Character Background
Very little is known of Dortmunder's childhood. It is mentioned in more than one book that he was abandoned at birth and raised in an orphanage in the fictional town of Dead Indian, Illinois, run by the Bleeding Heart Sisters of Eternal Misery.
Dortmunder married a nightclub entertainer whose stage name was 'Honeybun Bazoom' shortly before he left the country to serve in Korea in 1952. The marriage took place in San Diego; upon his return from Korea, they were divorced in Reno in 1954.
Dortmunder has been twice convicted of burglary charges, serving time in prison – he is completing the final day of his second prison term at the very beginning of The Hot Rock. Always hanging over Dortmunder's head is the knowledge that a third conviction will mean that he will be placed in prison for the rest of his life, with no chance of parole.
Dortmunder has occasionally used the alias "John Diddums" (he claims to anyone who asks that it's Welsh), a name he dislikes but uses involuntarily in circumstances that preclude using his real name.
The motto of his family crest (which he admits he stole) is "Quid lucrum istic mihi est?" ("What's in it for me?").
While a firm believer that for a job one should "Never go in with fewer people than you need" {Get Real), Dortmunder as a rule never works with more than four other people, his thinking being that if a job can't be pulled with a maximum gang of five then it's too risky. However in What's The Worst That Could Happen?, a job in Las Vegas (robbing a Las Vegas Strip casino) is so irresistible to other associates that he winds up with a total "crew" of twenty people.
As is common with characters in long-running series, Dortmunder and his companions seem to be more-or-less frozen at the age they were when we first met them. His age is given as 37 in 1970's The Hot Rock, and as 40 in 1977's "Nobody's Perfect"; thereafter, Dortmunder would appear to be somewhere in his early forties throughout the series' nearly forty-year run.
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