Brothers Keepers

Written in the era of the early to mid 70's (this was 1975) when Westlake arguably was at his peak, with comic caper masterpiece after masterpiece, such as The Spy in the Ointment, Gangway, New York Dance, Cops and Robbers, TWO MUCH!, Help, I am being held prisoner. Brother's Keepers, although still good, was not quite the masterpiece standard of those similar aged books. Brother's Keepers is basically the story of 16 brown robe wearing monks who live in seclusion in a 200 year old monastery sitting on prime real estate in downtown Manhattan. They have taken a vow not to travel into the outside world unless absolutely necessary. Most monks have come from the real world, some are criminals, a lawyer, professional boxer but all don't want to return to the real world. One day Brother Benedict discovers in a newspaper (the only time he has left the building is to walk to the newspaper vendor down the street once a week) that all the buildings that the block the monastery is on are about to be demolished with a high rise office building taking its place. This causes mass panic as no one realised their rental contract had expired so the monks set out to change the owner's minds. Only thing is the owners' (both seller and buyer) couldn't care less about the fact the monks like their home and can't understand why they are not happy to just be relocated to a dead university campus upstate, plus the owners have some dirty tricks of their own to ensure the sale goes through. It is up to Benedict and his fellow men in robes to travel out into the outside world and find a way to save their home from demolition. Brother's Keepers does suffer from the fact that it probably would have been a bit more believable if the main character Brother Benedict had been born in the Monastery or dropped there as an orphan baby or something. Being that he in fact only joined them from the real world ten years before makes his discovery of the outside world and the way normal humans behave during his travels to save his home a bit less believable thereby less funny. Some of the observations are however funny as well as being true. I remember when I visited the USA and would ask how to get to somewhere many Americans would say you can't walk to it, when in fact it was a short walk away. So you can relate to Brother Benedict's observations of how humans behave. Brother's Keepers is definitely a worthwhile read for any Westlake fan! Of course Westlake doesn't just write comic capers and if you never read anything else, you've also got to check out his absolute masterpiece which is about the ultimate solution to unemployment, The Ax! Smoke would lead the way for his most recent comic capers.

Brothers Keeper was the funny story of an Order of Catholic Brothers about to be evicted from a piece of prime real estate on Fifth Avenue. Its a great story of New York as well as a triumph of good over evil. It was a fast, fun read.