Category Archives: Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark

Top tens and spent casings

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Pulp Curry is going to be taking a break for a couple of weeks over the Christmas/New Year period while the family and I brave the monsoon-like conditions of Queensland.

But before I go, there’s a few spent casings lying around the place I’ve got to clean up.

First up, my list of top ten books for 2010 is up at Day Labor, the official blog of the online magazine, Crime Factory.  No surprises that Garry Disher’s Wyatt is right up there, as is Martin Limon, whose books featuring two military police on the beat in seventies Korea, along with Megan Abbott, are my big finds for this year.

My top ten is part of Day Labour’s Best of Whatever for 2010 series, put together by Keith Rawson. When Keith says whatever, he means whatever. There’s some great posts, not only on books, but comics, film and, well, whatever. Kudos to you, mate, for all your work and thanks to you and your Crime Factory co-editors, Liam Jose and Cameron Ashley, for making me feel so welcome in the Crime Factory family. I really appreciate it.

My recent post Parker and the art of hard-boiled crime writing generated a bit discussion on and off-line. That’s great, because if you haven’t picked up by now, I can talk the leg off a chair about Parker and his creator, legendary crime writer Donald Westlake.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Garry Disher, Parker

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Parker and the art of hard-boiled crime writing

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

December 31 2010 marks the second anniversary of the death at age 75 of one of the masters of hard-boiled crime writing, Donald Westlake.

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Westlake lately and his best known creation, the professional criminal Parker.

Westlake was a prolific writer. While he specialised in crime fiction, he also did science fiction, erotic stories and westerns under a myriad of pseudonyms of which Richard Stark, the name he used for the Parker books, remains the best known. He also worked on a number of screenplays, including the adaption of Jim Thompson’s The Grifters.

Sixteen Parker novels appeared between 1962 and 1974. For reasons I’m not clear about, Westlake took a rest from the character until 1997, then wrote another eight Parker books.

Several of the books were filmed, the best known of which is Point Blank starring Lee Marvin (later remade as Payback with Mel Gibson as the lead, but the less said about it the better).

I recently discovered via The Violent World of Parker website, The Outfit, an excellent 1973 adaption of Westlake’s novel of the same name, is finally getting an outing on DVD. (The details are here).

Robert Duvall does the honours as Parker or Macklin, as the central character in the film is called, alongside Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan and the siren of seventies American B-movies, Karen Black.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Garry Disher, Heist films, Jim Brown, Lee Marvin, Noir fiction, Parker

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Interview: Garry Disher

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Garry Disher is a veteran of the Australian crime-writing scene. He is the author a series of books featuring the professional hold-up man known as Wyatt. Disher wrote six Wyatt novels in the nineties and a seventh was recently released by Text and took out the top prize in the 2010 Ned Kelly awards. Disher has also authored a number of books featuring Hal Challis and Ellen Destry, two police working on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsular, about an hour’s drive southeast of Melbourne, where Disher also lives. I talked to him for the issue 5 of Crime Factory about the difference between writing hard-boiled characters and police procedurals, why after over a ten-year break he decided to write another Wyatt book and the state of crime fiction in Australia.

It’s been over 10 years since the last Wyatt book, Fallout in 1997. Why the break and what inspired you to give Wyatt another outing after such a long time?

The break was to try and get established with the new series of police procedurals, the Challis and Destry books, which for me was a completely different way of looking at plot and structure. I wanted a break from Wyatt because there was basically one book a year and I thought I might get stale on them.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Garry Disher, Interviews, Parker

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Book review: Wyatt

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

WyattVeteran Australian crime writer Garry Disher has delivered his seventh book featuring the professional criminal and hold-up man, Wyatt, (Wyatt, Text Publishing), and the first since The Fallout in 1997, and it’s fantastic.

In Wyatt the score is a jewel heist, presented by an old colleague who fancies a shot at the big league. There are multiple double crosses courtesy of the cast of characters, including a bent cop, a wannabe gangster, a stone cold French assassin and an unhinged stripper.

There is something about the heist gone wrong genre of crime fiction (and movies) that seldom disappoints and Wyatt is no exception. It’s clear within the first few chapters things will go wrong. You know people are going to get hurt, some fatally, and most, but not all, deserve what’s coming to them. The good part is finding out just how incredible complicated and bad it’s going to get and how the characters react to each twist and turn of the plot.

The aspect of Wyatt that pushes it beyond a simple, albeit, well told heist caper, is the depiction of an old style criminal trying to adapt to a rapidly changing world. In sparse, gritty prose, Disher brilliantly delivers insights into this side of Wyatt’s existence. ‘He was an old style hold-up man: cash, jewellery, paintings.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Garry Disher, Neo Noir, Parker

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