361 - Donald E. Westlake [0]
DONALD E. WESTLAKE!
“Dark and delicious.”
—The New York Times
“A wonderful read.”
—Playboy
“Westlake is one of the best crime writers in the business... Inventive, suspenseful, muscular, angry, horrific.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Great. [A] book by this guy is cause for happiness.”
—Stephen King
“Donald Westlake must be one of the best craftsmen now crafting stories.”
—George F. Will
“The novel’s deeper meditations will keep you thinking long after you’ve closed the book.”
—USA Today
“Marvelous... Nearly half a century into his writing career, Westlake remains superb.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A deliciously nasty read... A taut thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Brilliant... [Westlake] knows how to freeze the blood.”
—Terrence Rafferty, GQ
“Tantalizing... The action is non-stop.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“A riveting tale of betrayal and escape.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Ingeniously twisted plotting.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Westlake remains in perfect command; there’s not a word... out of place.”
—San Diego Union-Tribune
“Crime fiction stripped down—as it was meant to be... oh, how the pages keep turning.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
Somebody brought the car around from the hotel’s garage. It was an Oldsmobile. Dad always bought Oldsmobiles. But I’d never seen this one before. It was last year’s, black. When I’d been shipped to Germany, he had a two-tone blue.
The suitcases were loaded into the trunk, and Dad took care of the tipping. Then we got in, and pulled away, heading west crosstown on 53rd Street.
I started to roll the window down, and Dad said, “No, leave it up. Watch this.”
I watched. He pressed a button on the dash, and I heard a whirring. Then a little chill breeze hit me in the forehead from a vent just above the door.
“Air conditioner,” Dad said. “Three hundred dollars extra, and worth every penny of it. Changes the air in the car completely every minute.”
“Lawyering does pretty good,” I said.
“Chased a lot of ambulances lately,” he said. He grinned at me, and slapped my knee. I grinned back. I felt good, to be in the states, to be with my father, to be a civilian. Great.
We went up the Henry Hudson Parkway and over the George Washington Bridge. We took the lower level and Dad said, “This is new.”
“This part of the bridge? It looks nutty.”
We went up 9 to 17, and then west on 17 toward Binghamton.
Thirty-eight miles outside New York City, when we had the road to ourselves, a tan-and-cream Chrysler pulled up next to us, and the guy on our side stuck his hand out with a gun in it and started shooting.
Dad looked at me, and his eyes were huge and terrified. He opened his mouth and said, “Cap,” in a high strange voice. Then blood gushed out of his mouth, like red vomit.
He fell staring in my lap, and the car swung off the road into a bridge support...
SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS
YOU WILL ENJOY:
MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust
ZERO COOL by John Lange
SHOOTING STAR/SPIDERWEB by Robert Bloch
THE MURDERER VINE by Shepard Rifkin
SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY by Donald E. Westlake
NO HOUSE LIMIT by Steve Fisher
BABY MOLL by John Farris
THE MAX by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
THE FIRST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins
GUN WORK by David J. Schow
FIFTY-TO-ONE by Charles Ardai
KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block
THE DEAD MAN’S BROTHER by Roger Zelazny
THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake
HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt
CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner
FAKE I.D. by Jason Starr
PASSPORT TO PERIL by Robert B. Parker
STOP THIS MAN! by Peter Rabe
LOSERS LIVE LONGER by Russell Atwood
HONEY IN HIS MOUTH by Lester Dent
QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins
THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES by Jonny Porkpie
361
by Donald E. Westlake
A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK
(HCC-009)
First Hard Case Crime edition: May 2005
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street
London
SE1 0UP
in collaboration with Winterfall LLC
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed