Review: Nice Little Comic Caper
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 6, 2014
Lifting the Lid, is written in the style of Donald E Westlake and similar author's comic capers. Although I'll point out Rob Johnson's first novel is not at the quality level of those masters novels, but this is a good read, and there's no reason to believe Johnson won't reach that standard with a few books into the future.Basically this one has a bit clueless guy, his wife left him in the past, he is a bit bored with his mundane life, isn't being respected in his workplace so has taken a redundancy, bought a campervan, grabbed his dog and hit the road.  However the campervan breaks down early in the journey so he's forced to spend the night in a hotel, where he can't leave the room due to his canine companion's trait of howling when he is not in sight as the place isn't dog friendly.  When the toilet won't flush, he can't call down to the desk so if forced to open the cistern and accidentally breaks the lid.  He doesn't want to have to pay for it so decides to bluff his way into a room being cleaned and switch lids.  However a package is taped to the new cistern lid, one that for some reason he just can't leave behind.  That decision is about it to make his boring life journey a lot more interesting.It's a worthwhile read, probably a few too many police/M15 characters which became a bit confusing at times with who was who.  It's not the most realistic or even plausible novel in the world but that's a common part of the makeup of books in the comic caper genre.  Certainly worth checking out.