Here is a review left by a customer on a product. Would you say he was satisfied or dissatisfied?
Title: Empty novel, hanging on a gimmick
Review: Donald Westlake has always been one of my favorites, but this book is absolute garbage. Missing are all of the hallmarks of his standouts -- wit, narrative tension, and an affection for the flawed protagonist. This novel is supposed to be a topical twist on the tired notion that in American society, the end has come to justify the means. All Westlake does with it is invest an angry Babbitt with homicidal rage, have him repeat the same modus operandi over and over again, then cheapen this flaccid plot even further with an ending so contrived that it insults the intelligent reader. The social problem Westlake hopes to address acquires no resonance because his writing is so disaffected and his characterization of our dilemma so offensively simpleminded. THE AX appears to be an earnest literary experiment gone badly wrong. Don't bother with it.
