The Getaway Car

[supergee]

Donald E. Westlake is my choice for World's Funniest Crime Novelist. (Dancing Aztecs is my favorite, but he did lots of good ones.) Now the University of Chicago Press has published The Getaway Car, a selection of his nonfiction, which is also excellent; he was a perceptive critic of the field he wrote in. They left out my favorite Westlake nonfiction, but actually all you need is the opening sentence. The New York Times assigned him one of those suck-and-tell memoirs where a political operative explains how his candidates triumphed when they followed his advice and failed when they didn't. The review begins, "Every geek thinks the circus couldn't run without him."

Comments

[onyxlynx]

I'll have to get that book.

I found some of his stuff problematic, but I liked most of his books. The one time I met him was at Bogie's Restaurant. I had my camera with me and got a good picture, which hung at Bogie's until they went under.

[wordweaverlynn]

Oh, I love Westlake. Consistently funny but also powerful.