BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : APRIL 24, 2000 ISSUE
BOOKS Deadly Deal Forget the butler--Barnes & Noble did it. THE HOOK By Donald E. Westlake Mysterious Press 288pp $23.95 Or to be more exact, the computers at big bookstore chains were what prompted unsuccessful author Wayne Prentice to turn to a life of deception and murder. ''The computer says, we took five thousand of his last book, but we only sold thirty-one hundred, so don't order more than thirty-five hundred'' of the next one, he explains to Bryce Proctorr, a best-selling novelist. ''So there's thinner distribution, and you sell twenty-seven hundred, so the next time they order three thousand.'' Before long, this downward spiral means that no publisher will take on a book from Prentice at any price. Proctorr, on the other hand, has a $1.1 million advance for his next book. But entangled in a long-running, messy divorce, he is completely unable to write--and his publisher is breathing down his neck. During a chance meeting, the duo arrives at a solution to both of their problems: They will publish a novel written by Prentice under Proctorr's name and split the million bucks. Oh, and the big-time author sets one final condition: Prentice must kill Proctorr's wife. Otherwise, her lawyers will demand half of the money. Immediately, of course, the setup of Donald E. Westlake's The Hook brings to mind such barter-for-murder classics as Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train and the Frederick Knott play Dial M for Murder. But Highsmith's killer, Bruno, played by Robert Walker in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, is palpably abnormal. Wayne Prentice, on the other hand, is a lot like the '90s everyman--weak, amoral, and self-pitying. The Hook is an uneven effort. The dialogue is snappy and, as in such previous Westlake novels as The Ax and Trust Me on This, it's often funny. Among the characters, Proctorr's wife, Lucie, is well-drawn and invigoratingly repellent--abrasive, intrusive, and vulgar. During an encounter with Prentice, for instance, she regularly expresses loathing for her husband while pointedly comparing Proctorr's success with Prentice's failure. ''I think you should be ashamed of yourself,'' she observes of Prentice's lack of literary fame. ''It might not be entirely my fault,'' he responds. ''All the losers say that,'' Lucie concludes. A few more such scenes, and the reader almost welcomes the bludgeoning that is Lucie's fate. Prentice and Proctorr, too, are complex, believable characters wrestling with troupes of inner demons. For each of them, writing is an indispensable tool for functioning in the real world. Proctorr, for example, employs his novelist's eye to measure the worth of an alibi. ''A novelist would see through this, he thought. Would Detective Johnson? Probably not....So long as the New York Police Department doesn't hire a lot of novelists to track me down, Bryce thought, I should be okay.'' But Prentice's luxury-fever-infected wife, Susan, is little more than a plot device nudging her husband toward a gradual transformation. She expresses few qualms about the murder proposal, for instance. And the wolf is hardly away from their door before she contracts for a luxury apartment on Central Park West--one formerly belonging to Bryce Proctorr. Shortcomings aside, red herrings and skillful plotting make The Hook a satisfying confection. We wonder: Will computer-generated memos and an agreement between the plotters come back to haunt them? Will Prentice and Proctorr exchange personalities? And if the end of stressful divorce proceedings, effected by Lucie's death, hasn't eased Proctorr's writer's block, what will? There's a chilling conclusion--but the computer gets away scot-free. By HARDY GREEN _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Deadly Deal PHOTO: Cover, ``The Hook'' INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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