The novella, Ordo, is more hardboiled than its pairing, and my favorite of the two because of its working class narrative. A career navy man, Ordo, discovers his short-time wife of fifteen years earlier has become a Hollywood sex symbol. She is unrecognizable as the girl he knew, and Ordo wants to figure out how his ex-wife became someone else. What he discovers is painful and melancholy, but has a purely American vibe of creating your personal mythology; similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, but much less sinister.
Double Feature is a great pairing of tales, told in different styles and with contrasting themes, that showcase Westlake’s brilliance as a storyteller.