Rest in Peace- Donald E Westlake

[Baruch Menachem]

One of my favorite authors, Donald E Westlake died of a heart attack in Mexico. 

The end of something very good

Donald E Westlake, who died on New Year's Eve aged 75, was one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in America; he often wove a thread of fun and even farce into his crime novels, earning from the editor and publisher Otto Penzler the accolade of "the most consistently humorous writer of mystery and crime fiction the world has ever seen".

In a lengthy career that spanned half a century, Westlake won three Edgar Awards; an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay adaptation of The Grifters, filmed by the British director Stephen Frears in 1991; and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

Although he owed much to the early 20th-century English crime farceurs "for whom" (as the British connoisseur Julian Symons remarked) "the business of fictional murder was endlessly amusing", Westlake repudiated the cosy British whodunnit tradition; he witheringly dismissed Agatha Christie, and in 1995, at a crime writing convention in Nottingham, rudely called PD James, one of the grandes dames of the genre, a "dimwit".

Westlake's own prodigious output, characterised by fast-paced plots and quick-fire dialogue, amounted to more than 100 books – mostly pounded out on one of his two typewriters – published under a variety of names. Under his own, he wrote about the antics of his hapless criminal protagonist John Dortmunder, introduced in Bank Shot (1972).

very funny writer about very real people.

[JakeStyle]

  He will be missed.  I have read the entire Dortmunder series and absolutely love them, with Drowned Hopes being the best IMHO.  I think his best work was Kahawa an excellent thriller set in Uganda during Idi Amins' reign.  The Parker series that he wrote as Richard Stark is also excpetional.
  I loved the guy and wish nothing but the best for his family and friends.