Background
Westlake, Donald Edwin was born on July 12, 1933 in New York City. Son of Albert Joseph and Lillian Marguerite (Bounds) Westlake.
(In this comic crime caper, Charlie Poole works the bar in...)
In this comic crime caper, Charlie Poole works the bar in Canarsie (Brooklyn) for his Mafia-connected Uncle Al, occasionally holding packages for late-night pickup. Suddenly, life gets exciting when two hit men show up to silence Charlie. He manages to escape, but he's on the run, hiding from the organization and at the same time trying to contact the boss to find out what error brought all this upon him. Of course there's a beautiful girl.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HEUPZY/?tag=2022091-20
( Taking cues from a pulp novel, Dortmunder arranges a ki...)
Taking cues from a pulp novel, Dortmunder arranges a kidnapping Kelp has a plan, and John Dortmunder knows that means trouble. His friend Kelp is a jinx, and his schemes, no matter how well intentioned, tend to spiral quickly out of control. But this one, Kelp swears, is airtight. He read it in a book. In county lock-up for a traffic charge, Kelp came across a library of trashy novels by an author named Richard Stark. The hero is a thief named Parker whose plans, unlike Kelp and Dortmunder’s, always work out. In one, Parker orchestrates a kidnapping so brilliant that, Kelp thinks, it would have to work in real life. Though offended that his usual role as planner has been usurped, Dortmunder agrees to try using the novel as a blueprint. Unfortunately, what’s simple on the page turns complex in real life, and there is no book to guide him through the madness he’s signed on for.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453234802/?tag=2022091-20
(Bumbling comic criminal John Dortmunder is in hot water a...)
Bumbling comic criminal John Dortmunder is in hot water as he tries to keep a nasty old man from blowing up a dam to unearth $750,000. Dortmunder must devise a safer scheme to get the loot . . . before the old coot's trigger finger gets too itchy. "Entertainment of the highest order".--San Diego Tribune.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446400068/?tag=2022091-20
(Engel had worked his way up to being Nick Rovito's right-...)
Engel had worked his way up to being Nick Rovito's right-hand man, near the top of the Syndicate. And this was a delicate job -- retrieving a very important jacket, loaded with heroin, from a fresh grave. But Engel found only an empty coffin...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345024400/?tag=2022091-20
( Hiding in the darkness of the trees, he was waiting for...)
Hiding in the darkness of the trees, he was waiting for the state police car to move on, but it would not. Red lights filled the road below, flashlights began to search the woods around him. But he would not go back to Doctor Chax. He could take no more shocks. No more dying, day after day, and coming to life in pain. Whatever it takes, he will be free.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006BLSYA/?tag=2022091-20
(Killy is a first-rate detective story about the solving o...)
Killy is a first-rate detective story about the solving of several murders, but it is even more a novel about how a young man still filled with illusions can be turned into the inevitable path of the ruthless seeking for power.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007E2PD4/?tag=2022091-20
(The Hot Rock introduces John Archibald Dortmunder, the th...)
The Hot Rock introduces John Archibald Dortmunder, the thief whose capers never quite come off, as he and his convict friends plot to steal the fabulous Balaboma Emerald.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446677035/?tag=2022091-20
(Is it still possible in this age of generation gap, count...)
Is it still possible in this age of generation gap, counterculture, revolution and militancy to write a funny novel about Caribbean dictatorships, the FBI, American business, Women's Lib, gunrunning, Erwin Rommel, divorce, pot, police brutality, the New Morality and selling rifles to the Indians? The answer is a resounding "Yes" if you happen to be one of America's funniest writers named Donald E. Westlake, and your new novel hap-pens to be called I Gave at the Office. The hero of "I Gave at the Office" is a television announcer named Jay Fisher who would rather not mention his employer's initials. His normal life is spent as an anonymous stand-in interviewer of celebrities during lunch at a New York restaurant called The Three Mafiosi, but "I Gave at the Office" isn't about Jay Fisher's normal life. It's about what happens when Fisher is sent by the Network to cover the alleged secret invasion of the small Caribbean island of Ilha Pombo, and it permits the reader an exclusive opportunity to: See Jay Fisher in troubled waters, having fallen off a boat in the middle of the night in the middle of the Caribbean in the middle of a thunderstorm. See Jay Fisher spend an exciting Christmas in Wilton, Connecticut, with his ex-wife and his insurance man. See Jay Fisher fall in love in a swimming pool with a beautiful blonde whose top is on the bottom. See Jay Fisher, representing Good Americans everywhere, face-to-face with a Latin American dictator in the depths of his own palace, very nearly light his cigar.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067120839X/?tag=2022091-20
( * mark n. An easy victim; a ready subject for the pract...)
* 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? Well, for one thing, 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. For another thing, Fred Fitch may be the only New York City resident in the twentieth century to buy a money machine. 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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076530919X/?tag=2022091-20
( Hiding in the darkness of the trees, he was waiting for...)
Hiding in the darkness of the trees, he was waiting for the state police car to move on, but it would not. Red lights filled the road below, flashlights began to search the woods around him. But he would not go back to Doctor Chax. He could take no more shocks. No more dying, day after day, and coming to life in pain. Whatever it takes, he will be free.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786703962/?tag=2022091-20
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HTJOD80/?tag=2022091-20
(A small South American republic has decided to capitalize...)
A small South American republic has decided to capitalize on its national symbol: a prized gold statue of a dancing Aztec priest. The president asks a sculptor to make sixteen copies of it for sale abroad. The sculptor replaces the original with one of his fakes, and ships the real one to New York for an under-the-table sale to a museum. The statues travel to America spread out among five crates, labelled to ensure that delivery goes as planned. But the plan doesn't work -
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0715646346/?tag=2022091-20
( Al Engel had worked his way up to being Nick Rovito's r...)
Al Engel had worked his way up to being Nick Rovito's right-hand man, near the top of the syndicate. And this was a delicate job that Rovito had given him: retrieving a very important jacket, loaded with heroin, from the fresh grave of the drug mule who was accidentally buried wearing it. Rovito ordered Engel to go to the grave in the early hours of the morning, dig up the coffin, and get back the suit - plus kill two birds with one stone (so to speak) and whack the guy who would help with the digging. There was just one problem (at least - just one to begin with): It turned out the grave was empty. Suddenly Engel was the one finding himself "in deep". Busy Body is early Westlake, as he was mastering the genre he would become known for: the comic caper.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007C7V29M/?tag=2022091-20
(Grofield has a knack for attracting damsels in distress. ...)
Grofield has a knack for attracting damsels in distress. Even holed up in a Mexico City hotel room (with thousands in cash and a bullet wound) they manage to find him. When Ellen Marie Fitzgerald comes in through his window, she tells a tale that he promptly dismisses. And just as promptly reconsiders when a couple of hoods come looking for her. The damsel leads Grofield on a chase across Mexico, running the gauntlet on the one heavily guarded road to Acapulco in hopes of preventing a political assassination. It's a desperately chivalrous gamble for the gallant part-time actor-cum-thief. "An unconventionally but effectively constructed novel, ranging from the hardest-boiled action-objectivity to character-introspection in depth." (New York Times Book Review)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0881501565/?tag=2022091-20
(With the help of an unusual set of cronies, bank robber J...)
With the help of an unusual set of cronies, bank robber John Dortmunder puts a set of wheels under a trailer that just happens to be the temporary site of the Capitalists' & Immigrants' Trust and hauls it away. But when the safe won't open and the cops get close, Dortmunder realizes he's got to find a place to ditch the "bank".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671776436/?tag=2022091-20
(Ever-lovable but hapless crook John Dortmunder and his me...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/044640022X/?tag=2022091-20
( Specialist in the scam, the con, and the rip-off, Jerry...)
Specialist in the scam, the con, and the rip-off, Jerry Manelli is running around New York hot on the trail of a priest: a thousand-year-old, two-foot-tall, ugly, misshapen, dancing Aztec priest made of solid gold, with eyes of pure emeralds, worth a million dollars. Somebody stole it from its museum home in South America and smuggled it through U.S. Customs in a shipment of plastic imitations. But the wrong one got delivered, and the million dollar statue, mixed with the 15 copies, is somewhere in New York. Jerry Manelli is searching for it, as are Wall Street financiers, New Jersey union thugs, Manhattan aristocrats, college professors and PR men, liberated women and unliberated wives, tough guys and conmen, and sharpshooters of every kind. From Harlem to Greenwich Village, from Long Island to Connecticut, the motley group races in and around New York in this comic adventure of the 1970s.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006J3QHG8/?tag=2022091-20
(Featuring Westlake's hapless hero John Dortmunder, this o...)
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."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446693022/?tag=2022091-20
(Fresh out of prison, Dortmunder plans a heist that could ...)
Fresh out of prison, Dortmunder plans a heist that could mean war. John Dortmunder leaves jail with ten dollars, a train ticket, and nothing to make money on but his good name. Thankfully, his reputation goes far. No one plans a caper better than Dortmunder. His friend Kelp picks him up in a stolen Cadillac and drives him away from Sing-Sing, telling a story of a $500,000 emerald that they just have to steal. Dortmunder doesn't hesitate to agree. The emerald is the crown jewel of a former British colony, lately granted independence and split into two nations: one for the Talabwo people, one for the Akinzi. The Akinzi have the stone, the Talabwo want it back, and their UN representative offers a fine payday to the men who can get it. It's not a simple heist, but after a few years in stir, Dortmunder could use the challenge.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453234799/?tag=2022091-20
(Near Fine. New York: Random House, 1964. First Edition. P...)
Near Fine. New York: Random House, 1964. First Edition. Presentation copy, signed and inscribed by the author. Octavo, 185 pp. Blue cloth, black and gilt imprinting. Near Fine Book - with very minor page edge soiling - in Very Good Plus jacket, with small spot peripheral wear. Sharp copy. See scans. An early Westlake "experimental" opus, Pity Him Afterwards, in which the protagonist is a madman masquerading as sane. Not nearly the same mood as Westlake's famed comic Dortmunder detective formula, but because this was just his fifth novel, it can't be called a departure. Interesting and rather startlingly youthful picture of Westlake looking the beatnik on jacket back panel. This copy is from the collection of noted bibliophile Jeffrey Hansen, to whom it has been signed and inscribed by Westlake. Singular and good looking. L18n
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FZ4GQ4K/?tag=2022091-20
(What would it take to lure a young newswoman from a respe...)
What would it take to lure a young newswoman from a respectable New England paper to the most notorious tabloid in America? How about the promise of a salary that's triple what she's making! En route to her new job at the Weekly Galaxy, Sarah Joslyn stumbles across a bloody corpse in a Buick Riviera. A big story? Not in this paper. Instead, Sara finds herself scheming over 100-year-old twins and hunting down a mega-star!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0445408073/?tag=2022091-20
Westlake, Donald Edwin was born on July 12, 1933 in New York City. Son of Albert Joseph and Lillian Marguerite (Bounds) Westlake.
Student, State University of New York, Plattsburgh and Binghamton.
(Is it still possible in this age of generation gap, count...)
(What would it take to lure a young newswoman from a respe...)
( Specialist in the scam, the con, and the rip-off, Jerry...)
(Ever-lovable but hapless crook John Dortmunder and his me...)
(Killy is a first-rate detective story about the solving o...)
( With the help of an unusual set of cronies, bank robber...)
(With the help of an unusual set of cronies, bank robber J...)
(The Hot Rock introduces John Archibald Dortmunder, the th...)
(Featuring Westlake's hapless hero John Dortmunder, this o...)
(In this comic crime caper, Charlie Poole works the bar in...)
(Bumbling comic criminal John Dortmunder is in hot water a...)
(A small South American republic has decided to capitalize...)
(A small South American republic has decided to capitalize...)
( Taking cues from a pulp novel, Dortmunder arranges a ki...)
(A deposed South American dictator has hidden his entire f...)
(Movie star Jack Pine has achieved his success the hard wa...)
( Hiding in the darkness of the trees, he was waiting for...)
( Hiding in the darkness of the trees, he was waiting for...)
(En route to her new job at the Weekly Gazette, Sara stumb...)
( Al Engel had worked his way up to being Nick Rovito's r...)
(Engel had worked his way up to being Nick Rovito's right-...)
(At a mental institution, Mitch Tobin searches for a patie...)
(From the "master of the rolling scam", here is a hilariou...)
(The master of the comic caper is back with a new riotous ...)
(Mint condition, Ballantine Books first paperback edition ...)
(Fresh out of prison, Dortmunder plans a heist that could ...)
(The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blaz...)
(Grofield has a knack for attracting damsels in distress. ...)
(Trust Me on This by Westlake, Donald E. (1988) Hardcover ...)
(Comedy crime novel by Donald E. Westlake)
(A very witty spy adventure .)
(Book by Westlake, Donald E.)
(Book by Westlake, Donald E.)
(This is a hardcover book.)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
(June 1969, New York. Fresh out of prison, John Dortmunder...)
(Two-in-One Hardcover)
(1972: by Donald E. Westlake- British invasion of Anguilla...)
(Book by Donald E. Westlake, Brian Garfield)
(Meet Tom and Joe. They've got homes on Long Island and a ...)
(Amazing Condition)
(CRIME SERIES)
(24x15x3cm. Broché.)
(Near Fine. New York: Random House, 1964. First Edition. P...)
(hardcover)
(230pages. poche. Poche.)
( * mark n. An easy victim; a ready subject for the pract...)
(Mystery.)
(novel)
Served with United States Air Force, 1954-1956.
Married Nedra Henderson, August 10, 1957 (divorced 1966). Married Sandra Foley, April 9, 1967 (divorced 1975). Married Abigail Adams, May 18, 1979.
Children: Sean, Steven, Tod, Paul. Stepchildren: Adrienne Adams, Patrick Adams, Katharine Adams.