Cops and Robbers

This Will Keep Both You and Your Nerves Guessing

Cops and Robbers by Donald E. Westlake was originally a screenplay for a 1973 film that Westlake later rewrote as a novel.

Westlake creates a couple of ordinary policemen and puts them on a collision course with Wall Street and the Mob. An entertaining read if your nerves can take it.

Synopsis

Meet two of New York’s finest, Joe Loomis and Tom Garrity. They work tirelessly to protect the public and make their city a safer place to be. What do they get for their efforts? They get verbally abused, a brutal three-shift system, a vanishingly small paycheck and, on occasion, shot at for good measure.

When Joe admits that he once held up a corner store dressed in his police uniform, Tom’s mind starts whirring. What would happen if they used their inside knowledge and police badges to pull off a proper heist? Maybe they wouldn’t have to spend the next 20 years pounding the beat.

Events — of course — don’t go to plan.

Review

Donald Westlake paints a satirical picture of two ordinary men frustrated with their everyday lives. As they are ordinary men, they are easy to like. When they take on the might of both Wall Street and the Mafia, you will find yourself rooting for them, the underdogs.

Westlake creates impossible problems that leave you wondering how the protagonists will avoid the inevitable consequences, even though you know full well they will, as you have a hundred pages left to read. He then manages to spring entirely plausible escape routes.

When the two disillusioned policemen start their well-planned heist, their scheme unravels. The suspense is unbearable. My nerves couldn’t take it. I had to put the book down and make a cup of tea.

The novel walks the line between comic and dark. Whilst never laugh-out-loud funny, there are many humorous moments, but the book’s real power is the suspense it creates.

Westlake will keep both you and your nerves guessing.

Excerpt

“Can I help you?”

It was the guard, the one who dealt with people, looking across the counter at me. He was brusque and impatient because of the amount of work he had to do, but he wasn’t suspicious. I stepped forward to the counter, trying for the worlds most innocent and stupid smile. Pointing at the television sets I said, “Is that me?”

He gave a brief board look at the screens, “That’s you,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve never been on television before,” I said. I looked ar the screens as though I was fascinated; and to tell the truth, I was. I’d worn the moustache again, and I was amazed at what I look like with a moustache. Totally different. I wouldn’t have recognised me if I met me walking down the street.

The guard was getting impatient. He looked at me over the manila envelopes and said, “You a messenger?”

I didn’t want to hang around and pester him for so long that I became memorable. Besides, I’d seen all I was going to see out here, and there was no way I was going to get inside. Not today. I said, “No, I’m looking for the personnel office, I’m supposed to come to work here.”

“That’s on the eighth floor,” the guard said and jabbed a thumb towards the ceiling.

“Oh,” I said. “Then I’m in the wrong place.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said and went back over to the elevators and pushed the button. While waiting I looked around some more. You had to admire their security. And yet this was the likeliest prospect.

Cops and Robbers by Donald E. Westlake