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 bank has temporarily relocated to a mobile home. All Dortmunder has to do is get past seven security guards, put the bank-on-wheels in gear, and drive away. It's a simple plan, until it all goes wrong . . . Perfect for fans of Carl Hiaasen or Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr series, the Dortmunder novels by New York Times-bestselling and multiple Edgar Award-winning author Donald E. Westlake are a rollicking treat that combine fast-moving suspense with laugh-out-loud wit. Bank Shot is a "hilarious" standout in the series (The New York Times).

WAS DONALD E. WESTLAKE A SCIENCE FICTION WRITER?

Everyone knows him as the mystery writer who published books like "The Hook" (2000), "Bad News" 2001, and "Put a Lid on It" (2002) under his own name, Donald E. Westlake, and of course that he was also Richard Stark and a number of other favorite authors. But a science fiction writer? -- Really? -- You bet he was, early on in his career. (He even wrote one SF novel -- "Anarchaos," in 1966, as "Curt Clark.")

He also wrote quite a bit of short SF, like this weird little SF mystery that first graced the pages of "Amazing" in 1963.

It's an engaging little tale, set in a asteroid-belt colony: our hero is an investigator for an interplanetary insurance company, ferreting out the truth behind suspicious (and sometimes, uhm, otherworldly) insurance claims. . . .

When plotting a murder (figuratively speaking), the mystery writer has at hand any number of M.O.s, including such tried and true conventions as the locked room, the unbreakable alibi, the double bluff, and the mistaken identity. Now, in Murderous Schemes, renowned mystery writers Donald E. Westlake and J. Madison Davis offer an illuminating look at eight such mystery conventions, illustrating each with four short stories written by some of the masters of the form. The resulting collection of thirty-two tales spans a hundred and fifty years of crime fiction and includes virtually every style imaginable, from the hard-boiled detective story to the cozy armchair mystery. the differences between American and British detective fiction, and they illuminate the evolution of crime writing over time. Here is a glorious treasure chest of tales that cover every crime in the book, written by a who's who of crime fiction-Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy L. Sayers, Chester Himes, Edward D. Hoch, and Lawrence Block, to name but a few. Bringing together a century and a half of superb crime stories, Murderous Schemes is a glorious collection that will inform and delight anyone who loves mystery and mayhem.

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..

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 Josee 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

John Dortmunder left prison with the warm words of the warden ringing in his ears and not one chance of going straight. Soon Dortmunder was riding in a stolen Cadillac with venetian blinds, reuniting with old friends and scheming to heist a large emerald belonging to a small African nation. As always, his planning is meticulous. As always, the execution is not. Undaunted, Dortmunder is now chasing the gem by plane, train, and automobile. Because this hot rock has a way of getting stolen—not just once, but again and again and again...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Burke Devore is a paper company manager, a man who can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about bleaching processes and the edible wood pulp they put in ice cream. For twenty-five years Burke has provided for his family and played by the rules. Until now. Now Devore is slipping away: from his wife, his family, and from all norms of civilized behavior. Burke Devore wants his life back. And he will do anything to get it. Donald E. Westlake has written a tale of dark, mesmerizing power about one quiet, ordinary victim of corporate downsizing - who reacts in a most extraordinary way. From his attempts to land a new job, to the growing rift between him and his loved ones, Devore knows that he is running out of time. Believing that there is just one way to earn the only job he has a chance of getting, he sets off on a path from which there can be no turning back - no matter how bizarre and violent, no matter who gets in the way; no matter how evil Burke Devore becomes. Burke Devore is gunning for his competition, and it's getting easier every time...

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.

"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, and enjoys the affair until he learns the dead man is going to his grave wearing the blue suit. Rovito summons Engel, his right-hand man, and tells him to get a shovel. Inside the lining of the blue suit jacket is $250,000 worth of uncut heroin, smuggled back from Baltimore the day the courier died. When Engel's shovel strikes coffin, he braces himself for the encounter with the dead man. But the coffin is empty, the heroin gone, and Engel has no choice but to track down the missing body or face his boss's wrath.

The Grand Master of Mystery delivers "nerve-end-entertainment" when two of New York's finest set out to become two of New York's richest (Kirkus Reviews). Tom and Joe have been walking the beat on the mean streets of the Big Apple longer than they can remember-or care to. They've been good cops, protecting the public and holding the line against crime and chaos in a city that has plenty of both. And all they have to show for it is a whole lot of nothing. But now the partners have devised a scheme to make all their dreams come true: the perfect heist. Tom and Joe are going to rob the fat cats on Wall Street for millions and walk away clean. With the right connections and the proper execution, there's no way their plan can fail. And that's why they're so surprised when everything goes totally, hysterically wrong . . . With Cops and Robbers, the three-time Edgar Award-winning author, named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, offers "another very hot and successful" novel with "a siren shrill finale" (Kirkus Reviews). Praise for Donald E. Westlake "Westlake has no peer in the realm of comic mystery novelists." -San Francisco Chronicle "No writer can excel Donald E. Westlake." -Los Angeles Times

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...

Anatomy of a Killer: Sam Jordan never lets emotion interfere with his work as a precise, ruthless killing machine. That is, until the day that Sandy sends him out on the Kemp job where there is Betty, the waitress, a willing brown-haired girl who doesn't seem to want anything from him. Jordan makes his first mistake: he begins to feel human. A Shroud For Jesso: Jack Jesso is an American gangster exiled in a strange household in Hanover, Germany. It is the home of Kator, an arrogant spy and total bastard, Kator's sister, Renette, and her strange husband, Baron Helmut. Jesso upsets the delicate balance in the house, fighting for Renette and a half million dollars, and his life.

"They built a spaceship, is the long and the short of it," Darquelnoy, the alien who'd been on the earth's moon for ages. observing.

Ebor, an old friend of his, stopped in astonishment. "No "

"Don't tell me no " cried Darquelnoy. "I "saw" it " He was obviously at his wit's end.

"It's unbelievable," said Ebor.

"I know," said Darquelnoy. He led the way into his quarters, motioned Ebor to a perch, and rang for his orderly. "It was just a little remote-controlled apparatus, of course," he said. "The fledgling attempt, you know. But it circled this Moon here, busily taking pictures, and went right back to the planet again, giving us all a terrible fright. There hadn't been the slightest indication they were planning anything "that" spectacular."

"None?" asked Ebor. "Not a hint?"

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 book! The novel featured a kidnapping so brilliant there's no way it wouldn't work in real life. Though offended that his usual role as heist planner has been usurped, Dortmunder reluctantly agrees to the scheme. Unfortunately, they kidnap a kid smarter than all of them put together. What's simple on the page turns complex and chaotic-and there's no reference guide to help Dortmunder through the madness he's signed on for. "[Westlake's] most durable character. Whatever can go wrong in the man's elaborate attempts at larceny invariably does, and in the most amusing and unexpected ways possible." -Los Angeles Times "Westlake has no peer in the realm of comic mystery novelists." -San Francisco Chronicle