Dortmunder novels
Author
1) The hot rock
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 1
Language
English
Formats
Description
Edgar Award Finalist: A comical crime caper “filled with action and imagination” (The New York Times Book Review).
John Dortmunder leaves jail with ten dollars, a train ticket, and nothing to make money on but his good name. Thankfully, his reputation goes far. No one plans a caper better than Dortmunder. His friend Kelp picks him up in a stolen Cadillac and drives him away from Sing-Sing, telling a story of a...
John Dortmunder leaves jail with ten dollars, a train ticket, and nothing to make money on but his good name. Thankfully, his reputation goes far. No one plans a caper better than Dortmunder. His friend Kelp picks him up in a stolen Cadillac and drives him away from Sing-Sing, telling a story of a...
2) Bank shot
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 2
Language
English
Formats
Description
A crew of thieves hopes to hijack a mobile home full of money in this crime caper from “the funniest man in the world” (The Washington Post).
John Dortmunder has been working an encyclopedia-selling scam while waiting for his next big heist. Unfortunately, his latest mark seems to be wise to the con, and he has to cut his sales pitch short and make a quick escape.
But opportunity awaits: Main Street...
John Dortmunder has been working an encyclopedia-selling scam while waiting for his next big heist. Unfortunately, his latest mark seems to be wise to the con, and he has to cut his sales pitch short and make a quick escape.
But opportunity awaits: Main Street...
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 3
Publisher
M. Evans
Pub. Date
c1974
Language
English
Description
Taking cues from a pulp novel, Dortmunder arranges a kidnapping Kelp has a plan, and John Dortmunder knows that means trouble. His friend Kelp is a jinx, and his schemes, no matter how well intentioned, tend to spiral quickly out of control. But this one, Kelp swears, is airtight. He read it in a book. In county lock-up for a traffic charge, Kelp came across a library of trashy novels by an author named Richard Stark. The hero is a thief named...
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 4
Publisher
J. Curley
Pub. Date
[1984 or 1985], c1977
Language
English
Description
An art collector hires Dortmunder to steal one of his own paintings It would take a miracle to keep Dortmunder out of jail. Though he cased the electronics store perfectly, the cops surprised him, turning up in the alley just as he was walking out the back door, a television in each hand. Already a two-time loser, without divine intervention he faces a long stretch inside. Then God sends J. Radcliffe Stonewiler, a celebrity lawyer who gets Dortmunder...
5) Why me
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 5
Publisher
Viking
Pub. Date
1983
Language
English
Description
John Dortmunder, professional thief, went out to rob a pawn shop and just happened to pick up the world's most valuable ruby, which just happened to have been heisted (by somebody else) hours before. And while the rest of the world goes ga-ga, Dortmunder doesn't even know he has the Byzantine Fire until it's too late. But now everyone from bomb-toting terrorists to Chief of Detectives Francis Mologna, from the Turkish charge d'affaires to the guys...
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 6
Publisher
Mysterious Press
Pub. Date
c1985
Language
English
Description
Dortmunder agrees to do a dangerous favor for a gang of nuns It was supposed to be a simple caviar heist. Dortmunder is almost in the building when the alarm sounds, forcing him up the fire escape and onto the roof. He leaps onto the next building, smashing his ankle and landing in the den of the worst kind of creature he can imagine: nuns. Although decades removed from his Catholic orphanage, Dortmunder still trembles before the sisters' habits....
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 7
Publisher
Mysterious Press
Pub. Date
c1990
Language
English
Description
An old cellmate asks Dortmunder for help robbing a reservoir In his day, Tom was a hard man. He came up with Dillinger in the 1930s, and pulled a lot of high-profile jobs before the state put him away. They meant it to be for good, but after twenty-three years the prisons are too crowded for seventy-year-old bank robbers, and so they let the old man go. Finally free, he heads straight for John Dortmunder's house. Long ago, Tom buried $700,000,...
8) Don't ask
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 8
Publisher
Mysterious Press
Pub. Date
1993
Language
English
Description
Dortmunder is hired to heist an eight-hundred-year-old bone and gets caught in the middle of an international incident
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 9
Language
English
Formats
Description
It started with a ring. A cheap ring. The yellow metal said brass, not gold, and the sparkly bits were certainly not diamonds. But the ring belonged to May's horse-playing uncle, who swore it brought good luck. Dortmunder, who wouldn't kick a little good luck out of bed, puts it to the test when he goes to burglarize Long Island billionaire Max Fairbanks. As luck would have it, Dortmunder is greeted by Fairbanks himself--and a loaded gun--as soon...
10) Bad news
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 10
Language
English
Description
From Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Donald E. Westlake comes the eagerly anticipated return of unlucky master crook John Dortmunder.
Dortmunder doesn't like manual labor. So when Andy Kelp relays the offer of a grand to help dig up a grave in a far-flung cemetery, he balks...until he begins to wonder just why Fitzroy Guilderpost, criminal mastermind, wants to pull a switcheroo of two 70-years-dead Indians. Central to the plan is...
Dortmunder doesn't like manual labor. So when Andy Kelp relays the offer of a grand to help dig up a grave in a far-flung cemetery, he balks...until he begins to wonder just why Fitzroy Guilderpost, criminal mastermind, wants to pull a switcheroo of two 70-years-dead Indians. Central to the plan is...
11) The road to ruin
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 11
Language
English
Description
In this "furiously funny" new novel from Donald Westlake, career thief John Dortmunder is back to steal a fleet of vintage cars from a corrupt CEO (New York Times).
The con is on. The mark is Monroe Hall, a CEO who lavished more of his company's money on himself than the boys at Enron and WorldCom combined.
The loot? A fleet of vintage automobiles that would leave the Sultan of Brunei blushing.
The catch? Trying to outsmart...
The con is on. The mark is Monroe Hall, a CEO who lavished more of his company's money on himself than the boys at Enron and WorldCom combined.
The loot? A fleet of vintage automobiles that would leave the Sultan of Brunei blushing.
The catch? Trying to outsmart...
12) Watch your back!
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 12
Language
English
Description
In his classic caper novels, Donald E. Westlake turns the world of crime and criminals upside-down: the bad get better, the good get worse, and God save anyone caught between a thief named John Dortmunder and his most improbable plans.
It's a long way from the island of Manhattan to the island resort where Preston Fareweather has his hedonistic hideout-avoiding the legal prosecutions of five embittered ex-wives and enjoying the attentions...
It's a long way from the island of Manhattan to the island resort where Preston Fareweather has his hedonistic hideout-avoiding the legal prosecutions of five embittered ex-wives and enjoying the attentions...
13) What's so funny?
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 13
Language
English
Formats
Description
In what may be the "best Dortmunder yarn yet," Westlake's seasoned but often scoreless crook must take on an impossible crime, one he doesn't want and doesn't believe in — but a little blackmail goes a long way (Associated Press).
All it takes is a few underhanded moves by a tough ex-cop named Eppick to pull Dortmunder into a game he never wanted to play.
With no choice, he musters his always-game gang and they set out on a perilous...
All it takes is a few underhanded moves by a tough ex-cop named Eppick to pull Dortmunder into a game he never wanted to play.
With no choice, he musters his always-game gang and they set out on a perilous...
14) Get real
Author
Series
Dortmunder novels volume 14
Language
English
Description
When a TV producer convinces John Dortmunder and his merry gang to do a reality show that captures their next score, Dortmunder hatches an ingenious plan to outwit viewers glued to their television sets and end the shoot with money in his pockets
15) Thieves' Dozen
Author
Series
Publisher
Grand Central Publishing
Pub. Date
2007
Language
English
Formats
Description
Feating Donald E. Westlake's hapless hero, John Dortmunder, this original compilation of short stories ties in to Westlake's latest Dortmunder hardcover, The Road to Ruin.
It's all Dortmunder, all the time, in this long-awaited collection representing one of the finest achievements in crime fiction. Chosen from hundreds of stories and decades of work, this is the first time that Westlake has offered a compilation of his short form...
It's all Dortmunder, all the time, in this long-awaited collection representing one of the finest achievements in crime fiction. Chosen from hundreds of stories and decades of work, this is the first time that Westlake has offered a compilation of his short form...