Reviews for Enough!

The average rating for Enough! based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-02-04 00:00:00 Josh Allison Drive-In Double Feature Double Feature really isn’t a true double feature. The two stories are not equal in length or weight. They are not really related much either. Loosely, both stories are connected to the movie world, the world of pretend, the world of make believe. They both in a sense revolve around what’s real and what’s pretend. “A Travesty” comprises a full seventy percent of Double Feature. It was eventually turned into a TV movie starring William H Macy and Felicity Huffman (before her scandalous cheating ways became front page news). It is a slower, quieter crime thriller and reeks of Westlake’s famed comedic touch. The plot revolves around a film critic who offs his lover during an argument. A private detective ferrets out what happened and offers to lie in exchange for $10,000. What follows is amusing as the bumbling film critic struggles to come up with the cash for the payoff, emptying out his piggybanks, selling off his prized possessions, and even robbing a bank. But, that’s only where the fun starts because the police detective investigating the murder becomes buddies with the film critic, using the critic’s knowledge of murder mysteries to solve crimes and to brainstorm solutions to Laura’s demise. Of course, in between solving crimes and having dinners with the police detective and his wife, the earnest film critic is bedding the detective’s wife. This novella is Westlake’s private joke, having fun at the whole murder mystery industry which he’s been a part of for so many decades. The second story, which is a novelette not a novella, is Orly. This one’s not even a crime story. It’s an odd little story about the ways in which fame and fortune change a person as Orry discovers that his ex-wife is now the world’s biggest star, but she doesn’t seem much like his memories of her. Both stories are interesting short pieces, although not hardboiled, not pulpy, and not earth-shattering.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-02-02 00:00:00 John Mcdonnell In Double Feature, we’re presented with back-to-back stories related to the movie industry.  The first, “A Travesty”, follows film reviewer Calvin Thorpe, as he tries to cover up a murder by staying out of the path of a pair of detectives as well as a blackmailer.  The second, “Ordo”, focuses on a man who discovers his long-lost wife has become a Hollywood bombshell. “A Travesty”, the first of the two stories, takes up about three quarters of the book.  Westlake produces a bumbling yet seemingly clever protagonist in Carey Thorpe who consistently evades suspicion despite a litany of bad choices.  I can’t decide if he’s just cocky or at times completely oblivious to his actions.  Maybe it’s a little of both.  In fact, there’s a choice he makes mid-way through the story that was so unbelievably stupid and short-sighted that I wanted to cry-out, “OH, COME ON”.  What he did was even more mind-boggling considering he showed that he could be a rather brilliant detective as he helped the two detectives assigned to the murder he was involved in solve a handful of other murders!  I guess it was a case of “rules for thee, not for me”. The second story, “Ordo”, is a philosophical look at the idea of identity and how we sometimes have to completely change ourselves in order to get what we want out of life.  Despite its much shorter length compared to the first story, I thought it was the stronger of the two.  The main character, Ordo, struggles with the thought that the woman he knew sixteen years prior is someone he no longer recognizes whereas he has not changed in the slightest.  This story hit me particularly hard given its deeply introspective subject matter and its emotional finale. Hard Case Crime continues to be one of my favorite publishers going today and I commend them for unearthing and publishing some of the most interesting work from a by-gone era.