Prolific author “of more than 90 books — most of them written on a typewriter — Westlake wrote under a variety of pseudonyms including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Edwin West — in part because people didn’t believe he could write so much, so fast.” (www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-westlake2-2009jan02,0,2902199.story)

LA Times article

“As Stark, Westlake wrote a dark, spare series about a one-named criminal called Parker. “The Hunter,” the novel that introduced Parker, was described by critic Anthony Boucher as “a harsh and frightening story of criminal vengeance . . . written with economy, understatement and a deadly amoral objectivity.” The book was later adapted by director John Boorman into the 1967 film “Point Blank,” starring Lee Marvin. And in 1999, the book was the basis for the Mel Gibson film “Payback.”

But writing under his own name, Westlake produced a series of books, comic in tone, about the criminal turns of John Dortmunder, whose efforts at organized crime are anything but organized.” (www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-westlake2-2009jan02,0,2902199.story)

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