Books by Donald E. Westlake
Put a Lid on It
In this uproariously funny novel from "a national literary treasure," a career criminal is offered a new life outside of prison -- if he can steal a compromising video of the president (Booklist).
Meehan, a career thief staring at life without parole, is awaiting sentencing at the Manhattan Correctional Center when he is called to a meeting by someone masquerading as his lawyer.
The man, it turns out, represents the presidential re-election campaign committee -- now finding itself in need of a little professional help. So they "outsource" Meehan in return for a walk from all pending criminal charges. All he has to do is steal a compromising video tape before the other side springs an "October Surprise" on the president.
A shrewd burglar, Meehan bites, and shows just how easy Watergate would have been had they left it to the professionals.
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The Road to Ruin
Ever-lovable but hapless crook John Dortmunder and his merry band of misfits attempt to drive off with a fleet of vintage automobiles in a con against a corrupt CEO who has lavished more of his company's money on himself than the boys at Enron and WorldCom combined.
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Transgressions: Ten Brand-New Novellas
by Walter Mosley, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Anne Perry, Donald E. Westlake, Jeffery Deaver, John Farris, Sharyn McCrumb
Forge Books is proud to present an amazing collection of novellas, compiled by New York Times bestselling author Ed McBain. Transgressions is a quintessential classic of never-before-published tales from today's very best novelists. Faeturing:
"Walking Around Money" by Donald E. Westlake: The master of the comic mystery is back with an all-new novella featuring hapless crook John Dortmunder, who gets involved in a crime that supposedly no one will ever know happened. Naturally, when something it too good to be true, it usually is, and Dortmunder is going to get to the bottom of this caper before he's left holding the bag.
"Hostages" by Anne Perry: The bestselling historical mystery author has written a tale of beautiful yet still savage Ireland today. In their eternal struggle for freedom, there is about to be a changing of the guard in the Irish Republican Army. Yet for some, old habits-and honor-still die hard, even at gunpoint.
"The Corn Maiden" by Joyce Carol Oates: When a fourteen-year-old girl is abducted in a small New York town, the crime starts a spiral of destruction and despair as only this master of psychological suspense could write it.
"Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large: Walking the Line" by Walter Mosley: Felix Orlean is a New York City journalism student who needs a job to cover his rent. An ad in the paper leads him to Archibald Lawless, and a descent into a shadow world where no one and nothing is as it first seems.
"The Resurrection Man" by Sharyn McCrumb": During America's first century, doctors used any means necessary to advance their craft-including dissecting corpses. Sharyn McCrumb brings the South of the 1850s to life in this story of a man who is assigned to dig up bodies to help those that are still alive.
"Merely Hate" by Ed McBain: When a string of Muslim cabdrivers are killed, and the evidence points to another ethnic group, the detectives of the 87th Precinct must hunt down a killer before the city explodes in violence.
"The Things They Left Behind" by Stephen King: In the wake of the worst disaster on American soil, one man is coming to terms with the aftermath of the Twin Towers-when he begins finding the things they left behind.
"The Ransome Women" by John Farris: A young and beautiful starving artist is looking to catch a break when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome offers her a lucrative year-long modeling contract. But how long will her excitement last when she discovers the fate shared by all Ransome's past subjects?
"Forever" by Jeffery Deaver: Talbot Simms is an unusual cop-he's a statistician with the Westbrook County Sheriff Department. When two wealthy couples in the county commit suicide one right after the other, he thinks that it isn't suicide-it's murder, and he's going to find how who was behind it, and how the did it.
"Keller's Adjustment" by Lawrence Block: Everyone's favorite hit man is back in MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block's novella, where the philosophical Keller deals out philosophy and murder on a meandering road trip from one end of the America to the other.
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God Save the Mark: A Novel of Crime and Confusion
WINNER OF THE EDGAR ALLAN POE AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
* mark n. An easy victim; a ready subject for the practices of a confidence man, thief, beggar, etc.; a sucker. - Dictionary of American Slang, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1960
That's the long definition of a mark. But there's a shorter one. It goes:
* mark n. Fred Fitch
What, you ask, is a Fred Fitch?
Fred Fitch is the man with the most extensive collection of fake receipts, phony bills of sale, and counterfeit sweepstakes tickets in the Western Hemisphere, and possibly in the entire world. When Barnum said, "There's one born every minute, and two to take him," he didn't know about Fred Fitch; when Fred Fitch was born, there were two million to take him.
Every itinerant grifter, hypester, bunk artist, short-conner, amuser, shearer, short-changer, green-goods worker, pennyweighter, ring dropper, and yentzer to hit New York City considers his trip incomplete until he's also hit Fred Fitch. He's sort of the con-man's version of Go: Pass Fred Fitch, collect two hundred dollars, and move on.
What happens to Fred Fitch when his long-lost Uncle Matt dies and leaves Fred three hundred thousand dollars shouldn't happen to the ball in a pinball machine. Fred Fitch with three hundred thousand dollars is like a mouse with a sack of catnip: He's likely to attract the wrong kind of attention.
Add to this the fact that Uncle Matt was murdered, by person or persons unknown, and that someone now seems determined to murder Fred as well, mix in two daffily charming beauties of totally different types, and you have a perfect setup for the busiest fictional hero since the well-known one-armed paperhanger.
As Fred Fitch careers across the New York City landscape-and sometimes skyline-in his meetings with cops, con men, beautiful girls, and (maybe) murderers, he takes on some of the loonier aspects of a Dante without a Virgil. Take one part comedy and one part suspense and shake well--mostly with laughter.
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Watch Your Back! (Dortmunder Novels)
After a year on the lam, the return of bumbling thief Dortmunder is a cause celebre. The author's most recent Dortmunder caper. "The Road to Ruin," and the short story collection, "Thieves' Dozen," received rave reviews in the "New York Times Book Review, New York Daily News," and "Kirkus Reviews" (starred review), among other publications.
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The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany
Over the course of a fifty-year career, Donald E. Westlake published nearly one hundred books, including not one but two long-running series, starring the hard-hitting Parker and the hapless John Dortmunder. In the six years since his death, Westlake’s reputation has only grown, with fans continuing to marvel at his tightly constructed plots, no-nonsense prose, and keen, even unsettling, insights into human behavior.
With The Getaway Car, we get our first glimpse of another side of Westlake the writer: what he did when he wasn’t busy making stuff up. And it’s fascinating. Setting previously published pieces, many little seen, alongside never-before-published material found in Westlake’s working files, the book offers a clear picture of the man behind the books―including his thoughts on his own work and that of his peers, mentors, and influences. The book opens with revealing (and funny) fragments from an unpublished autobiography, then goes on to offer an extended history of private eye fiction, a conversation among Westlake’s numerous pen names, letters to friends and colleagues, interviews, appreciations of fellow writers, and much, much more. There’s even a recipe for Sloth à la Dortmunder. Really.
Rounded out with a foreword by Westlake’s longtime friend Lawrence Block, The Getaway Car is a fitting capstone to a storied career and a wonderful opportunity to revel anew in the voice and sensibility of a master craftsman.
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Money for Nothing
When it comes to crime-the good, the bad, and the hilarious-nobody does it like Donald E. Westlake, the creator of the uproarious Dortmunder novels and the dark classic The Ax. Westlake's outrageous new thriller is all about something too good to be true...and too terrible to believe. Every month a $1000 check came to Josh Redmont, as regular as clockwork. Somewhere along the line, Josh stopped wondering why an untraceable organization in Washington was sending him money. His career took off and his bank account swelled-he didn't even need the money anymore. Then, one day on a ferry to Fire Island, a stranger approaches Josh with words that chill him to the spine: "You are now active." Josh has been paid for a job that he must do-a job that will turn out to be a growing horror for him, for his family, and possibly for the whole country...
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Watch Your Back!
- After a year on the lam, the return of bumbling thief Dortmunder is a cause celebre. The author's most recent Dortmunder caper. "The Road to Ruin, and the short story collection, "Thieves' Dozen, received rave reviews in the "New York Times Book Review, New York Daily News, and "Kirkus Reviews (starred review), among other publications.- "Money for Nothing (Mysterious Press, 4/03) and "Put a Lid On It (Mysterious Press, 2002), two stand-alone mysteries, have sold over 68,000 hardcover and paperback copies combined.- Hollywood loves Dortmunder, too. "What's the Worst That Could Happen?, starring Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito, was a major motion picture in 2001.- Donald E. Westlake was named Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master (1993); has won Edgar Allan Poe Awards for Best Novel, Screenplay, and Short Story; and was nominated for an Academy Award* for Best Adapted Screenplay for "The Grifters.
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What's So Funny?
In what may be the "best Dortmunder yarn yet," Westlake's seasoned but often scoreless crook must take on an impossible crime, one he doesn't want and doesn't believe in -- but a little blackmail goes a long way (Associated Press).
All it takes is a few underhanded moves by a tough ex-cop named Eppick to pull Dortmunder into a game he never wanted to play.
With no choice, he musters his always-game gang and they set out on a perilous treasure hunt for a long-lost gold and jewel-studded chess set once intended as a birthday gift for the last Romanov czar, which unfortunately reached Russia after that party was over.
From the moment Dortmunder reaches for his first pawn, he faces insurmountable odds. The purloined past of this precious set is destined to confound any strategy he finds on the board. Success is not inevitable with John Dortmunder leading the attack, but he's nothing if not persistent, and some gambit or other might just stumble into a winning move.
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Thieves' Dozen
Featuring Westlake's hapless hero John Dortmunder, this original compilation of short stories ties in to the author's latest Dortmunder hardcover, "The Road to Ruin."
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Transgressions
by Walter Mosley, Donald E. Westlake, Ed McBain, Sarah Dunant
New York Times bestsellers Ed McBain, Walter Mosely, and Donald Westlake each provided a brand-new, never-before-published tale for this unique collection of stories edited by bestselling author and mystery legend Ed McBain.
"Merely Hate" by Ed McBain: When a string of Muslim cabdrivers are killed, and the evidence points to another ethnic group, the detectives of the 87th Precinct must hunt down a killer before the city explodes in violence.
"Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large: Walking the Line" by Walter Mosley: Felix Orlean is a New York City journalism student who needs a job to cover his rent. An ad in the paper leads him to Archibald Lawless, and a descent into a shadow world where no one and nothing is as it first seems.
"Walking Around Money" by Donald E. Westlake: The master of the comic mystery is back with an all-new novella featuring hapless crook John Dortmunder, who gets involved in a crime that supposedly no one will ever know happened. Naturally, when something it too good to be true, it usually is, and Dortmunder is going to get to the bottom of this caper before he's left holding the bag.
Copies
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Transgressions
by Walter Mosley, Donald E. Westlake, Ed McBain, Sarah Dunant
Elizabeth is a modern woman. Smart. Independent. As sexual as she wants to be–with whomever she wants to be. But a breakup with her academic boyfriend has hit her harder than she cares to admit. And while her latest gig, translating a glitzy Czech thriller into English, offends her literary sensibilities, it arouses others with its steamy scenes of eroticism, violence, submission, and dominance.
Then, when her favorite Van Morrison CD disappears from its rack and her house is inexplicably violated, Elizabeth is afraid she’s starting to lose it–she even consults a local vicar about the possibility of poltergeists.
But what this woman in the lovely Victorian is experiencing is not supernatural. Nor is it madness. For in the dead of night, she will suddenly come face-to-face with her tormentor. She will smell him, she will touch him, and she will make a choice. Then the real haunting will begin.
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What's the Worst That Could Happen? (Dortmunder Novels)
It started with a ring. A cheap ring. The yellow metal said brass, not gold, and the sparkly bits were certainly not diamonds. But the ring belonged to May's horseplaying uncle, who swore it brought good luck. Dortmunder, who wouldn't kick a little good luck out of bed, puts it to the test when he goes to burglarize Long Island billionaire Max Fairbanks. As luck would have it, Dortmunder is greeted by Fairbanks himself - and a loaded gun - as soon as he strolls through the door. When the cops arrive, the mogul adds insult to injury by claiming that Dortmunder's lucky ring is actually his. Big mistake, big guy. As soon as Dortmunder can give the cops the slip, the world's most single-minded burglar goes after the fat cat with a vengeance and a team of crooks that only he can assemble. And from the get go everything will go Dortmunder's way - everything, that is, except the ring.
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Somebody Owes Me Money (Hard Case Crime Novels)
SOMETIMES WINNING FEELS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE LOSING.
Cab driver Chet Conway was hoping for a good tip from his latest fare, the sort he could spend. But what he got was a tip on a horse race. Which might have turned out okay, except that when he went to collect his winnings Chet found his bookie lying dead on the living room floor.
Chet knows he had nothing to do with it – but just try explaining that to the cops, to the two rival criminal gangs who each think Chet’s working for the other, and to the dead man’s beautiful sister, who has flown in from Las Vegas to avenge her brother’s murder…
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Double Feature (Hard Case Crime)
THE MOVIE STAR AND THE MOVIE CRITIC -- HOW FAR WOULD THEY GO TO KEEP THEIR SECRETS BURIED? DOUBLE FEATURE Contains two CLASSIC Donald E. Westlake novellas, A Travesty and Ordo.
WHAT'S HIDDEN BEHIND THE SILVER SCREEN?
In New York City, a movie critic has just murdered his girlfriend - well, one of his girlfriends (not to be confused with his wife). Will the unlikely crime-solving partnership he forms with the investigating police detective keep him from the film noir ending he deserves?
On the opposite coast, movie star Dawn Devayne - the hottest It Girl in Hollywood - gets a visit from a Navy sailor who says he knew her when she was just ordinary Estelle Anlic of San Diego. Now she's a big star who's put her past behind her. But secrets have a way of not staying buried...
These two short novels, one hilarious and one heartbreaking, are two of the best works Westlake ever wrote. And fittingly, both became movies - one starring Jack Ryan's Marie Josée Croze, and one starring Fargo's William H. Macy and Desperate Housewives' Felicity Huffman.
"A book by this guy is cause for happiness" - Stephen King
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Forever and a Death
The Bond That Never Was
Two decades ago, the producers of the James Bond movies hired legendary crime novelist Donald E. Westlake to come up with a story for the next Bond film. The plot Westlake dreamed up – about a Western businessman seeking revenge after being kicked out of Hong Kong when the island was returned to Chinese rule – had all the elements of a classic Bond adventure, but political concerns kept it from being made. Never one to let a good story go to waste, Westlake wrote an original novel based on the premise instead – a novel he never published while he was alive.
Now, nearly a decade after Westlake’s death, Hard Case Crime is proud to give that novel its first publication ever, together with a brand new afterword by one of the movie producers describing the project’s genesis, and to give fans their first taste of the Westlake-scripted Bond that might have been.
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Brothers Keepers (Hard Case Crime)
What will a group of monks do when their century-old monastery in New York City is threatened with demolition to make room for a new high-rise?
What will a group of monks do when their two-century-old monastery in New York City is threatened with demolition to make room for a new high-rise? Anything they have to. "Thou Shalt Not Steal" is only the first of the Commandments to be broken as the saintly face off against the unscrupulous over that most sacred of relics, a Park Avenue address.
Returning to bookstores for the first time in three decades, BROTHERS KEEPERS offers not only a master class in comedy from one of the most beloved mystery writers of all time but also a surprisingly heartfelt meditation on loss, temptation, and how we treat our fellow man.
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The Comedy is Finished
The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go.
Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People's Revolutionary Army, who've decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life...
The final novel from the legendary Donald Westlake!
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Help I Am Being Held Prisoner (Hard Case Crime)
JAILED FOR A JOKE
It isn't easy going to jail for a practical joke. Of course, this particular joke left 20 cars wrecked on the highway and two politicians' careers in tatters - so jail is where Harold Künt landed. Now he's just trying to keep a low profile in the Big House. He wants no part of his fellow inmates' plan to use an escape tunnel to rob two banks. But it's too late; he's in it up to his neck. And that neck may just wind up in a noose...
HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONER is Donald E. Westlake at his funniest and his most ingenious, a rediscovered crime classic from the MWA Grand Master returning to stores for the first time in three decades.
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Castle in The Air (Hard Case Crime, 148)
In the funniest crime caper ever from Grandmaster Donald Westlake, four teams of international thieves race through Paris to steal a king's ransom from the walls of a disassembled castle.
A DIRTY DOZEN WITH A FRENCH CONNECTION
When four groups of international heist artists team up to pull off the theft of the century – stealing an entire castle, and the treasure hidden in its walls –what could possibly go wrong? Well, consider this: none of the master thieves speak each other’s languages... and no one knows precisely where the loot is stashed... and every one of them wants to steal it all for him or herself. It’s MWA Grand Master Donald E. Westlake at his wildest, a breathless slapstick chase through the streets of Paris only one step ahead of the law – and each other.
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Forever and a Death (Hard Case Crime)
The Bond That Never Was
Two decades ago, the producers of the James Bond movies hired legendary crime novelist Donald E. Westlake to come up with a story for the next Bond film. The plot Westlake dreamed up – about a Western businessman seeking revenge after being kicked out of Hong Kong when the island was returned to Chinese rule – had all the elements of a classic Bond adventure, but political concerns kept it from being made. Never one to let a good story go to waste, Westlake wrote an original novel based on the premise instead – a novel he never published while he was alive.
Now, nearly a decade after Westlake’s death, Hard Case Crime is proud to give that novel its first publication ever, together with a brand new afterword by one of the movie producers describing the project’s genesis, and to give fans their first taste of the Westlake-scripted Bond that might have been.
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$14.95
The Actor
THE ACTOR: NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING ANDRE HOLLAND, GEMMA CHAN, TRACEY ULLMAN and TOBY JONES
Donald E. Westlake's lost masterpiece MEMORY, adapted for the screen as THE ACTOR.
“An unsparing look at a man adrift, it's a fitting final dispatch from a master.”—Time
"Terse and bleak and low-key emotional… indelible."—Entertainment Weekly
THE CRIME WAS OVER IN A MINUTE –
THE CONSQUENCES LASTED A LIFETIME
Hospitalized after a liaison with another man’s wife ends in violence, Paul Cole has just one goal: to rebuild his shattered life. But with his memory damaged, the police hounding him, and no way even to get home, Paul’s facing steep odds – and a bleak fate if he fails…
This final, never-before-published novel by three-time Edgar Award winner Donald E. Westlake is a noir masterpiece, a dark and painful portrait of a man’s struggle against merciless forces that threaten to strip him of his very identity.
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Call Me A Cab
The final unpublished novel by MWA Grandmaster – a wild, romantic road trip across America by taxi cab – demonstrates why this beloved author is so fondly remembered and so dearly missed.
“A book by this guy is cause for happiness.”
Stephen King
DONALD E. WESTLAKE
GOES OFF THE BEATEN PATH
In 1977, one of the world’s finest crime novelists turned his pen to suspense of a very different sort – and the results have never been published, until now.
Fans of mystery fiction have often pondered whether it would be possible to write a suspense novel without any crime at all, and in CALL ME A CAB the masterful Donald E. Westlake answered the question in his inimitable style. You won’t find any crime in these pages – but what you will find is a wonderful suspense story, about a New York City taxi driver hired to drive a beautiful woman all the way across America, from Manhattan to Los Angeles, where the biggest decision of her life is waiting to be made. From Pennsylvania to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada on the way to California, the characters’ odyssey takes them through uncharted territory – on the map and in their lives. It’s Westlake at his witty, thought-provoking best, and it proves that a page-turner doesn’t need to have a bomb set to go off at the end of it in order to keep sparks flying every step of the way.
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