Quick Change by Jay Cronley

There is a dedication in this book to MacDonald, McBain and Westlake so we’re off to a good start.

A clown walks into a bank. The security guard thinks it’s hilarious and plays jokes with him. Then the clown pulls out a gun and tells him it’s a robbery. The guard still thinks it’s a joke. The clown grabs him by the neck, turns around and tells everyone in the bank it’s a robbery. People laugh and applaud until he puts a bullet in the ceiling. The people hit the ground, but the bullet hit the sprinklers and now it’s spraying water everywhere.

The police show up and there is now a hostage situation. The clown is on the phone with the police chief. He makes extravagant demands, helicopters, buses, motorcycles, etc. There is no way out of the bank for the clown so the chief knows he has him, but he can’t let him hurt any hostages, so he gives into the demands.

The people inside the bank are led into the vault. One of the customers is losing his shit and the clown almost shoots him. The clown is acting erratic. He says he has dynamite taped to him. Finally, he starts letting out hostages.

Eventually the police raid the building. Inside there is no clown. Somehow, he’s gotten away with it, but how?

The rest of the book is essentially the clown trying to get to the airport and the police chief trying to figure out how he did the robbery and where he’s at. This is a comedy/crime book, so we have lots of shenanigans. Ridiculous situations. Close calls. NYC life after midnight in dangerous neighborhoods. Hoodlums. The characters are snarky. Some are witty. I think I only laughed out loud once, and it was just a “hah.”

I more enjoyed the tension of whether the crime would be successful or the cop would catch them. You find yourself rooting for both. As each disaster leads into the next, it never becomes monotonous. The obstacles are all interesting and almost little puzzles that you solve along with the crime.

I loved this book BUT I think it had a lot to do with the movie. There is a lot of humor in this that is all about the delivery. It’s a book that does well translated into a movie, dare I say, the movie is actually the better option in this case. Of course, it’s hard to compare because Bill Murray plays the main character in the movie and really brings him to life. I mean, it’s Bill Murray, how are you going to compete with that?

Jay Cronley was a newspaper columnist in Tulsa Oklahoma. Much like my other reviews lately this one was made into a movie. I was only aware of the one until researching this but it looks like there was a French Canadian one called Hold-Up also. The movie that I had seen and loved was Quick Change with Bill Murray, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid from 1990. Whatever happened to Geena Davis? She was so great. Cronley wrote eight books in total. One of them being Funny Farm which was also made into a movie starring Chevy Chase. Also, a childhood favorite.

Quick Change was originally published in 1981

My copy is a UK edition: New English Library 1984

Review by Nick Anderson