Call Me a Cab

December 1, 2021
In the late 1970s, Westlake set out to write a suspense novel without any crime in it. This never-before-published book is the result of that experiment. Katharine Scott hails Tom Fletcher's cab in Manhattan to take her to the airport. But there's a problem: she can't decide if she wants to get married, and she's promised the long-suffering Barry that she'll give him her final answer--she's been prevaricating for years--when they meet in L.A. To give her more pondering time, Katharine proposes that Tom take her to L.A. in his cab. They settle on a price and off they go, on one of fiction's most peculiar road trips. Yes, it's suspenseful: Will she marry Barry or not? The decision grows in significance as Tom, not a fan of marriage, realizes he's falling in love with his fare. Their detail-rich adventures along the way--including a bizarre pub crawl across rural Colorado (no easy trick) with an aging version of Nick and Nora--are the real highlight here, as Westlake proves that his signature wit and ability to turn out delightful banter can drive even a crimeless novel.

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December 15, 2021
After a slew of posthumous novels and reprints, the sad day arrives for what publisher Charles Ardai calls "this last lost book of Don's," originally published in abridgment in Redbook more than 40 years ago. Marriage is not a commitment to make lightly, and New York-based Katharine Scott is naturally feeling eleventh-hour jitters about whether she should accept Los Angeles plastic surgeon Barry Gilbert's proposal. Despite his profession, Barry is clearly Mr. Right: handsome, well-off, intelligent, and truly in love with Katharine. But the five-hour flight from coast to coast isn't enough time to make up her mind, so she makes a novel proposal to Thomas Fletcher, the cabbie driving her to JFK: She'll pay him $4,000 plus expenses to turn the car around, head west, and drive her to California instead. The trip will take close to a week, but that's the idea; somewhere along the line, something will make up Katharine's mind one way or the other. What happens is a series of low-level encounters, most of them never rising to the level of adventures--the two trade stories of their romances; they detour to drive a stranded woman in labor to a nearby hospital; they stop at three Kansas City airports before finding the one where a messenger with documents for Katharine to sign will be waiting; they share a pub crawl along the Kansas-Colorado border with an overgalvanized husband and wife who seem to have come straight out of a Prohibition musical--in between nights at a series of interchangeable Holiday Inns (with a single notable exception) until Katharine, delivered to Barry, can't stall any longer. Minor Westlake is still Westlake, and his many fans will turn the last page with a tear.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 20, 2021
Fans of Westlake (1933–­2008), the late master of crime capers both comic (The Hot Rock) and hard-boiled (Point Blank!), will not be disappointed in this perceptive romantic suspense novel. It’s an ordinary day for New York City cabbie Tom Fletcher when he picks up beautiful Katharine Scott. To his surprise, she asks how much it will cost to drive her to Los Angeles; her plastic surgeon boyfriend, Barry Gilbert, wants to marry her and she intends to use the five-day trip to make up her mind. So Tom and Katharine start off on a cross-country odyssey in his yellow Checker Marathon. Along the way, they flirt, fight, get on one another’s nerves, and develop a mutual respect that could possibly blossom into something more. The suspense derives from the question of whom Katharine will end up with—the cabbie or the plastic surgeon. Westlake expertly proves the old adage that it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive. Originally published in an abridged form in Redbook in 1978, the story is slight and dated (with references to the old Belmore Cafeteria and CB radios), but Tom and Katharine are charming leads. This entertaining story is as wistful as the theme from old episodes of Taxi.