Proving the old adage that there's no such thing as the
windfall promised by the title, Westlake starts this funny
divertissement with an intriguing premise: Mr. American
Everyman, young, ambitious, decent, honorable husband and
father, has been receiving a check for $1,000 once a month
from an unknown benefactor for seven years. Just when Josh
Redmont has finally stopped worrying about where the money
comes from or what it means, a stranger with a foreign
accent approaches him on the Fire Island ferry and clues
him in. Therein hangs the tale of who's behind Josh good
fortune and what kind of bill has come due for all those
tax-free dollars. Unbeknownst to our hapless hero, he's
been a "sleeper agent" whose paymaster has awakened him
just in time to play a big role in a political
assassination. How Josh gets out of a mess he had no idea
he was in drives the lively narrative to its breathless
conclusion. Westlake is the undisputed master of the caper
genre--although Money for Nothing may not be as deviously
convoluted or sidesplittingly comic as some of his earlier
novels (The Ax, Put a Lid On It), it's well worth the
reader's attention and appreciation. --Jane Adams