Enough [A Travesty (novel) and Ordo (novelette)]

Following last year’s hilariously funny Dancing Aztecs, the prolific Donald E. Westlake now produces a pair of miniatures — two brief strokes of genius for the price of one — which is certainly ENOUGH for anybody. “A Travesty,” follows the twists and turns in the career of movie critic-cum-murderer Carey Thorpe, as he flails and connives his way through a plot so devious that it finally sums up the entire genre of the Mystery Story once and for all. Carey successively becomes the Detective’s Sidekick, the Least Obvious Suspect, the Amateur Detective, the Innocent Accused, several other detective story standbys, and ultimately the Murderer Himself. What happens to Carey when he accidentally kills his girlfriend (she shouldn’t have annoyed him) is as quick and twisty as a roller-coaster ride, an endlessly intricate Murder Mystery with a true Surprise at the finish. A fast and funny story, with enough cleverness and invention for two books, it is here only half the story of ENOUGH. Completing the abundance of ENOUGH is a total change of pace, “Ordo,” the sardonic brooding character study of Ordo Tupikos, a man dealing with an astonishment out of his own past. What would you do if you discovered the plain Jane you’d married (and divorced) sixteen years ago was now, under another name, Hollywood’s reigning movie star sex queen? What Ordo does, and what is done to him reach a level of power seldom found in comedy. A study in contrasts, ENOUGH displays a pair of totally different story styles from the same fertile brain. If you’ve never had ENOUGH, you have it now.