As with Bad News, the most recent Dortmunder, this is an amazingly mellow caper novel. Meehan moves coolly and professionally through his new world of bungling politicos, noxious contributors, and odd-couple secret agents, and goes about the whole caper in a rather businesslike manner (accompanied at times by his lawyer). There are a couple of surreal moments, but nothing as frantic as in the Dortmunder books. To use a movie analogy, it's The Score, not Heist.

And as I said regarding Bad News, the level of craftsmanship in this book is really impressive. It's not High Art, and it's not even trying to be-- the characters are basically two-dimensional, and the plot is a little silly-- but it succeeds marvelously at what it's trying to do. And along the way, there's hardly a page that doesn't include some gem-- a sharp little observation from Meehan, one of his "ten thousand rules" for life in prison, a snippet of snappy dialogue, a clever image in setting the scene. It's a nicely put together little book.

Of course, a less charitable interpretation of the same material would be to say that Westlake is just coasting, and not trying all that hard. There is a certain effortless quality to the book, but I wouldn't stretch that to "half-assed," even if the spy subplot doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I suspect he wrote more or less exactly the book he was trying to do. Sure, it's mellower than his best comic novels (though not much lower-key than Baby, Would I Lie?), but cut the guy some slack-- he's been doing this for nigh on forty years.

Would I prefer another What's the Worst That Could Happen? (which somebody really ought to think about making a movie of...) to this book? Sure I would. Until Westlake decides to write another one, though, this is a perfectly enjoyable way to pass the time.