Donald Edwin Westlake (July 12, 1933 – December 31, 2008) was an American author and screenwriter who wrote under his own name and also the Pen Name of Richard Stark.
The author of more than a hundred novels over a sixty year career, Westlake was famous for his crime novels of multiple emotional ranges. He wrote about Stupid Crooks comedy stories, Hard Boiled Detective tales, Conspiracy Thriller stories of both dark and light natures, books about sociopathic murderers from the POV of the murderers, and quite a bit in between.
Novels with their own pages:
- The Parker Series
- Dancing Aztecs
- The Sam Holt series
- Help I Am Being Held Prisoner
- Forever and a Death (based off of an unproduced James Bond screenplay Westlake wrote)
- Somebody Owes Me Money
- The Dortmunder series
- The Mitch Tobin series
- The Cutie
- Smoke
- Brothers Keepers
- Killing Time
- Sacred Monster
Screenplays:
Films adapted from his works:
- Point Blank (1967) from (The Hunter)
- Payback (also from The Hunter)
- The Axe (from The Ax)
- Parker (from Flashfire)