Friday, January 02, 2009

Donald E Westlake (Richard Stark) passes

The creator of Dortmunder and (under the name Richard Stark) master criminal Parker has passed away. He died on wednesday 29 December, 2008 aged 75.

At Crime Scene Scotland, as well as enjoying Westlake's lighter, more comic novels, we were massive fans of the Parker books. To us they did everything a good crime novel should and by eschewing unneccesary sentimentality from the narration, Stark was the ideal pen name for these novels and Parker was one of the truly great creations in all of fiction.

A giant figure in the world of crime and mystery fiction, Westlake will be sorely missed.

Obituary in the International Herald Tribune