Donald E. Westlake
Author
Pub. Date
2011
Language
English
Formats
Description
The hunt is on for a valuable statue in this comic crime thriller from “the funniest man in the world” (The Washington Post).
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...
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...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
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...
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...
3) Get Real
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
In Donald E. Westlake's Get Real, the bad get better, the good slide a bit, and Lord help anyone caught between a thief and the current object of his attention: laughs "land on every page" (New York Times).
Getting caught red-handed is inevitable when a TV producer convinces a thief named John Dortmunder — and his merry gang — to do a reality show that captures their next score. The producer guarantees...
Getting caught red-handed is inevitable when a TV producer convinces a thief named John Dortmunder — and his merry gang — to do a reality show that captures their next score. The producer guarantees...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A kidnapping plan cribbed from a crime novel goes hilariously wrong for gang boss John Dortmunder—from the Edgar Award–winning author of Bank Shot.
When his “friend” Andy Kelp has a plan, career criminal John Dortmunder knows that means trouble. Kelp’s 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...
When his “friend” Andy Kelp has a plan, career criminal John Dortmunder knows that means trouble. Kelp’s 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...
5) Why Me?
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Be careful what you steal . . . A fast-paced crime caper from the Edgar Award–winning author and “funniest man in the world” (The Washington Post Book World).
The Byzantine Fire is much more than a ninety-carat ruby. As a stone it’s worth over a million dollars, a value vastly increased by its pure gold band—but its history makes it priceless. A ring that has been fought for with sword...
The Byzantine Fire is much more than a ninety-carat ruby. As a stone it’s worth over a million dollars, a value vastly increased by its pure gold band—but its history makes it priceless. A ring that has been fought for with sword...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A hapless thief is drafted by a gang of nuns in need, in a novel by an Edgar Award winner who “has no peer in the realm of comic mystery novelists” (San Francisco Chronicle).
It was supposed to be a simple caviar heist. Dortmunder is almost in the building when the alarm sounds, forcing him up the fire escape and onto the roof. He leaps onto the next building, smashing his ankle and landing in the den of the worst...
It was supposed to be a simple caviar heist. Dortmunder is almost in the building when the alarm sounds, forcing him up the fire escape and onto the roof. He leaps onto the next building, smashing his ankle and landing in the den of the worst...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
In this "furiously funny" new novel from Donald Westlake, career thief John Dortmunder is back to steal a fleet of vintage cars from a corrupt CEO (New York Times).
The con is on. The mark is Monroe Hall, a CEO who lavished more of his company's money on himself than the boys at Enron and WorldCom combined.
The loot? A fleet of vintage automobiles that would leave the Sultan of Brunei blushing.
The catch? Trying to outsmart...
The con is on. The mark is Monroe Hall, a CEO who lavished more of his company's money on himself than the boys at Enron and WorldCom combined.
The loot? A fleet of vintage automobiles that would leave the Sultan of Brunei blushing.
The catch? Trying to outsmart...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
In his classic caper novels, Donald E. Westlake turns the world of crime and criminals upside-down: the bad get better, the good get worse, and God save anyone caught between a thief named John Dortmunder and his most improbable plans.
It's a long way from the island of Manhattan to the island resort where Preston Fareweather has his hedonistic hideout-avoiding the legal prosecutions of five embittered ex-wives and enjoying the attentions...
It's a long way from the island of Manhattan to the island resort where Preston Fareweather has his hedonistic hideout-avoiding the legal prosecutions of five embittered ex-wives and enjoying the attentions...
Author
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Formats
Description
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...
10) Put a Lid on It
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
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...
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...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Sometimes winning feels an awful lot like losing in this “comic caper” about a New York City cabbie whose outrageous mishaps “keep us smiling along in the backseat” (Booklist)
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...
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...
12) The Busy Body
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Merriment, mayhem and a plot that really keeps you guessing" from the Grand Master of Mystery and author of the John Dortmunder novels (Kirkus Reviews).
The corpse isn't anybody special—a low-level drug courier—but it has been so long since the organization's last grand funeral that Nick Rovito decides to give the departed a big send-off. He pays for a huge church, a procession of Cadillacs, and an ocean of flowers,...
The corpse isn't anybody special—a low-level drug courier—but it has been so long since the organization's last grand funeral that Nick Rovito decides to give the departed a big send-off. He pays for a huge church, a procession of Cadillacs, and an ocean of flowers,...
Author
Pub. Date
2012
Language
English
Formats
Description
BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS.
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...
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...
14) The Cutie
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
SOME PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR MONEY
Mavis St. Paul had been a rich man’s mistress. Now she was a corpse. And every cop in New York City was hunting for the two-bit punk accused of putting a knife in her.
But the punk was innocent. He’d been set up to take the fall by some cutie who was too clever by half. My job? Find that cutie – before the cutie found me.
Mavis St. Paul had been a rich man’s mistress. Now she was a corpse. And every cop in New York City was hunting for the two-bit punk accused of putting a knife in her.
But the punk was innocent. He’d been set up to take the fall by some cutie who was too clever by half. My job? Find that cutie – before the cutie found me.
15) Memory
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
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...
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...
16) 361
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blazing. When Ray woke up in the hospital a month later, he was missing an eye, and his father was dead. Then things started to get bad...
From the incomparable Donald E. Westlake comes a devastating story of betrayal and revenge, exploring the limits of family loyalty and how far a man will go when everything he loves is taken from him.
From the incomparable Donald E. Westlake comes a devastating story of betrayal and revenge, exploring the limits of family loyalty and how far a man will go when everything he loves is taken from him.
Author
Series
Hard case Crime book volume 129
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Formats
Description
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,...
18) Bank Shot
Author
Series
Publisher
MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Pub. Date
2011
Language
English
Formats
Description
A crew of thieves hopes to hijack a mobile home full of money in this crime caper from “the funniest man in the world” (The Washington Post).
John Dortmunder has been working an encyclopedia-selling scam while waiting for his next big heist. Unfortunately, his latest mark seems to be wise to the con, and he has to cut his sales pitch short and make a quick escape.
But opportunity awaits: Main Street...
John Dortmunder has been working an encyclopedia-selling scam while waiting for his next big heist. Unfortunately, his latest mark seems to be wise to the con, and he has to cut his sales pitch short and make a quick escape.
But opportunity awaits: Main Street...
19) The Hot Rock
Author
Series
Publisher
MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Pub. Date
2011
Language
English
Formats
Description
Edgar Award Finalist: A comical crime caper “filled with action and imagination” (The New York Times Book Review).
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...
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...
20) Drowned Hopes
Author
Series
Publisher
MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Pub. Date
2011
Language
English
Formats
Description
This rollicking tale of an aging robber who wants to blow up a reservoir “will keep readers laughing” (Publishers Weekly).
In his day, Tom was a hard man. He came up with Dillinger in the 1930s, and pulled a lot of high-profile jobs before the state put him away. They meant it to be for good, but after twenty-three years the prisons are too crowded for seventy-year-old bank robbers, and so they let the old man go. Finally...
In his day, Tom was a hard man. He came up with Dillinger in the 1930s, and pulled a lot of high-profile jobs before the state put him away. They meant it to be for good, but after twenty-three years the prisons are too crowded for seventy-year-old bank robbers, and so they let the old man go. Finally...