Who stole Sassi Manoon? Ask Kelly Bram Nicholas IV, the world’s youngest mad scientist, who gets all his answers from Starnap, the seagoing computer. Or ask Jigger Jackson, the girl who wants to be a movie star so bad she’d sell somebody else’s body for the chance. Or ask Frank Ashford, the boy of 1,000 voices 1,000, none of them his own. Or ask Robby Creswel, the black man’s answer to Raffles, perpetrator of the first crime-in. Or ask Major Alfred ffork-Linton and Miss Adelaide Rushby, the slightly dotty and vaguely mysterious couple who could even be exactly what they seem. Or ask Benny Bernard, the forlorn flack whose principal companions are a pair of Afghan hounds named Kama and Sutra. Or ask Sassi Manoon herself, the movie queen, the superstar, the million-dollar property swiped from the middle of a swinging film festival on a Caribbean island and held by everybody in sight. Ask Sassi Manoon who stole Sassi Manoon... and then ask her why she didn’t mind. Or you could ask Donald E. Westlake, whose hilarious explanations of the light side of the underworld have included last year’s award-winning God Save the Mark, and who here turns crossed eyes on the World of Film, the ancient and dishonorable art of Holding for Ransom, and the winning delusion that Love Will Find a Way. It’s all on the inside, a carnival caper of the Spanish Main, the loony Westlake touch that promises the daffiest band of desperadoes synchronizing their watches since Alec Guinness went straight. Who stole Sassi Manoon? You’ll have a great time finding out