Search results for ""Author Donald E. Westlake""

A formerly rich businessman thrown out of Hong Kong when the Chinese took over from the British decides to fix his dire financial problems and take revenge on the Chinese by tunneling under Hong Kong’s bank vaults and stealing all their gold, then using a doomsday device to set off a “soliton wave” that will turn the ground to sludge, causing the whole city to collapse. Only the engineer on his staff who designed the soliton wave technology (intending it for good purposes, to help with construction projects) can stop him, working together with a beautiful young environmental activist who gets caught up in one of the soliton tests and nearly killed. From the deck of a yacht near the Great Barrier Reef to Australia and Singapore and finally Hong Kong itself, it’s a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as our heroes first struggle to escape the villain’s clutches and then thwart his insanely destructive plan.

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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. When four groups of international heist artists team up to pull off the theft of the century - stealing an entire castle, and the treasure secreted 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 Westlake at his wildest, a breathless slapstick chase through the streets of France with the law in hot pursuit... 'Westlake is a talent of uncommon talent, imagination, flair and unpredictability' - Los Angeles Times 'The kookiest caper... The craziest con artists... The hilarious new misadventure by 'the Neil Simon of the crime novel' - The New York Times Book Review on original publication

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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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In Westlake's brilliantly bizarre and always amusing world, it's usually the thief who comes out on top. But times could be changing. When a TV producer convinces our roguish crook Dortmunder and his gang to star in a reality TV show that captures their next heist, being caught red-handed seems inevitable. It will take an ingenious plan to outwit viewers glued to their TV sets, but Dortmunder rises to the challenge. In this last crime novel from an undisputed master of the genre the well worn phrase 'The eyes of the nation are upon you' takes on a whole new meaning - let's hope Dortmunder doesn't get stage-fright.

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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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A formerly rich businessman thrown out of Hong Kong when the Chinese took over from the British decides to fix his dire financial problems and take revenge on the Chinese by tunneling under Hong Kong's bank vaults and stealing all their gold, then using a doomsday device to set off a "soliton wave" that will turn the ground to sludge, causing the whole city to collapse. Only the engineer on his staff who designed the soliton wave technology (intending it for good purposes, to help with construction projects) can stop him, working together with a beautiful young environmental activist who gets caught up in one of the soliton tests and nearly killed. From the deck of a yacht near the Great Barrier Reef to Australia and Singapore and finally Hong Kong itself, it's a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as our heroes first struggle to escape the villain's clutches and then thwart his insanely destructive plan.

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Dortmunder's past comes back to haunt him when he returns home after an unsuccessful burglary and finds his old cellmate sitting in his living room. He needs Dortmunder's help in retrieving $700,000 that he'd buried in a small town 30 years before. The problem is that, while he sat in jail, the State of New York flooded the area to build a reservoir; the loot is now under a few feet of dirt and many feet of water. Being a man of great determination but few ethical principles, the thief plans to blow up the dam, emptying the reservoir but also flooding the inhabited countryside to get at his stash. Dortmunder pleads with him to be allowed to retrieve the money another way. His first attempt fails. And his second. And third. Meanwhile the thief is losing patience...

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The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam. 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. And not the five remaining members of the People's Revolutionary Army, who've decided that kidnapping Koo would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life.

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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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JAILED FOR A JOKE It isn't easy going to jail for being a practical joker. Of course, this particular joke left 20 cars wrecked on the highway and two politicians' careers in tatters - so jail is where Harold Kunt 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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Donald Westlake turns the world of crime and criminals upside down and has the last laugh in WHAT'S SO FUNNY?, his latest comic caper novel. His perennially depressed master thief, John Dortmunder, finds himself involved an impossible crime, one he doesn't want and doesn't believe in and which he'd rather avoid if possible...but a little blackmail goes a long way.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. Unfortunately for everyone, then and now, he became the last Romanov czar without making it to his own birthday party. From the moment Dortmunder reaches for his first pawn, he faces insurmountable odds...

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Over the course of a fifty-year career, Donald 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 at 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 background, experience, and 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 a 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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