John Dortmunder doesn't like manual labor. So when he gets the offer of money to dig up a grave, he balks . . . then he wonders why Fitzroy Guilderpost, criminal mastermind, wants to pull a switcheroo of two 70-years-dead Indians. When the smartest writer of lighthearted crime fiction brings John Dortmunder back after a five-year hiatus, his fans are in for a double helping of fun. Before the plot takes its first outlandish turn, Dortmunder's having a kind of midlife crisis: what's a career crook to do when his most recent attempt at restocking the family coffers ends in a botched burglary? Dortmunder makes his escape by pretending to be a customer caught napping in the optician's office of a New Jersey discount store after midnight, but he's unable to set up a new heist. Hoping to recoup his losses, he signs on with his old friend Andy Kelp, who's made an Internet connection with a bizarre scam artist named Fitzroy Guilderpost. Guilderpost's plan to take over an Indian gambling casino requires the replacement of one dead Indian buried in a Queens cemetery with another corpse, who's actually related to Guilderpost's partner, a Las Vegas chorine named Little Feather. Dortmunder and pals have to spirit Joseph Redcorn out of the plot he's been occupying for nearly a century and replace him with Little Feather's grandfather, who's been dead for quite a spell himself. Little Feather will inherit a third of the casino if she can prove she's related to the newly planted Indian, who belonged to a vanishing tribe, the Pottaknobbees. Dortmunder can smell the wool being pulled over his eyes and has no intention of playing the fleeced sheep, not when he sees a way to cut himself and Andy in for a partner's share of the profits. But the casino's current owners are as crooked as Fitzroy Guilderpost, so while switching one dead Indian with another isn't tough, even for a fellow who hates physical labor as much as Dortmunder does, keeping him planted long enough for the law to match his DNA with Little Feather's is a much more problematic enterprise. This is one of Dortmunder's most picaresque adventures ( The Hot Rock , Don't Ask , etc.), and shows off author Donald E. Westlake's gifts: the pacing as swift as a dealer's shuffle, the secondary characters and the convoluted twists and turns of the plot worthy of the late Ross Thomas. And speaking of switched bodies and stolen identities… is it possible that Donald Westlake is Ross Thomas? (Don't panic; it's just wishful thinking from a big fan of the comic caper genre. But when you've worked your way through Westlake's oeuvre of over 50 novels, and reread every Elmore Leonard you can get your hands on, you might want to make your way to Ross Thomas's back list, too). --Jane Adams Dortmunder, the man on whom the sun shines only when darkness is what's needed, is back in his tenth comic caper (following 1996's What's the Worst That Could Happen?), and that's good news to his many fans. The original scam involves passing off ex-Vegas showgirl Little Feather Redcorn as the sole survivor of the Pottaknobbee tribe. It is extinct, but, if there were any living representative, said representative would be eligible to share one-third of the earnings of a successful Native American casino operation, and so Little Feather wants in on the action. Once Dortmunder blunders into the arrangement, though, a flurry of dug-up graves and changed headstones ensues (all with the aim of validating Little Feather's legitimacy). Beneath the thin veneer of timeliness offered by references to Native American casinos and DNA testing beats a timeless plot that combines the best elements of the Three Stooges and a Damon Runyon story. That should be good enough for anybody looking for a finely oiled and remarkably sex- and violence-free romp through the graveyards of upper New York State. For all public libraries. Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. What should have been an easy $1,000 for a 10-minute, after-hours heist in a discount department store goes hilariously wrong, and it's all downhill from there. Short the anticipated grand, and somewhat shaken by the number of cops he must dupe in the department store, Dortmunder, Westlake's star-crossed professional thief, gets sucked into digging up a casket in a Queens cemetery and replacing it with another. "I'm a robber," he gripes. "Not a grave robber." That's one of Dortmunder's charms: he knows what he is. But the grave robbing is part of a clever scam to gain control of a third of a Native American casino in upstate New York, and Dortmunder and two cohorts find themselves in the unlikely position of being players in someone else's scheme. Which leads Dortmunder to some rare, existential angst. Vintage Westlake and vintage Dortmunder--clever, whimsical, charming, and above all, funny-- Bad News is good news for Westlake's devoted fans. Thomas Gaughan Copyright © American Library Association. All rig