Donald E. Westlake
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
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 3
Language
English
Formats
Description
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...
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 6
Language
English
Formats
Description
Dortmunder agrees to do a dangerous favor for a gang of nuns 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 kind of creature he can imagine: nuns. Although decades removed from his Catholic orphanage, Dortmunder still trembles before the sisters' habits....
4) Why me
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 5
Language
English
Formats
Description
Dortmunder draws international attention when he steals the wrong ring 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 and pen, and passed from nation to nation by all manner of theft and trickery, it finally made its way to the United States. The US has agreed to return...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
When sixteen copies of a famous Aztec statue arrive in New York, men will die to find out which one is the real thing 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 City for an under-the-table sale to...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
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...
7) Get Real
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 14
Language
English
Formats
Description
In Donald E. Westlake's classic caper novels, the bad get better, the good slide a bit, and Lord help anyone caught between a thief named John Dortmunder and the current object of his attention.
However, being caught red-handed is inevitable in Dortmunder's next production, when a TV producer convinces this thief and his merry gang to do a reality show that captures their next score. The producer guarantees to find a way to keep the show from being...
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 4
Language
English
Formats
Description
An art collector hires Dortmunder to steal one of his own paintings It would take a miracle to keep Dortmunder out of jail. Though he cased the electronics store perfectly, the cops surprised him, turning up in the alley just as he was walking out the back door, a television in each hand. Already a two-time loser, without divine intervention he faces a long stretch inside. Then God sends J. Radcliffe Stonewiler, a celebrity lawyer who gets Dortmunder...
Author
Series
Richard Stark's Parker volume 1
Language
English
Description
Darwyn Cooke, Eisner-Award-winning writer/artist, sets his artistic sights on bringing to life one of the true classics of crime fiction: Richard Stark's Parker. Stark was a pseudonym used by the revered and multi-award-winning author, Donald Westlake. The Hunter, the first book in the Parker series, is the story of a man who hits New York head-on like a shotgun blast to the chest. Betrayed by the woman he loved and double-crossed by his partner in...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Fred Fitch is a man who is both pure of heart and substance but utterly credulous. If there is a scam operating anywhere--his rooming house where the General needs a loan to print his revelation of the secret history of the government, the street where the Little Sisters of the Poor are raising funds for the homeless, or just about anywhere in between--Fred finds it or it finds Fred to the same uncertain end. Fred even has his own contact, Reilly,...
11) The hot rock
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 1
Language
English
Formats
Description
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. ...
12) Bank shot
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 2
Language
English
Formats
Description
Instead of robbing a bank, Dortmunder tries to steal the whole building Encyclopedias are heavy, and John Dortmunder is sick of carrying them. While in between jobs, the persistent heist-planner is working an encyclopedia-selling scam that's about to blow up in his face. The cops are on their way when his friend Kelp pulls up in a stolen Oldsmobile, offering a quick escape from the law and a job that's too insane to turn down. Kelp's nephew is...
13) Don't Lie to Me
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Working night security at a museum, Mitch Tobin finds a dead man in his birthday suit When he first met Linda Campbell, Mitchell Tobin was nothing more to her than the man who had put her husband in jail. It took over a year for them to begin their affair, but once it started, it became intense-lasting right up to the day when Tobin shirked duty to see her, and his partner got killed as a result. Years later, on a penny-ante night security job, Tobin...
14) Drowned Hopes
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 7
Language
English
Description
An old cellmate asks Dortmunder for help robbing a reservoir 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 free, he heads straight for John Dortmunder's house. Long ago, Tom buried $700,000,...
15) Wax Apple
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
At a mental institution, Mitch Tobin searches for a patient with a violent sense of humor Mitch Tobin is about to be committed. Since his abrupt dismissal from the NYPD, Tobin's nerves have been frayed, and if it wasn't for his work as a private detective, he might well be in need of actual psychiatric care. But during his stay at the Midway, a halfway house for those recovering from mental illness, he'll only be impersonating a patient while trying...
Author
Language
English
Description
J. Eugene Raxford is not what anyone would call a debonair man of action. He has no class, no skills, and all the physical prowess of a napping tree sloth. James Bond would think twice before letting him park the Aston Martin.
Though he is a devoted pacifist, Raxford is also-thanks to a tragically consequential typo-the supposed leader of a half-baked and violent radical organization. That's why the FBI wants him to go undercover and spy on the...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
A disgraced ex-cop takes a job from a bereaved, gentlemanly mobster Six months ago, Mitchell Tobin lost his career-and with it, his identity. An honest cop drummed out of the force because of one terrible mistake, Tobin has spent six months watching his savings dwindle and his family fall apart. But no matter how badly he needs work, he doesn't want anything to do with Ernie Rembeck, a crime boss whose mistress has just turned up dead. The killer...
18) High Adventure
Author
Language
English
Description
Kirby Galway may be a low-level marijuana smuggler in Belize, but the man has a dream-to make lots and lots of money. So when a local official offers him a back-jungle tract of land he swears would make a perfect cattle ranch, Kirby jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, he lands himself in a swamp-that he now owns. Kirby begins selling homemade "artifacts" from his property to American museums and witless tourists, even building a fake ancient...
19) Comfort Station
Author
Language
English
Description
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...