Don't Lie To Me

The fifth and final Mitch Tobin mystery (written under Donald Westlake's pen name Tucker Coe) is the best in the series. Tobin remains a disgraced ex-cop, but he lands a job working nights as a security guard at the (fictional) Museum of American Graphic Art. When one evening he finds a dead body in the middle of the museum, the ensuing investigation leads to the discovery of a complex and ingenious art heist. Meanwhile, Tobin faces the added complication of having let a former lover into the museum the night the body was discovered.

In Mitch Tobin, Westlake created one of his deepest and most complex characters — a former police officer, decent but flawed, and paralyzed by guilt following a terrible professional error that led to the death of his former partner. The five-book Tucker Coe series is a worthy and underrated contribution to Donald Westlake's impressive body of work.