Re: RARA-AVIS: Donald Westlake, An Appreciation

From: crimeflix (jmks100@aol.com)
Date: 03 Jan 2009

  • Next message: DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net: "Re: RARA-AVIS: Donald Westlake, An Appreciation"

    These are such wonderful appreciations. Westlake's passing is obviously a tremendous loss for crime fiction. His body of work--the quality and quantity--is unsurpassed in the history of the genre. I had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times at the Edgars and he was always very gracious and friendly. Hard to pick a favorite book, but I love The Ax. I also think The Grifters was by far the best Jim Thompson adaptation--not an easy thing to pull off, and it was a rare time that Hollywood chose the right person for the job. We lost a true Grand Master, and I'm sure his work will continue to resonate for decades to come. Jason Starr

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
    >
    > Jeff asked:
    >
    > "So, The Hunter is the second Paker novel?"
    >
    > According to Berkeley Medallion it was. They started their
    numbering
    > with Slayground, which was the one new paperback they published in
    their
    > short Violent World of Parker series (with that label in the upper
    left
    > hand corner of each cover, along with the number they assigned),
    then
    > followed it with four or five more, starting with Point Blank (the
    title
    > they used for The Hunter, even though the movie was largely
    forgotten in
    > those pre-home video days. The others were random choices, too, no
    > order. I remember they published The Score as Killtown, The Outfit,
    > maybe one or two of the others with Score in the title, but not Man
    with
    > the Getaway Face or, I don't think, The Jugger.
    >
    > Mark
    >



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03 Jan 2009 EST