Cops and Robbers

Product Information

Nash Hall's dad is a criminal who just can't seem to go straight. He wants Nash to help him commit a robbery. A big one. The trouble is, Nash's mum is a cop. And the robbery is at Nash's school. But Dad owes a lot of money to some very dangerous people and if Nash doesn't help him do the job, it could cost both their lives. The edition I read has this terrible front cover that makes the book out to be a farce rather than a “comic mystery” of its day. Shame that anyone judging a book by its cover would most likely miss this gem. A high stakes adventure that will keep you guessing and breathless until the very end.' Michael Gerard Bauer, author of Don't Call Me Ishmael

This is a new Puffin edition of Allan Ahlberg's best-selling Cops and Robbers classic picture book, with a brand new cover! The robbers of London town plan a desperate crime one Christmas Eve - to steal all the toys they can lay their hands on! Fortunately, the robbers meet their match in brave office Pugh who leaps into action and arrests the villains - all except Grandma Swagg who manages to get away. Can you make a list of the rhyming words? Could you make your own rhyming dictionary and refer to this during your writing? Look at the robbers’ Christmas Eve timetable. How long will each of their activities take? Can you make a timetable of the things that you might do on Christmas Eve? The book, the story, and the characters are all quite believable for the early 1970s. This wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have worked today. But that’s what’s so great: it’s a point in time when the genius of it all was entirely possible. 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.

Retailers:

Draw a plan view of each floor in the police station based on the illustration in the book. What rooms are in the building?

The London cops are described as being ‘hardworking, brave and true’. Think of other words that describe the qualities of a good police officer.This is one of D. Westlake's "comic caper" reads. There's meant to be a certain amount of humor or lightheartedness. I won't give any spoilers in the open here so all I mention can be found in the synopsis or I'll hide it. So, the aforementioned subject matter...a couple of crooked cops. Yeah I know it's somewhat played for laughs even though the story is told straight. But it still doesn't sit well with me and I really can't identify with our "protagonists" or their point of view. Choose one of the robbers shown in the book (e.g. Grabber Dan, Grandma Swagg) and write a story about a crime they might have committed.