Read Lately: The Cutie by Donald E. Westlake

• When I recently posted a comment about Hard Case Crime to the Fly From Evil group, game designer S. John Ross responded with "I believe they've published at least one Donald Westlake, so that makes 'em okay in my book." After reading The Cutie, I understand where he's coming from.


• The Cutie introduces us to Clay, a hitman tasked to track down a murderer, the afore mentioned cutie. When a drug addict with very high connections is set up with that murder, Clay needs to find out who really did it and take the heat off his mafia bosses. Of course, no self respecting murderer is going to go down without a fight, so action and suspense follow.


• Evidently, this was the book published by Westlake, which is amazing to me. I can only assume that he did a lot of polishing of his prose before this first book. I hope so because this book is already vintage Donald Westlake, hitting all the right notes, smoothly and cleanly written. Anyone interested in the crime genre will find great addition to their reading list here.