Somebody owes me money

Mystery and thriller · Comedy · Dark comedy

First published: 1969
Print length: 214 pagesRandom House, 1969

Description

New York taxi driver Chet Conway spends his spare time gambling, usually with little to show for it. When a bet placed through his bookmaker finally pays off, Chet goes to collect and discovers the man murdered instead. The missing winnings are only the beginning of his trouble: police investigators view him as a plausible suspect, while criminals connected to the dead bookmaker assume he knows more than he does. Caught between both sides, Chet must identify who killed the man before someone settles the matter for him. Donald E. Westlake builds the chase from bad luck, quick evasions, and Chet’s increasingly frantic improvisation, turning a routine debt into a comic crime story about money and accidental culpability.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Dialogue-driven · Direct · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Humorous · Irreverent · Suspenseful · Tense

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Mystery · Plot

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

Crime and punishmentSurvivalWealth

About Donald E. Westlake

Donald E. Westlake was a prolific American novelist who specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, while also working in science fiction and nonfiction. His plots often begin with professional planning: routes are studied, crews assembled, weaknesses identified, and institutions treated as systems that can be manipulated. He developed this method in two sharply different registers. Under the name Richard Stark, he wrote the Parker novels in spare, direct prose, following a relentless thief through robberies shaped by preparation, mistrust, and sudden violence. The Outfit expands Parker’s methods into a campaign against organized crime. The John Dortmunder books turn comparable ingenuity toward farce. In The Hot Rock, a carefully arranged jewel theft becomes a chain of recoveries, disguises, and improvised new schemes. Westlake also applied his controlled plotting and bleak humor beyond the series. The Ax follows an unemployed manager who treats rival job applicants as obstacles to be eliminated, using the language and logic of corporate competition to chart his moral collapse.