R.I.P. Donald E. Westlake

One of my heroes, a major inspiration for me as a writer and someone whose kooky stories were rarely anything less than original and engrossing, has passed away from a heart attack at 75.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/bo...e.html?_r=1&hp

Mr. Westlake was the master of the comic crime thriller. He's probably best known for his series about unfortunate NY thief John Dortmunder (the first of these, The Hot Rock, was adapted to film with Robert Redford and George Segal). I credit the Dortmunder books for helping me laugh so much while I suffered through high school (some of them I even read during my classes!)

I'm also a huge fan of the books he wrote under the pseudonyms of Richard Stark (a lot about the Stark books featuring the character of Parker on the Chud forums - just find any threads covering POINT BLANK or PAYBACK) and Tucker Coe, as well as Dancing Aztecs, Two Much, The Hook, Pity Him Afterwards, Help I Am Being Held Prisoner ... the list of great books goes on and on and on.

I finally got to meet and chat with Mr. Westlake at a Mysterious Bookstore signing in Manhattan just two months ago. He was as funny and as gracious in person as I've seen him in interviews. We talked about the Westlake Archives at the Mugar Library at Boston University, and whether he planned to bring back the character of Grofield in a future Parker adventure.

I will miss him terribly.

Jean-Luc Godard's MADE IN U.S.A., very loosely based on Richard Stark's The Jugger, is currently screening at the Film Forum in NYC.

Beg to differ. I thought Ask the Parrot was one of the strongest - just very different from the books on either side of it, and probably unlike anything that came before in the series (it's closest to Deadly Edge for being so unrelentingly goddamn bleak, but other than that I can't find any comparisons).

Not sure how you picked up on the idea that Westlake didn't like Ask the Parrot. In an interview on the PAYBACK: STRAIGHT UP disc, he admits that it was a particularly difficult Parker to write, but I don't remember him giving his opinion of the book. If you've got a link, cough it up.

The 1983 JIMMY THE KID, starring Gary Coleman and Paul Le Mat, is indeed an offensive and dreadful movie. I would place the blame on a script that goes for cheap laughs (though, admittedly, for Dortmunder books this one has perhaps the broadest sense of humor) and director Gary Nelson, who couldn't find the right tone. I have no problem with its casting; Le Mat and Dee Wallace as Dortmunder and May are inspired choices, and they would've been really good in another movie with a talented director.

I've never seen the Italian version, COME TI RAPISCO IL PUPO, nor the German one from '99 (where Jimmy is a girl!), and thus can't weigh in on their quality.

THE BANK SHOT, WHY ME? and WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN? are mediocre at best. Some good performances, an occasional sequence that stays faithful to the source, but too broad and not really true to the characters or Westlake.