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by: Donald E. Westlake
Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780451048004
ISBN: 0451048008
Label: Signet
Manufacturer: Signet
Publication Date: September 01, 1971
Publisher: Signet
Studio: Signet
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - more funny than hard-boiled, but wonderful light reading
Westlake's "Somebody Owes Me Money" is an enjoyable ride, following the misadventures of gambler and cabbie Chet Conway as he stumbles into some luck from a hot tip on a horse, and then bad luck on a cold corpse. The characters are drawn with a fine thin line, and the circuitous action in and around a cabbies-eye-view of Manhattan and the Boroughs is satisfying, as are the period details. The narrative is lean and easy to follow, and there are some funny asides (Westlake's humor overwhelms any hard ... Read More
Rating: - "But what if I spun around like that, and the guy with the gun was Robert Mitchum?"
Like any good pulp novel, Someone Owes Me Money pulls the reader right into the plot with very few preliminaries. The book's protagonist is a likeable, unflappable New York City cab driver named Chet Conway, a man who became a cab driver so that he can indulge his first love--gambling. He can work "day shift when the track is closed, night shift when it's open." Chet admits this with an easy, frank style in the book's second paragraph, and when I read this, I knew I was hooked. Chet is a wonderful protagonist, ... Read More
Rating: - One of the best, back in print at last
I have to admit that The Kid got a little misty-eyed when he saw that Hard Case Crime had published SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY by Donald E. Westlake. I had owned a copy of it the first time around but lost it in an ill-fated cross-country move in 1973. For the longest time it had been inexplicably out of print --- until now.
Westlake has been a master craftsman for so long that it's difficult to remember a time when he wasn't around and doing excellent work. In SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY we meet Chet Conway, ... Read More
Rating: - You can't go wrong with Westlake
Baseball, football and basketball all have their Halls of Fame. The equivalent among mystery writers would be the Grand Masters, a title awarded once a year to honor the lifetime achievement of a particular writer. The Grand Masters are the best of the best, and one of their most shining examples would be Donald Westlake.
Westlake has been writing crime stories for over four decades, both under his own name and his pseudonym, Richard Stark (he has had other pseudonyms such as Tucker Coe that have long ... Read More
Rating: - Vastly entertaining
I'm really glad that Hard Case Crime has chosen to reprint this early Donald Westlake novel, not only because Somebody Owes Me Money is a really good book, but also for a more personal reason. I've been reading his series books for so long -- whether under his own name, or the Richard Stark pseudonym -- that I had really forgotten how good Westlake could be at standalone comic crime novels.
The most eloquent cab driver in New York City, Chet Conway works nights so he can spend his days at the track (and ... Read More
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