Jimmy The Kid

Dortmunder should have never listened to his cohort, Andy Kelp, who says he's got a failsafe plan to pull off the perfect kidnapping. It's all laid out in a crime novel, claims Kelp. Dortmunder has doubts.He's right. Kelp takes poetic license. What's not in the book are the suffocating Mickey Mouse masks, the getaway car that won't fit in the truck, the ransom demand that's bumbled over the phone and especially not a precocious victim named Jimmy. When the plot thickens and the FBI closes in, the book goes out the window, along with little Jimmy and the loot. So much for happy endings."Comic and inventive. If criminals were anything like these hooligans, we'd all be safe." (The New York Times)