John
Dortmunder once again crosses paths with guards working for the
Continental Detective Agency. The country of Klopstokia is mentioned,
as is the Frankenstein family. The
Continental Detective Agency is from Dashiell Hammett’s stories
about the Continental Op. The Frankenstein family needs no
explanation at this point. Klopstokia is from the film Million
Dollar Legs.
This is the third Dortmunder novel where Dortmunder steals a relic wanted by two different countries. The first was actually the first Dortmunder novel The Hot Rock where he steals a gem wanted by two fictional African countries. In this one it's two fictional Eastern European countries. However, in Why Me it was Turkey and Greece.
ReplyDeleteThe plot works pretty well for all three of these stories, but it seems strange Westlake kept coming back to it.