DON’T CALL ME A Crook!
A SCOTSMAN'S TALE OF WORLD TRAVEL,
Whisky, and Crime
by BOB MOORE
Afterword by Booker Prize-winning novelist James Kelman
Introduction and annotations by Dissident Books publisher and editor Nicholas Towasser
1 oz. Trainspotting.
2 oz. Charles Bukowski.
1 oz. Candide.
Shake.
Add three shots of noir.
Stir.
Add enough Scotch whisky to kill a horse.
Serve and enjoy.
“It is a pity there are getting to be so many places that I can never go back to, but all the same, I do not think it is much fun a man being respectable all his life.” Thus begins Don't Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman's Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime, the greatest book you've never read.
Don't Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman's Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime is a lost memoir that will be crowned a classic. It's a tribute to one man's triumph over the law, morals, and sobriety.
Bob Moore, a Glaswegian, was a marine engineer, building superintendent, and moonshine runner. He traveled throughout the U.S., Australia, Egypt, South America, Japan, and China. He also conned women, fought with pirates on the Yangtze, and set a coffee shop ablaze. Clearly, this Scot loved life.
Moore might have appropriated things that belonged to others, but he was not—repeat, not—a crook. "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." You got that?
The 1920s didn't roar for Moore. They exploded. And whether he was snatching jewelry or in the thick of a New York high society orgy, he embraced the age with a bear hug. And nothing—not Prohibition, marriage, or the police—was going to stop him from having a good time.
Don't Call Me a Crook! is picaresque, perverse, and darkly funny. With its unforgettable characters and strange plot twists, it reads more like a novel than a memoir. Originally published in 1935, Don't Call Me a Crook! is a mysterious and overlooked treasure. No critics reviewed it. To date, only five holders of original edition have been identified. Only a handful of people seem to have ever known of the book.
That's going to change. Dissident Books has released a new edition of Don't Call Me, including an insightful afterword by Booker Prize-winning novelist James Kelman, and an introduction and footnotes by Dissident Books editor Nicholas Towasser.
It's time you met Bob Moore. It's time you found a new hero. It's time you read Don't Call Me a Crook!
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Take a scandalous, misanthropic, and inebriated trip back to the Jazz Age with Notes on Democracy and Don’t Call Me a Crook!
About the Authors
Bob Moore was a marine engineer, building superintendent, speakeasy bartender, kept man, and very, very briefly, a short-order cook. In the course of his voyages he lied, cheated, tricked, stole, brawled, fornicated, binge drank, and killed. A woman in Essex, England reports she's Moore's granddaughter. According to her, the rouge memoirist died in 1937 of acute alcohol gastritis, and was buried in a London potter's field.
James Kelman is author of the Booker Prize-winning novel How Late It Was, How Late.
Nicholas Towasser is the publisher and editor of Dissident Books.