Donald Westlake’s lost novel, The Comedy is Finished, out today

I’m afraid I’ve let you down, here. I was planning on having The Comedy is Finished read and reviewed in time for today’s release and had set aside Thursday through Sunday for just that. Unfortunately, I had to lend a friend a hand Thursday night and due to some technology problems early last week, I had to go into the office all day Saturday. So I haven’t even cracked it open.

And I won’t be cracking it open for another week at least, as I’ll be on the road. This does not make me happy, but until someone offers me a job reading books for a living, life will interfere sometimes.

There are plenty of other reviews out there, and I’ve linked the most interesting of them–just search “The Comedy is Finished News” and you should find them all. Whether I linked a review or not, every single one I’ve read has been positive, several of them raves.

In the current economy, I wouldn’t blame a lot of you for waiting for the paperback. But if you’re at all a collector, I can’t say enough about the hardcover edition. It is simply gorgeous. This is the first Hard Case Crime hardcover I’ve owned (the other one released to date, Lawrence Block’s Getting Off, I got as a paperback ARC), and I’m deeply impressed.

I’ve read in many articles that this is the last Donald Westlake novel that will be published. That may not be true. I’ve posted this before. A source at Rara-Avis:

I know of two Westlake novels that have not seen the light of day. One an expanded version of his Redbook novella CALL ME A CAB and another entitled ICE about two brothers who inherit an ice factory from their dead father.

I’ve also heard of another one that isn’t either of these, but I don’t know much about it other than that it supposedly exists.

Here’s hoping Hard Case Crime’s Charles Ardai can track these down.

Buy The Comedy Is Finished

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