Donald E. Westlake

John Dortmunder and his gang of thieves pose as servants in order to secure work at the Pennsylvania estate of corrupt CEO Monroe Hall for the express purpose of stealing Hall's multi-million dollar collection of vintage cars, but their plan begins to fall apart when they discover there are others out there who want Hall to pay for the losses they suffered as a result of his criminal activities.

Having burgled a truck that he didn't realize contained U.S. mail, Francis Meehan is serving his first stint of federal time. A week into his term, however, a visitor to the prison offers him a reprieve of sorts. To gain his freedom, Meehan has only to steal a videotape that may be of harm to the President, an item currently possessed by someone from the cryptically named "other side." Working with his lawyer and some trusted thieves, Meehan must...

A mob boss's right-hand man must track down a missing cache of heroin 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, and enjoys the affair until he learns the dead man is going to his grave wearing the blue suit. Rovito summons Engel,...

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...

When John Dortmunder sets out to rob a bank, he really means it. He steals the whole thing. With the help of a sophomoric ex-FBI man, a militant safe-cracker, and old standbys Andy Kelp, Stan Murch, and Murch's Mom, Dortmunder puts a set of wheels under a trailer that just happens to be the temporary site of the Capitalists' & Immigrants' Trust ("Just Watch Us Grow!"). But when the safe won't open and the cops get close, Dortmunder realizes he's got...

En route to her new job at a newspaper office, Sara Joslyn finds a bloody corpse hanging half out of a dark blue car.

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...

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...

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.  ...

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...