One of my favorite writers has passed away, at the age of 75.
I loved his books, both the Dortmunder novels and the Parker series, written under his psuedonym Richard Stark. I didn’t realize that he had written under other aliases until reading his obituary. Nor did I know that he written over 100 books total. Happily, and selfishly, for me I have a lot more of his material left to read.
Thank you Mr. Westlake. You gave this reader countless hours of enjoyment.
This is a lousy way to start the new year.
The Dortmunder books are among my favourites of any kind, and I just finished re-reading all of the Parker and Grofield novels about a month ago.
I’m currently re-reading “The Axe” in preparation for my upcoming job hunt.
He will be missed.
My favorite Donald Westlake novel is Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner!. It was one of the first times I’d met anti-heroes in fiction, and I loved it. I still have the tattered paperback of it on my bookshelf.
I have enjopyed many of his other works, including many of his Dortmunder books, and some of his collections of short fiction.
I agree - he will be missed.
Bad News.
It was the first I read, when I was still too young to get the stuff about Kunt’s name. I haven’t stopped reading Westlake (or Stark) since.
Wow. A sudden heart attack while on vacation. If it weren’t for the effect on his wife, that would be a perfect way to go.
Westlake had perhaps the smoothest prose style of any writer I’ve ever read. You never stumbled for a second on any sentence. I’ve read books of his at three pages per minute, something that would be impossible for any other writer.
He didn’t have fantastic range, his Parker books and his Westlake comic novels being inversions of one another, and he rarely had success outside that comfort zone. Inside, though, he was peerless. He was a master of plot as well, something increasingly rare these days.
It’s hard to remember now how fresh he seemed coming into a very stale crime writing scene in the 1960s. So many others have used his territory and techniques that he sometimes seems a parody of himself. He was the original, though, and certainly the best.
My understanding is that the Dortmunder series began because a Parker novel he was trying to write kept turning into a comedy.
Ha, ha, good one.
I agree about his range, yet I’ve read very few of his other novels. It’d be great if anyone reading this could recommend one or two non-dortmunder/parker books. I bet there are a few gems in there.
Blank Slate - the one I mentioned upthread, isn’t a Dortmunder/Parker book.
Well, it wasn’t really meant as a joke. I just thought that one title said it all.
I very much enjoyed Help! I am Being Held Prisoner!, God Save the Mark, Trust Me on This, and The Busy Body.
Two Much! had an ending that left me feeling really down, so I don’t recommend it.
Kahawa is Westlake’s big adventure novel. But it’s a caper about robbing Idi Amin of a trainload of coffee. So there’s a question about how far off it is. The Ax is a recent darker novel, but also about crime and killing.
He wrote several light books about the “joys” of writing, of which Adios, Scheherezade is probably best known. And is the darkest, too, in many ways.
Here’s a pretty good page of capsule reviews of the Westlake novels. You won’t go too far wrong relying on his recommendations.
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A thread about him here mentions the one occasion on which I met him, and his kindness to me and mine.
RIP.
We knew it was going to happen, someday. But man… it hurts when it does. One of the best writers I know.
(For the uninitiated, think Terry Pratchett meets Ed Bain.)
What always amazed me was how he managed to keep updating his characters for the era. Reading Dortmunder as the electronic age changes things… well, he changes too, and it’s always, always accurate. I think my favorite is Drowned Hopes, because I knew all the places Kelp hit up for gear. They were so like that.
Another Dortmunder fan here.
I liked the part in the obit I read that said he began using pseudonyms because no one could believe he wrote as quickly as he did. 
What was the tally - 90 novels? Wow!
My friends were passing around “The Hot Rock” back in the day. We thought it would make a great movie.
I haven’t read many more of his books, but there’s some interesting looking ones in this thread.
Westlake was one of the few authors whose latest book always went to the top of my “must-read/can’t hardly wait” list. I am ashamed to say that when I read his obit in today’s paper, my first thought was selfish–no more new Dortmunder capers to enjoy.
I hope he had a happy life and that his family is proud of his life’s work being so beloved by so many readers.
I was unaware of the Stark and Parker pseudonyms, but will follow links upthread to expand my Westlake appreciation. Public library, here I come!
And rest in peace, Mr. Westlake. Thanks for creating such rich characters and such engaging plots. I lift a glass of vodka and red wine (Tiny’s drink IIRC) to your memory.
And John’s always, always, always, woefully mistrustful of each new change, just as Andy’s exhilarated by each new toy.
Richard Stark is the pen name for the Parker character.