Cops and Robbers

Product Information

Describes a book or dust jacket that does show some signs of wear on either the binding, dust jacket or pages.

We take pride in offering a wide selection of used books, from classics to hidden gems, ensuring there? This book doesn’t include the kind of zany antics that Westlake is known for in his comic crime capers, but there’s plenty of action, quite a few surprises and plot twists, and a great sense of time and place.Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson's noir classic. Fortunately, the robbers meet their match in brave Officer Pugh who leaps into action and arrests the villains – all except Grandma Swagg who manages to get away.

Here, the robberies are less complex -- their success largely depends on the fact that they're being carried out by cops, who can get away with things that other people couldn't -- and the ordinariness is presumably to encourage the reader to identify with the protagonists. Fortunately, the robbers meet their match in brave Officer Pugh who leaps into action and arrests the villains - all except Grandma Swagg who manages to get away. Cops and Robbers is definitely a lesser Westlake, but a lesser Westlake is still better than almost anything else you might read.

Joe Loomis and Tom Garrity are Manhattan policemen, circa 1972, who are disssatisfied with their lives.

One thing leads to another, and they end up deciding to give it a try, illustrating the words of James 1:15: "desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin". The robbers of London Town try to steal all of the city’s Christmas presents but Officer Pugh is up to the challenge of stopping them and getting all of the presents to the girls and boys. As well as the fun story and the lyrical verse, the numerous illustrations are excellent and an integral part of the story, make sure to keep your eye on them towards the end!

Westlake, however, casually dismisses this possibility, suggesting that our cop robbers will indeed get away with it. Donald Westlake paints a satirical picture of two ordinary men, frustrated with their ordinary lives. If your mum was a cop and your dad was a crim who needed your help to commit a crime, would you do it to save him? I expected a better read because this story had a strange atmosphere,it wasn't hard-boiled or humorous.

The edition I read has this terrible front cover that makes the book out to be a farce rather than a “comic mystery” of its day. I read this book when I was young and even had a tape with it and would listen to it again and again. His most well-known characters were John Dortmunder, an unlucky thief, and Parker, a ruthless criminal. The Ha Ha Bonk Book; Help Your Child to Read; Ten in a Bed; Please Mrs Butler; Daisy Chains; Yum Yum; Playmates; Foldaways; Woof; The Cinderella Show; The Jolly Postman; The Jolly Christmas Postman; The Jolly Pocket Postman; The Clothes Horse and Other Stories; The Mighty Slide; Starting School; Heard it in the Playground; The Bear Nobody Wanted; It was a Dark and Stormy Night; The Giant Baby; Baby Sleeps; Blue Buggy; Doll and Teddy; See the Rabbit; Please Mrs Butler; The Better Brown Stories; The Boyhood of Burglar Bill. The book is by one of the funniest authors ever but this one is not a comedy like the Dortmunder books are.This one is a stand-alone and while not funny, I suspect you'll have a grin on your face at the end, as did I. This is a fabulous favourite – and a brilliantly clever theme for Christmas too, I never would have thought of it.