Somebody Owes Me Money

Somebody Owes Me Money is a superb comic crime novel involving a New York City cab driver (Chet Conway) who wins a horse racing bet and attempts to collect from his bookie (Tommy McKay), only to find the bookie murdered. Chet is soon afterward accused of killing Tommy, and the rest of the story follows Chet's efforts to clear his name and get his money back. Chet is one of Donald Westlake's finest creations — a good-natured cabbie with underrated street smarts, who never misses his twice-weekly poker games (even when he is being pursued for murder) and hates being called Chester. You can see early features of John Dortmunder in Chet Conway. But there are very funny secondary characters too, including Chet's father (who obsessively pores over insurance policies looking for loopholes he can exploit), Tommy's sister (a striking blonde with a pearl-encrusted handgun), and a group of poker players that would fit in well at the O.J. Bar and Grill in Westlake's later Dortmunder novels. Somebody Owes Me Money is full of not just humor but genuine suspense; this is one of Donald Westlake's better early novels.