, a paper company, playing all the cards that he has, mixes and matches, this shift thing, other characters POVs, security guard, ex-MP, in the nephew book, always with Josh, that out of control-ness, more playful, when he’s in Stark mode, becomes a cartoon, Dormunder mode, well drawn, and precise, a deadly edge, he’s dead, he could have worked with, his professionalism, why French is dead, French assumed Parker was going to bail, the drawing, he’s pal skinned, can he hold it together for one more job, Claire clarifies the situation, it doesn’t work like that, Lempke, Murder Incorporated, Levetard, it’s not William it is Billy, childlike, Parker won’t shake his hand, where the money’s going, coming out of Lempke’s half, everybody’s who’s dead gets their piece, a very strong book, changes thing up and quite works, Westlake’s interest in coins, Lawrence Block wrote tons about numismatist (and philately), a Hit Man who’s a stamp collector, the hobby of kings and the king of hobbies, connections to history, a coin convention, they’re writers, wow man, what would Parker do if he were here, such a good job with backstory, well explained, how you build a character, how you act against another character, until they died, inherited some money, fell into becoming a coin dealer, a felon, these are his friends that he’s betraying, Indianapolis, Indiana, he’s very solid about describing, when he goes to Europe he takes notes, Parker is not driving, everything about this job is amateur, everything goes well until a professional steps in and fucks things up, super-interesting, in relief, double the length, the backstory is superwell worked out, taken money a long time ago, now you’re activated, impinging upon, the plot, slight of hand, Dancing Aztecs, make up a country, so many things that he’s playing with, Fetherbender, Mr. Nimrin, anagrams of each other, a trilogy, so stupid, Chapter 13, David L. Fogware, Enchantress Of Nim, more open to him as he rose, rubbing it in, author reading, new Dortmunder book, a real Barnes and Noble, ENCHANTRESS, some even smaller letters, not quite 7pm, none of them were Mr. Nimrin, so playful, strange people, sixties flower children, cryogenically frozen for 30 years, homelessness, condemntation, people who’d lost their luggage, windbreakers and pony tails, pony tails up front, amiable about it, glad not to be in, scuttling in, slim, bespectacled, pocket protector, a certain amount of jealousy?, annoyance, so popular, he left science fiction mad, Smoke is by him, invisible man burglar story, a phenomena, getting huge, press release, certain enthusiasm, Mr. Nimrin, a fellow carrying a book, the most enthusiastic applause at all, and a windbreaker, over L.L. Bean boots, becoming modesty, two kinds of burliness, the burliness of beer, Donald E. Westlake tapping his own pot belly, what is all this in aid of?, diversion, a little old lady in a walker comes up, his contact, the assassination plot, deep in the book, it never really comes off, Prisoner Of Zenda by Anthony Hope, Graustark, Ruritania, Kamastanish, the granddaddy of all these, Double Star, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the one by Winston Churchill, most of Marvel is this, Dr. Doom, Latvia, Latveria, The Duchy of Grand Fenwick, an ammo dump, Charles, lost her mind, she hasn’t lost her mind, she knows that she’s a captive, blow it up, so funny, revenge estates, spite wall, Marathon, is there a Dortmunder character in this book, the Taxi driver, more of a type, not actually Merch’s mom, in the five boroughs, the same kind of character, the type, authors getting trapped in these 7 book series, really really popular, doin well, start something up, can’t you give us another Dortmunder?, series vs. standalone books, specificaly at Hugo award winners, used to be, even now it is still true, N.K. Jemisin, Ringworld, too popular, ten years later, they don’t get progressively better, a “mystery” writer, Mysterious Press, lifetime Edgar awards, this pressure to create series, like Agatha Christie, Poirot, Travis McGee, James Bond, more freedom, he got away with it, anything with your name on it, in the balance, you could only have series or you could only have standalones, weird philosophy of efficiency, he wont put up with anything that’s inefficient, that kind of philosophy is very helpful, professional colleagues, most people don’t read much, because he gets away with it, he makes criminals very cool, most criminals are not professionals, a hardend criminal, when people are stupid in a Stark novel, weird mindset, fun but not philosophy, 52 theory, Laverne & Shirley, schlemiel Schlimazel, bad luck, bad stars, The Handle, The Road To Ruin, similar scenes, the planners, in their own private world, their plan is coming together, the ruthlessness, nobody dies in the Dortmunder books, nobody gets hurt, brutal animal death, implied rape scenes, so soft, it should almost be done as a cartoon, film noir, black and white, very hard, a period piece, this is what the word hard-boiled is for, soft boiled?, poached, worked on equipment of various different kinds, machines fear and obey me, stuff that isn’t following the rules, a lighting circuit, driving you nuts, no fault of his own, a scene in almost every book, you can figure this out, reinforces his collapsing mentality, her tuna casserole, Transylvania Station, Dortmunder’s conscience, a very selective conscience, Drowned Hopes, forces him to figure out how to keep the bad guy from blowing up the dam, Dortmunder has different needs, do they ever get married?, commonlaw, the neighbours think they’re married, a lot of the same stuff disguised by the modes, how writing is done, the theatre, travel, insurance, why is that date 1947?, when Tina shows up in Money For Nothing the book is derailed, Westlake’s realism, Chekov’s gun, it has to be doing a job, it has to work like a red herring, it’s a puzzle that you are solving, anticipated or see how it fits together, a Philip K. Dick novel, scenes vs. that great plot, The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, Edgar Rice Burroughs, relies on coincidence to solve all problems, the more experimental Westlake novels, they’re not all equally good, the ideas are not as good, formulaic after the 2nd one, pushes the envelope on the formula, the next book after The Handle, a changeup, Claire is his anchor, even when she’s not really in the story he has her to go back to, an identity that he needs to protect, The Green Eagle Score, Plunder Squad, double the length, Butcher’s Moon, an interlibrary loan to the Yukon, the thrift shop, never see a Westlake, exactly the right time, Michael Crichton, Next and Timeline, people dying, people downsizing, the fact that you can’t get a Westlake unless you go out looking for him, The Actor (2025), Memory, an interesting book, that James Bond one, Forever and a Death, international heist, profit in seeing Westlake in bookstores, there’s gold here, the book industry has gone to shit, published or republished, movie posters good, book covers based on movie posters bad, when Jurassic Park came out as a book, the 80s is sort of the end of good covers, getting to be a reader, either by being bored, an island with no electricity, John Buchan, no pictures, a little invisible man talking to a dragon, Tolkien didn’t want his books in paperback, allow paperback publication, mother’s collection of paperbacks, Samuel Delany, large random, Edna St. Vincent Millay, collected poems, Charles Fort, bored, C.M. Kornbluth, nurse romances, Night Nurse, went to college, college textbooks, parasitology, ecclectic background, science fiction and fantasy, they’re cool, Yoda got me into mysteries, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, full of stupid stuff, changed in the years between, parents were divorcing, a paperback copy of Thomas Disch’s Camp Concentration, Disch Delany Dick, new wave, not safe for work/kids, going backwards, not quite as god as you think, 25 times on HBO, lawnmowing money, he’s Fozzy Bear, the way his X-Wing is dragged into the muck, in reaction to that, broadening out from science fiction, Joseph Wambaugh, The Blue Knight, The New Centurions, an older woman, Dancing Aztecs, madcap, the first 2 or 3 pages, that many characters, individual and distinct, you’ll enjoy the ride, Money For Nothing is full of characters, every one of them is fun, the Robert E. Howard, the colours are gonna come up, axes to grind, he never goes into a story without anger about something, plot tricks he uses over and over again, some of the details, that’s clearly a Westlake right there, any walkon character, Josh is the least interesting character in this book, the narrator is much more interesting and judgey, Tina’s great, the actor who’s activated, almost a cartoon, fairly interesting and serious spy story, we had a good show, that Sheckley would be a good choice, paperback mentality.
Posted by Jesse Willis