In the course of his autobiographical tale, the author, a Scottish engineer, kills two people, pretty much in cold blood, makes off with all or part of a few bankrolls, some diamonds, a ring, lots of bottles of whiskey--well, you get the idea. He takes life as it comes, and "takes" is definitely the right word. Nevertheless, his narrative is hard to put down and definitely something to add to your out-of-the-ordinary reading list. There is even some educational value to it. You'll get a few lessons in skills that might come in handy during the next depression, including how to get to the front of a job line. And not all of them require a gun--just a lot of wits and a pretty much total disregard for everybody else.So journey with Bob Moore to New York, Hoboken, Chicago, Shanghai, up the Yangtze River, and a few other places where an itinerant engineer could hold a job long enough to get enough dough to tide him over to the next scam. This is all he wrote--and apparently he only lasted three years after this was published before too much alcohol killed him. Considering the alternative ways he could have died, he may have taken some solace in that during his last moments.

On the downside, the editor goes way overboard by helpfully defining way too many words that anyone reading this book should already know! ( )

I really wanted to like this book. After all, “A Scotsman’s Tale of World Travel, Whiskey and Crime” sounds right up my alley. I love colorful memoirs, adventure stories, all that, and I thought I would really enjoy this one.

I didn’t even make it through 100 pages.

There are a lot of reasons I was disappointed in the book. First off, the writing is clunky. It sounds much like you would expect a Scotsman to sound, sitting in a pub, telling you a story after a couple of pints. I didn’t, in this case, find that charming.

Second, I don’t care what the title says, he’s a crook. Here’s his explanation, given very early on:

“Though really, I am not a crook at all, because a crook is a man who steals things from people, but I have only swiped things when I needed them or when it would be wasteful to let slip an opportunity. Because I think it is very wrong for a man to waste his opportunities.”

So, he’s not a crook because he “swiped” things, instead of stealing them. That’s perfectly logical, right? And what about his train trip to Chicago? He started drinking with a married woman, got her drunk, seduced her, asked her to spend a week in Chicago with him. When they arrived, he didn’t want his friends to see her, so he convinced her to wait at the station while he went to pawn her engagement ring. He did come back for her – a week later. I suppose she was just an “opportunity” that he didn’t want to “let slip.” That’s a load of crap, if you ask me.

Now, I don’t require that every book be a morality play, but maybe I’ve just had enough corruption and rationalization lately. I just didn’t find this charming; I found it insulting. Someone who was perfectly willing to take advantage of you if he got the chance, so as not to let an opportunity slip, is not an adventurer, he’s a criminal. The rationalization just makes it worse.

There were a couple of things about this edition of the book that bothered me. First off, the cover. Looks like a dashing fellow, right? Well, it’s not Bob Moore, the author. I don’t know who it is – it’s just some guy that the publisher and cover designer thought “conveyed the book’s cheekiness and rougishness.” What? I honestly can’t say why that bothered me as much as it did. I was also unhapy with the editing. I understand adding footnotes to clarify certain points, but editor Pat Spry apparently thinks readers are unfamiliar with modern language, as well as Moore’s more antiquated expressions. I do not need footnote definitions of fathoms, galley, fortnight, winch, squall or subway. Come on! There may be expressions that are less common today – such as “on the floor,” which mean impoverished – but defining what should be basic vocabulary words was just annoying.

I think I am more annoyed by this book because I wanted so much to enjoy it. If I had no expectations, I still don’t think I would have finished it, but I certainly wouldn’t have been angry about it.

Bob Moore's "Don't Call Me a Crook!" was totally delightful to read. The manner of writing is "simple and to the point." We learn first-hand of how life was like in some ways for those alive in the Twenties. Moore could justify all of his wrongdoings so that they didn't seem all that bad after all. His tales of his trips into inner-China are almost not to be believed. I can't imagine it being told better. No one could help but enjoy the republication of this book found by Dissident Books. The footnotes make it even more enjoyable by adding to the reader's knowledge.

Priscilla Gordon de Figols (Internationally acclaimed opera singer) ( )

Don't Call Me a Crook! is a memoir by the most unreliable of narrators. Despite not wanting to be called a crook, Bob Moore most certainly is one. An engineer by trade, his adventures take him all over the world where he finds himself "swiping" anything from diamonds to cash to a Shriner's sword. Moore's twenties really roared, and his experiences paint a picture of an era when lawlessness was a way of life. Bob's adventures take him to New York where he rips off a smuggler's diamonds, to Chicago where he cons a gullible woman out of her diamond ring, to a party yacht on the Long Island Sound, to South America where he makes off with funds given him for a supposed business start up, and even to China where the lawlessness seems to shock even him. There is no doubt that Bob Moore was a product of his time and had the experiences to prove it, but well, actually, there is some doubt, at least in my mind, about whether the stories he tells are true. After all, the very life he chronicles gives us reason to question everything he says. How can you trust the storytelling of a guy who gets by on lies and dishonest gain?

Whether it's true or not, though, Don't Call Me a Crook! is a rollicking adventure. While Moore's style of writing is a little stilted and hard to read, his tale is full of action and what seems like a particularly honest and unflinching view at the 20s. Few pages go by where Moore isn't getting into or getting out of some trouble. Admittedly, Moore's routine of getting "oiled" (drunk) and making trouble can get redundant, but at other times his experiences are laugh out loud funny. It's a bit like listening to your crazy old uncle tell stories after he's had a few, that is, if you have a crazy old uncle or someone of that sort. I found the middle section about his time on a party yacht with some stingy millionaires and their wild sons to be particularly enjoyable. The pages in this section flew by, but his time in China was a bit more of struggle to read given the daily atrocities and disregard for human life he witnessed and occasionally even perpetrated himself.

All in all I found Don't Call Me a Crook! to be an interesting and amusing memoir. Reading Moore's memoir certainly gives us a hardy sampling of what life could be like in 1920s in a variety of locations. Moore is unapologetic about his thoughts and actions, and so emerges a memoir that, even if not entirely true, still offers an unvarnished and often surprisingly honest-seeming look at life during quite a wild time in our history. ( )

http://www.book-blog.com/2009/07/moore-bob-dont-call-me-a-crook.html ( )