When the two disillusioned policemen start their well-planned heist their scheme starts to unravel. The suspense is unbearable. My nerves couldn’t take it. I had to put the book down and make a cup of tea.

Westlake's cinematic prose and brisk dialogue made his novels attractive to Hollywood, and several motion pictures were made from his books, with stars such as Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson's noir classic. Look at the police officers’ street map and plan routes from one street to another. What roads do you need to use to get from one place to another? Which direction will you need to turn?

Make a list of all of the words used to describe the police and a list of the words used to describe the robbers.

If your mum was a cop and your dad was a crim who needed your help to commit a crime, would you do it to save him? At what cost? A new nailbiter from the bestselling author of Two Wolves, The Fall and Detention. "Make sure you start this well before bedtime because you wont want to stop." Morris GleitzmanLook at the list of the things that the robbers took on Christmas Eve (found in the illustration showing the Street Map). Find out the approximate value of each item. What is the total value of the items stolen? Then i read it was written written expressly to be made into a movie and understood why it didnt have the usual Donald E.Westlake quality to it. Ahlberg wrote his first book when he was thirty-seven, after a decade of teaching - a profession that he maintains is "much harder" than being a writer. He says that if he hadn't become a writer, he would have loved to be a soccer player. He was married for many years to fellow children's author Janet Ahlberg, with whom he often worked. Their daughter, Jessica Ahlberg, is also a children's author.