Unusual motives for murder

Donald E. Westlake wrote crime books that were funny, light and intricate. Help I Am Being Held Prisoner (Hard Case Crime, £7.99) was first published in 1974. The protagonist is Harold Künt. (That umlaut, as you can imagine, is very, very important.) In reaction against his name, he’s become a serial prankster. After one of his jokes goes badly wrong, he ends up in prison. Here he falls in with the Tunnel Gang, a group of inmates who use a secret tunnel to escape into the nearby town. But they only go there for a few hours at a time before returning to prison to serve out their sentences.

Künt strolls around town, chats to locals, even falls in love, and then heads back to his cell. It’s a perfect life. But then the gang decides to rob the nearby bank and Künt is embroiled in the crazy scheme. Westlake piles on the jokes, but there’s a serious heart to the story: a hapless and essentially innocent man, forced to play a double-bluff game, holding both his fellow prisoners and the authorities at bay. The brilliant Hard Case Crime imprint specialises in new books written in the noir tradition, as well as tracking down lost classics. This is a fine example of the latter.

William Boyle’s Gravesend (No Exit, £8.99) is a tale of revenge. Ray Boy Calabrese is released from prison 16 years after his actions led to the death of a young man. Conway d’Innocenzio is the victim’s brother. Driven by desires he can barely contain, Conway stalks Ray Boy and threatens him, but is shocked when Ray Boy asks to be killed: he’s suffering from too much guilt to carry on with life.