The Byzantine Fire: 90 carats of flawless ruby with great national and religious significance. It's the biggest heist of Dortmunder's career, making him the target of everyone from the FBI to the Turkish government. Now Dortmunder has to find a way to unsteal the heist of a lifetime…

In Donald E. Westlake's classic caper novels, the bad get better, the good slide a bit, and Lord help anyone caught between a thief named John Dortmunder and the current object of his attention. However, being caught red-handed is inevitable in Dortmunder's next production, when a TV producer convinces this thief and his merry gang to do a reality show that captures their next score. The producer guarantees to find a way to keep the show from being used in evidence against them. They're dubious, but the pay is good, so they take him up on his offer. A mock-up of the OJ bar is built in a warehouse down on Varick Street. The ground floor of that building is a big open space jumbled with vehicles used in TV world, everything from a news truck and a fire engine to a hansom cab (without the horse). As the gang plans their next move with the cameras rolling, Dortmunder and Kelp sneak onto the roof of their new studio to organize a private enterprise. It will take an ingenious plan to outwit viewers glued to their television sets, but Dortmunder is nothing if not persistent, and he's determined to end this shoot with money in his pockets.

The Bond That Never WasTwo decades ago, the producers of the James Bond movies hired legendary crime novelist Donald E. Westlake to come up with a story for the next Bond film. The plot Westlake dreamed up – about a Western businessman seeking revenge after being kicked out of Hong Kong when the island was returned to Chinese rule – had all the elements of a classic Bond adventure, but political concerns kept it from being made. Never one to let a good story go to waste, Westlake wrote an original novel based on the premise instead – a novel he never published while he was alive.Now, nearly a decade after Westlake's death, Hard Case Crime is proud to give that novel its first publication ever, together with a brand new afterword by one of the movie producers describing the project's genesis, and to give fans their first taste of the Westlake-scripted Bond that might have been.

Bungling burglar John Dortmunder and his merry band of thieves are back in another classic, comic crime novel from the award-winning author of the new hardcover Baby, Would I Lie? Dortmunder and his gang plan to kidnap precocious kid Jimmy Harrington with the help of a crime novel outlining the perfect caper. Reissue.

An ailing ex-president attempts to return to the world stageFew retirements are tougher than that of a former president. For more than a decade, the once-powerful Bradford Lockridge, whose presidency was cut short after one term, has slipped further and further into obscurity. At his lowest point, he flies to California to attend the opening of a supermarket, just for a chance to get some sunshine. After the ceremony ends, Lockridge faints, waking up after a few minutes, confused and stuttering. The ex-president is beginning to die. Before he goes, he wants one last chance to change the world. An arms race is developing with Communist China, and Lockridge had more success than any other president in dealing with the Reds. The world has passed him by, but this ex-president still wants to save it—even if it means risking his own life.

In Donald E. Westlake's classic caper novels, the bad get better, the good slide a bit, and Lord help anyone caught between a thief named John Dortmunder and the current object of his attention. However, being caught red-handed is inevitable in Dortmunder's next production, when a TV producer convinces this thief and his merry gang to do a reality show that captures their next score. The producer guarantees to find a way to keep the show from being used in evidence against them. They're dubious, but the pay is good, so they take him up on his offer. A mock-up of the OJ bar is built in a warehouse down on Varick Street. The ground floor of that building is a big open space jumbled with vehicles used in TV world, everything from a news truck and a fire engine to a hansom cab (without the horse). As the gang plans their next move with the cameras rolling, Dortmunder and Kelp sneak onto the roof of their new studio to organize a private enterprise. It will take an ingenious plan to outwit viewers glued to their television sets, but Dortmunder is nothing if not persistent, and he's determined to end this shoot with money in his pockets.

Meehan, a career thief staring at life without parole, is awaiting sentencing at the Manhattan Correctional Center when he is called to a meeting by someone masquerading as his lawyer. The man, it turns out, represents the presidential re-election campaign committee -- now finding itself in need of a little professional help. So they "outsource" Meehan in return for a walk from all pending criminal charges. All he has to do is steal a compromising video tape before the other side springs an "October Surprise" on the president. A shrewd burglar, Meehan bites, and shows just how easy Watergate would have been had they left it to the professionals.

Fresh out of prison, Dortmunder plans a heist that could mean war John Dortmunder leaves jail with ten dollars, a train ticket, and nothing to make money on but his good name. Thankfully, his reputation goes far. No one plans a caper better than Dortmunder. His friend Kelp picks him up in a stolen Cadillac and drives him away from Sing-Sing, telling a story of a $500,000 emerald that they just have to steal. Dortmunder doesn't hesitate to agree.   The emerald is the crown jewel of a former British colony, lately granted independence and split into two nations: one for the Talabwo people, one for the Akinzi. The Akinzi have the stone, the Talabwo want it back, and their UN representative offers a fine payday to the men who can get it. It's not a simple heist, but after a few years in stir, Dortmunder could use the challenge.

The Handle (aka Run Lethal)Parker, the ruthless antihero of Richard Stark’s eponymous mystery novels, is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose style—and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency—Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of this series to print for a new generation of readers to discover—and become addicted to.In The Handle, Parker is enlisted by the mob to knock off an island casino guarded by speedboats and heavies, forty miles from the Texas coast. "Parker . . . lumbers through the pages of Richard Stark’s noir novels scattering dead bodies like peanut shells. . . . In a complex world [he] makes things simple.”—William Grimes, New York Times“Whatever Stark writes, I read. He’s a stylist, a pro, and I thoroughly enjoy his attitude.”—Elmore Leonard“Westlake knows precisely how to grab a reader, draw him or her into the story, and then slowly tighten his grip until escape is impossible.”—Washington Post Book World“Donald Westlake’s Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you’ve been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust—these are the books you’ll want on that desert island.”—Lawrence BlockReview“Parker is refreshingly amoral, a thief who always gets away with the swag.”(Stephen King Entertainment Weekly )“Parker . . . lumbers through the pages of Richard Stark’s noir novels scattering dead bodies like peanut shells. . . . In a complex world [he] makes things simple.”(William Grimes New York Times )“Whatever Stark writes, I read. He’s a stylist, a pro, and I thoroughly enjoy his attitude.”(Elmore Leonard )“Richard Stark’s Parker novels . . . are among the most poised and polished fictions of their time and, in fact, of any time.”(John Banville Bookforum )“Parker is a true treasure. . . . The master thief is back, along with Richard Stark.”(Marilyn Stasio New York Times Book Review )“Westlake knows precisely how to grab a reader, draw him or her into the story, and then slowly tighten his grip until escape is impossible."(Washington Post )“Elmore Leonard wouldn’t write what he does if Stark hadn’t been there before. And Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t write what he does without Leonard. . . . Old master that he is, Stark does all of them one better.”(Los Angeles Times )“Donald Westlake’s Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you’ve been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust—these are the books you’ll want on that desert island.”(Lawrence Block )“Richard Stark writes a harsh and frightening story of criminal warfare and vengeance with economy, understatement and a deadly amoral objectivity—a remarkable addition to the list of the shockers that the French call roman noirs.”(Anthony Boucher New York Times Book Review )"Parker is a brilliant invention. . . . What chiefly distinguishes Westlake, under whatever name, is his passion for process and mechanics. . . . Parker appears to have eliminated everything from his program but machine logic, but this is merely protective coloration. He is a romantic vestige, a free-market anarchist whose independent status is becoming a thing of the past."(Luc Sante New York Review of Books )"I wouldn't care to speculate about what it is in Westlake's psyche that makes him so good at writing about Parker, much less what it is that makes me like the Parker novels so much. Suffice it to say that Stark/Westlake is the cleanest of all noir novelists, a styleless stylist who gets to the point with stupendous economy, hustling you down the path of plot so briskly that you have to read his books a second time to appreciate the elegance and sober wit with which they are written."(Terry Teachout Commentary )"If you're a fan of noir novels and haven't yet read Richard Stark, you may want to give these books a try. Who knows? Parker may just be the son of a bitch you've been searching for."(John McNally Virginia Quarterly Review )"The University of Chicago Press has recently undertaken a campaign to get Parker back in print in affordable and handsome editions, and I dove in. And now I get it."(Josef Braun Vue Weekly )"Whether early or late, the Parker novels are all superlative literary entertainments."(Terry Teachout Weekly Standard ) From the Publisher4 1.5-hour cassettes

This is a small collection of Donald E. Westlake's more well-known crime and science fiction short stories; as collected by Flyboy707.ABOUT THE AUTHORDonald E. Westlake was born on July 12, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. Westlake, a former US Air Force pilot and one time actor, has become the writer most associated with tales of organised crime. Indeed, in story after story, he has demonstrated his particular belief that crime is actually not very different from any other type of business enterprise-and the intelligent criminal is just, one more example of ‘Organisation Man’. In Westlake’s early novels like ‘Killing Time’ (1961), about the running of a corrupt upstate New York town, he dealt with organised crime from the inside with great objectivity; but over the years elements of humour and the absurd have crept into his work in the shape of bungled robberies and inept confidence tricks. In 1962, by way of contrast, he adopted the pen name Richard Stark and started a series of novels about Parker, a cold-blooded professional thief, who was later transferred to the screen in ‘Point Blank’ featuring Lee Marvin (1967). Not content with this, Westlake invented a second major character, Mitch Tobin, a guilt-ridden former New York cop turned private eye, whose adventures appear under the name Tucker Coe. More recently still, he has begun writing a number of capers about a group of inept thieves led by criminal manqué John Archibald Dortmunder. For this remarkable display of virtuosity, Donald Westlake has won numerous awards, including three Edgars and a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, as well as an Oscar nomination for his screenplay of Jim Thompson’s ‘The Grifters’. In ‘The Sweetest Man in the World’, written in 1967, he mixes his deadpan humour and fascination with organised crime in the tale of a clever fraud... and it’s even cleverer denouement. Donald E. Westlake died of a heart attack on Wednesday, December 31, 2008.  He was 75.