Put a Lid On It by Donald E. Westlake. This is sort of an oddly packaged book. The covers hails Westlake as the author of The Hook and The Ax, while the "About the Author" note mentions only the books he wrote as "Richard Stark." That would tend to lead one to believe that this is one of the darker Westlakes, and yet, it's a funny book. It's not a manic farce like the Dortmunder books, but it's closer to those than the "Stark" books (from what I know of the latter). Kate spotted this in a bookstore a while back, and didn't buy it precisely because it looks like one of the unpleasant Westlake books, not a funny one. I suspect that somewhere there's a Stark fan saying "Bloody hell-- it's a farce..."

The confusion is probably because the hero of this book, Francis Xavier Meehan ("Meehan" to friends, "Francis" to some, but never "Frank") is a more hardened criminal than the cuddlier brand of thief in the Dortmunder books. Still, the situation he gets into is vintage comic Westlake, and many of the supporting characters would be right at home in a Dortmunder novel.

Meehan is awaiting trial in the Manhattan Correctional Center ("the Bastille writ small, the runt of the same litter") on a Federal charge for hijacking a mail truck when he's visited by a bumbling political operative named Jeffords, and his superior Bruce Benjamin, who make him an offer: steal some incriminating evidence about the President from his political opponents, who are planning to use it as an "October Surprise", and they'll make all the charges go away. It's a nice offer, but Meehan's reluctant to do the job (he doesn't work with amateurs), until he finds an angle for himself:

"I go in, even without you people watching me, I go in and I get your package, and while I'm there I pick up some stuff for myself."

Benjamin said, "You're telling us you mean to commit a burglary! And you're telling us!"

"Mr. Benjamin," Meehan said, "it was always gonna be a burglary. Didn't you know that? Somebody breaks in and takes away something doesn't belong to them, that's a burglary."

"But not for profit," Benjamin insisted. "What we're talking about is politics."