Comfort Station

In the comfort station at Bryant Park, worlds collide and lives are changed forever

Look past the grandeur of the famous New York Public Library and you will see the true architectural marvel of Forty-Second Street: the comfort station. A small building, modest in its proportions but undeniable in its importance, its handful of stalls and urinals provide a haven for rich and poor alike. The restroom's keeper is Mo Mowgli, a meek man whose only trouble is chronic tardiness, and who is about to have the encounter of a lifetime.

Today, a strange cast of characters descends on the comfort station: a mobster and a cop, a countess and a dictator, colliding with a force that will upend Mo Mowgli's world. When this globetrotting group gets together, no stall is too small for adventure.

Written in the style of Hotel, Airport, and—perhaps more accurately—Airplane!, Comfort Station shows the genius of Donald E. Westlake at his comic best.