Westlake gives another of his humorous and clever John Dortmunder mysteries. “Get Real” takes us on an adventure when a small television film company approaches John with the idea of filming his crew of thieves on a TV Reality program that will be called “The Heist”. John is not too interested in being on TV until the man offers each of the five gang members $20,000 and expenses. That is different.
But they experience difficulties right from the first. The network has to have them fill out their employment forms which include names and social security numbers. When the gang tries to give phony names and numbers the management decides to shut down the operation. But, John comes up with the idea of the five being employed by one of the network subsidiaries located in Europe where their names and social security numbers would not matter. That solves that problem.
Since the film is going to involve recording the gang as they plan and execute a real robbery, the men are reluctant to reveal their true identities even after being assured that the network will protect them from arrest. John and his guys decide, however, to continue when John comes up with a plan to let them film the gang robbing one of the storage facilities owned by the network. That way if the cops catch them they can claim that it was all a fake robbery and get out of it. But John is really planning on using this fake robbery as a cover for a real robbery of another location owned by the network. This place is used as a transfer point for millions of dollars. The gang prefers earning their money by thievery which is much cleaner and more pure than working for wages.
Of course the gang comes close to being caught many times but always manage to outwit the network nitwits. It is a rollicking fun caper and earns a 9 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
