Donald E Westlake Books in Order

Stockbroker Martin and his wife Eloise preserve their marriage while pursuing other relationships among Manhattan's wealthy and artistic circles. A weekend in the Catskills brings their grievances and competing attachments together, exposing the manipulation beneath their apparently permissive arrangement.

Inexperienced actor Phil Crawford joins a summer-stock theater company knowing none of its members. His encounters with four women turn the season into an education in relationships, ambition and the complicated personal lives that unfold behind the stage.

Daniel Blake takes a college teaching job after his writing career stalls, intending to return to New York after a year. A comfortable relationship with Ann and an affair with a student complicate his choice between security and literary ambition.

Confident young Vince undertakes a journey in pursuit of romantic experience, convinced he understands the world already. A succession of encounters and reversals challenges that certainty, turning his travels into an education he did not expect.

A rich man's mistress is found murdered, and New York's police pursue a small-time criminal who has been framed. The narrator must identify whoever arranged the killing before the same schemer can eliminate him as well.

After their parents' deaths, siblings Paul and Angie retreat into an increasingly unhealthy dependence on each other. Paul's failed marriage deepens their isolation, and their crossing of a family taboo brings a struggle with guilt and consequences.

Jackie Hayes begins selling sex to pay her college expenses, then expands the venture into a business involving other students. Drugs and demands for protection complicate her plans, leaving her struggling with dangers she had not anticipated.

Private investigator Tim Smith knows the corruption that sustains his small town and believes he understands its power brokers. When someone tries to shoot him, an approaching reform campaign makes his knowledge a dangerous asset and leaves him questioning his alliances.

Walt McKay visits New York City for the first time and becomes involved in the sex-film business on Forty-Second Street. Encounters with its unusual participants draw the Ohio newcomer into a situation whose dangers exceed his initial expectations.

At a Park Avenue women's magazine in 1960, a curious intern becomes entangled with a lesbian editor and a male co-editor. Their overlapping attractions place desire and workplace relationships at the center of life within New York's publishing world.

An armed attack leaves Ray hospitalized, missing an eye, and mourning his father. Seeking answers draws him into a story of betrayal and revenge, where family loyalty is tested by the violence that has shattered his life.

Paul Standish accompanies experienced union organizer Walter Killy to a town where workers want to challenge a company union. Arrest and police brutality overturn the apprentice's expectations, while a murder accusation pulls both organizers into a more dangerous conflict.

Escaped killer Robert Ellington assumes a murdered actor's identity and joins a summer-stock theater company. His talent for imitation conceals the danger among the performers, until further killings turn their season into a struggle to recognize the threat.

Charlie Poole's uneventful work at his gangster uncle's Brooklyn bar ends when two hit men arrive to kill him. Fleeing their pursuit, he becomes implicated in another murder while trying to discover why the mob wants him dead.

Dismissed policeman Mitch Tobin reluctantly accepts a mob boss's offer to investigate the murder of his mistress. Financial desperation draws him out of isolation, but working without a badge leaves him exposed to the organization's threats and uncertain rules.

A consequential typo makes pacifist J. Eugene Raxford appear to lead a violent radical organization. The FBI sends him undercover among genuine terrorists, where his lack of practical skills and his girlfriend's involvement complicate an already dangerous deception.

Mobster Engel is ordered to recover heroin hidden in the suit of a recently buried courier. Discovering an empty coffin turns the assignment into a search for the missing corpse, with his boss's anger threatening to make failure fatal.

After serving time for murder on Earth, Rolf Malone travels to Anarchaos to investigate his brother's death. The planet's lawless society forces him into a fight for survival while he pursues the vengeance that brought him there.

Habitual fraud victim Fred Fitch unexpectedly inherits a fortune from an uncle he never knew. New acquaintances quickly surround him, and the gullible New Yorker must navigate their competing interests as the inheritance threatens his life as well as his money.

Former cop Mitch Tobin agrees to help young people whose Greenwich Village coffee shop is targeted by a corrupt detective. Finding his relative Robin bloodied beside two corpses forces him to investigate evidence that seems overwhelmingly incriminating.

Philip receives a toy dump truck but cannot find any dirt to play with outside his city apartment. His attempts to collect soil around the building bring him into conflict with its doorman in this illustrated children's story.

Murder, conspiracy and suspense take unexpected comic turns in this collection of short stories. Westlake brings a playful approach to crime, setting violence and intrigue alongside absurd situations and the possibility that wrongdoers may receive their just deserts.

Film star Sassi Manoon is abducted during a festival on a Caribbean island by a peculiar group of kidnappers. Their enterprise involves a yacht, an eccentric inventor and an impersonator, while the captive proves unexpectedly unconcerned about her situation.

Cabdriver Chet Conway follows a passenger's horse-racing tip, then finds his bookmaker murdered when he comes to collect. Police, rival gangs and the victim's avenging sister all complicate his attempt to prove his innocence and obtain his winnings.

Oliver Abbott accepts a teaching job at a predominantly Black New York high school, unaware the community wanted a Black teacher appointed. Protests and a student strike surround him, while his growing interest in activist Leona Roof complicates the controversy.

Mitch Tobin is asked to help Ronald Cornell solve his partner's murder by gathering information for astrological charts. The former policeman doubts Cornell's method, but continued killings draw him into an investigation the police have given up.

Ed Topliss writes adult paperbacks for a living but finds himself unable to produce his next manuscript as its deadline approaches. Repeated attempts to begin the book increasingly incorporate his own difficulties, exposing the strain behind his formulaic trade.

Mo Mowgli looks after Bryant Park's public restroom, a modest refuge shared by people from every social level. The arrival of a mobster, policeman, countess and dictator brings an extraordinary collision of lives into his ordinary workplace.

Former president Bradford Lockridge suffers a stroke that renews his determination to remain politically significant. His search for a final achievement unfolds within a family saga, where relatives' ambitions and private troubles intersect with his attempt to regain purpose.

Fresh from prison, thief John Dortmunder is recruited by Andy Kelp to steal a valuable emerald. The job promises a return to professional crime, but recovering the same stone repeatedly turns one planned robbery into a succession of increasingly troublesome heists.

Mitch Tobin poses as a resident at a halfway house to uncover whoever has been setting dangerous booby traps. An early attack breaks his arm, making the investigation a test of survival as well as his already strained nerves.

Television announcer Jay Fisher is sent to investigate reports of a secret invasion of the Caribbean island of Ilha Pombo. His assignment brings him into storms, political encounters and personal complications far removed from his routine celebrity interviews.

John Dortmunder and his crew decide to steal an entire bank operating temporarily from a trailer. When its safe resists their efforts and police close in, they must find somewhere on Long Island to hide their unwieldy prize.

New York policemen Tom and Joe are tired of honest work bringing them little reward and devise a multimillion-dollar Wall Street heist. Their knowledge of crime seems to promise a clean getaway, until the supposedly perfect operation begins unraveling.

Former policeman Mitchell Tobin's night-security job at a museum is interrupted by an old lover seeking help for her ex-convict husband. Discovering a naked corpse complicates that request, drawing Tobin toward another investigation and the painful consequences of his past.

In 1969, Britain sends troops to Anguilla amid fears of rebellion and criminal influence. Westlake examines an invasion met by bemused islanders, goats and reporters, tracing how official assumptions turned a Caribbean dispute into an international farce.

Practical joker Harry Künt lands in prison after a stunt causes a disastrous traffic accident. Inmates with a secret escape tunnel recruit him for bank robberies, forcing Harry to navigate their criminal plans while attempting to avoid even worse trouble.

Andy Kelp convinces John Dortmunder to plan a kidnapping using a Richard Stark crime novel as their blueprint. The fictional scheme seems foolproof, but real people and unforeseen complications quickly expose the dangers of treating a book as an instruction manual.

Monks at a century-old New York monastery learn their home faces demolition for a high-rise development. Determined to preserve their community, the brothers take increasingly unconventional steps against unscrupulous opponents, testing the commandments in a battle over valuable Park Avenue property.

Art invents an identical twin to impress a woman who has a twin sister herself. When he impersonates his imaginary brother to pursue the second sister and her fortune, the convenient lie grows into an increasingly complicated romantic deception.

A sculptor secretly ships a valuable golden Aztec statue to New York among replica copies, but a delivery mix-up sends the original astray. Courier Jerry Manelli must track it through the city before the confusion brings deadly consequences.

A wealthy art collector arranges legal help for Dortmunder, then hires him to steal a painting for insurance money. To make the fraud convincing, the collector refuses inside assistance, leaving Dortmunder navigating a burglary that becomes far less straightforward than promised.

Two novellas explore crime and unsettling discoveries. A film critic who kills his girlfriend finds himself playing detective, while another man confronts an astonishing revelation about his past that forces him to reconsider what he thought he knew.

Four international groups of thieves collaborate to steal an entire castle and the treasure concealed within it. Language barriers, uncertainty about the loot's location, and competing plans to keep everything turn the elaborate operation into a chaotic struggle through Paris.

A band of mercenaries and opportunists plans to steal a train carrying millions of dollars' worth of coffee in Idi Amin's Uganda. Their conflicting motives and dangerous political surroundings make the ambitious robbery a gamble against a murderous regime.

Dortmunder's routine pawnshop burglary accidentally nets a priceless ruby stolen earlier by someone else. Politicians, terrorists, police, and fellow criminals all want it back, leaving the bewildered thief searching for a way to undo the most troublesome success of his career.

A financially desperate freelance writer tries to make money by assembling a Christmas anthology. His project exposes the competing ambitions and absurdities of authors, editors, and publishers, turning an apparently simple commercial idea into a tangled satire of the book business.

Brooklyn detective Abe Levine confronts crime while struggling with the pressures of middle age and dangerous police work. These stories follow a man whose professional encounters with death are inseparable from his growing concern about his own mortality.

Fleeing a failed burglary, Dortmunder lands in a convent and receives help from its nuns. Their price is rescuing a young sister imprisoned by her wealthy father, forcing the reluctant thief to plan an almost impossible extraction from a guarded penthouse.

Small-time smuggler Kirby Galway buys swamp land in Belize and turns it into a fake archaeological attraction. Selling invented artifacts brings money, but reporters, an archaeologist, and armed guerrillas threaten the scam and leave him scrambling to survive his own invention.

A murder mystery staged at Mohonk Mountain House becomes a puzzle readers can investigate for themselves. Donald and Abby Westlake present the plot, suspects and clues, inviting readers to work through the case before consulting its solution.

New journalist Sara Joslyn joins a sensational tabloid where ruthlessness counts more than accuracy. A corpse, outrageous assignments, and fiercely competitive coworkers introduce her to the business, while covering a television star's secret wedding demands increasingly inventive efforts to secure a scoop.

Hollywood star Jack Pine has built his career through ambition and manipulation. His longtime friend Buddy Pal knows the secrets behind that success, and their tangled relationship exposes how far Pine will go to protect his fame.

Westlake combines crime and speculative fiction in a collection of short stories and the novel Anarchaos. These works move beyond conventional detective settings, bringing his interest in danger and criminal behavior into imagined futures and unfamiliar worlds.

Dortmunder's former cellmate wants help recovering robbery money buried beneath a flooded town. The man's plan to destroy the reservoir dam would kill innocent people, so Dortmunder must devise a safer way to retrieve the cash before impatience causes disaster.

God orders the angel Ananayel to bring about humanity's destruction by nudging people into annihilating themselves. The angel gathers five unlikely individuals around a physicist's dangerous experiments, while the requirement to preserve free will complicates the supernatural assignment.

Dortmunder is hired to steal a saint's ancient thighbone, a relic contested by two newly formed European countries. Its possession could determine international recognition, turning his gang's peculiar assignment into a struggle involving diplomacy, religion, and predictably uncooperative circumstances.

Hoping to escape tabloid work, reporter Sara Joslyn is assigned to a grisly murder trial involving country musician Ray Jones. In Branson, Missouri, competing journalists and her old coworkers crowd the investigation, challenging her determination to practice more respectable journalism.

Burglar Freddie Noon swallows experimental formulas during a laboratory break-in and becomes invisible. The apparent advantage creates unexpected practical problems, while criminals, a corrupt policeman, and tobacco researchers pursue him for their own purposes, making disappearance anything but a safe escape.

Billionaire Max Fairbanks catches Dortmunder during a burglary and takes the thief's supposedly lucky ring. Insulted, Dortmunder launches repeated attacks on Fairbanks's property, determined to reclaim it, even as successful thefts fail to recover the one object he actually wants.

Laid-off paper-company manager Burke Devore spends eighteen months unsuccessfully seeking work before devising a murderous employment strategy. He targets the men competing for his desired position, turning financial desperation and wounded pride into a calculated campaign against strangers.

This collection brings together Westlake’s short mystery and detective fiction, including A Good Story, Sinner or Saint and Good Night. The stories offer a range of crime narratives beyond his novels, gathered into a single volume.

Blocked bestseller Bryce Proctorr offers struggling novelist Wayne Prentice a share of his advance in exchange for an unpublished manuscript. One condition turns the publishing bargain sinister: Wayne must kill Bryce's estranged wife so she cannot claim the money.

Dortmunder and Andy Kelp are recruited to replace remains in a grave as part of a casino-inheritance scheme. A showgirl's supposed tribal ancestry could unlock a fortune, but manipulating the evidence entangles the thieves with unscrupulous partners and mounting complications.

Debtor couple Lola and Barry plan to fake his death in her South American homeland and collect insurance. Left with her relatives under a borrowed identity, Barry discovers that the family may prefer making the supposed death permanently real.

Career thief Meehan faces life imprisonment when representatives of a presidential reelection campaign offer him freedom for a burglary. Stealing a compromising videotape could save their candidate from scandal, but the political assignment draws Meehan into dangers beyond ordinary criminal work.

Josh Redmont has cashed unexplained monthly checks for seven years, accepting money from an entity called United States Agent. A stranger's approach during a family vacation suddenly suggests the payments carried obligations, threatening the comfortable life built around his mysterious windfall.

Dortmunder's gang targets a corrupt executive's collection of vintage cars, but other people also have grievances against the owner. Angry workers and cheated investors complicate the robbery, threatening to place the thieves in a dangerous collision between rival schemes.

Unlucky thief John Dortmunder returns in a collection of short comic crime adventures. Westlake follows his familiar criminal hero beyond the novels, bringing the complications and frustrations of a life of theft into shorter stories.

A fence offers Dortmunder an apparently easy robbery of a wealthy absentee's art-filled Manhattan penthouse. Planning the job is interrupted by another criminal threat, forcing the gang to contend simultaneously with its wealthy target and an ambitious mobster.

A retired policeman blackmails Dortmunder into stealing a priceless chess set once intended for Russia's last czar. The reluctant thief gathers his gang for an apparently impossible treasure hunt, confronting obstacles rooted in the set's complicated history and guarded present location.

A television producer persuades Dortmunder and his gang to star in a reality show documenting their next robbery. Cameras promise publicity and incriminating evidence, leaving the thieves needing an ingenious plan to complete the crime without handing their guilt to viewers.

After an affair ends in violence, actor Paul Cole emerges from hospital with damaged memory and little ability to rebuild his life. Harassed by police and struggling even to return home, he fights circumstances that threaten to erase his identity.

An astronaut faces trouble in Meteor Strike, Patrick Henry visits a doctor with a headache in Or Give Me Death, and the Scorpion pursues criminals in Call Him Nemesis. Three stories combine speculative ideas with suspense.

In 1977, aging comedian Koo Davis represents an America that radical militants still resent. Five surviving members of the People's Revolutionary Army kidnap him, hoping the famous entertainer's captivity will revive their fading political cause and force the public to listen.

This nonfiction collection gathers Westlake's autobiographical fragments, letters, interviews, and reflections on writing. Essays on crime fiction, fellow authors, his own books, and his many pseudonyms reveal the working mind behind the novels and his views of the literary profession.

A Western businessman expelled from Hong Kong after its return to Chinese rule plans revenge through stolen gold and a device capable of mass destruction. The plot brings opponents into a struggle to prevent his commercial bitterness from becoming catastrophe.

Four science fiction stories bring together The Spy in the Elevator, The Risk Profession, They Also Serve and Call Him Nemesis. This collection presents Westlake’s shorter speculative work, including material beyond the stories gathered in Tomorrow’s Crimes.

New York taxi driver Tom Fletcher accepts an unusual fare: driving Katharine Scott to Los Angeles while she decides whether to marry her boyfriend. Their cross-country journey brings arguments, friendship, and attraction that complicate the choice awaiting her at its end.