BLIND SPOT

Russell, a sort of foulmouthed Donald Westlake, serves up a second caper for inept bamboozler Alton ""Rooster"" Franklin (Hot Wire), now hired by friend-of-crooks attorney James Spivey to bid on a customized Lincoln Continental SS 100 X (last used in a Dallas cavalcade past a book repository) at a very private auction--and if Rooster's isn't the winning bid, he's to steal the car! Rooster, of course, agrees, but when he filches the Lincoln, there are two bodies in the trunk, one belonging to auction host (and crook) Forrest Jennings and the other (this one still breathing) to Jennings' delicious companion, Miss Buddery, who soon comes to, puts on a few more clothes, and joins him in eluding the other disgruntled auction guests (most carry guns, but some prefer knives). Like Rooster and Miss Buddery, the plot careens off walls before settling down to a cue of several mistaken identities, disillusionments, and petty thievery. A hard-boiled comic caper novel with in imaginative premise, a slapstick delivery, and a unique, feisty goofiness.