Donald Edwin Westlake (born July 12th, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York), is a prolific American writer, with over a hundred books, specializing in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional bit of science fiction. He is a three-time Edgar award winner, and was made a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America in 1993, the highest honor they bestow.
Westlake attended Harpur College in Binghamton, New York, and left early. He spent two years in the USAF.
In addition to publishing prolifically under his own name, Westlake has published under numerous pseudonyms, including John B. Allen, Curt Clark, Tucker Coe, Timothy J. Culver, Morgan J. Cunningham, Samuel Holt, Sheldon Lord (with Lawrence Block), Allan Marshall, Richard Stark, and Edwin West.
Westlake is known for the great ingenuity of his plots and the audacity of his gimmicks. His writing and dialogue is lively. His main characters are fully rounded, believable, and extremely clever. Westlake's most famous characters are the hard-boiled Parker (written under the Richard Stark name) and John Dortmunder, the hard-luck criminal genius, who was originally Parker getting caught (to Westlake's surprise) in a comic situation.
Most of Westlake's novels are set in New York City. In the Dortmunder novels, there is usually a detailed shortcut somewhere through the city.
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