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Lots of stuff going on in my so-called “real life” at the moment, so this post is late and a bit more perfunctory than last year’s. But I did want to mark the anniversary, even if it is late. As I’ve mentioned before, I think of the real anniversary of the current VWOP […] 
But Seriously, Folks. The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go. Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to […]
The Comedy is Finished I recently recorded a podcast on The Comedy is Finished, hosted by Jesse Willis of SFFaudio and also featuring DEW’s son Paul Westlake, who, needless to say, had much more to add than I did. This is a free-ranging discussion of both the […]
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 […] I like screwing around with new gadgets for the website. Most of those gadgets aren’t worth a damn, which is why this site has very few of them. But I like it when a good one comes around. I’ve been messing with a new feature, which I’ve named the Violent World of Parker […] 
Strap yourselves in and get ready to skim. This is going to be a long one. About the Site I think of the relaunched Violent World of Parker as having been born on New Year’s Day, 2009, the day after Donald Westlake died. But the half-formed results of the relaunch weren’t made public […]
We’ve been following the story of this book for awhile now, and now its release is officially scheduled for February 21, 2012. From Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai: A bit of exciting Hard Case Crime news this morning: we’re going to be bringing out a never-before-published novel by the great Donald E. Westlake. Don began work on it in the late 1970s, but ultimately decided not to publish the book after Martin Scorsese released his movie “The King of Comedy” since Don was apparently concerned that the premise of his novel and Scorsese’s film were too similar. He shouldn’t have worried — aside from both having to do with kidnapping a television comedian, the two are completely different. But he did, and the result is that there’s a Westlake novel that’s been sitting unpublished in manuscript form for the past 30+ years. The title is THE COMEDY IS FINISHED and it’s going to be our lead title for 2012 — only the second book ever to be published in hardcover by Hard Case Crime. (Our first hardcover is our lead title this year, GETTING OFF by Lawrence Block, which comes out on September 20.) Here is the book blurb from the Hard Case Crime website: BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS. The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s. But not everyone is ready to let it go. Not aging comedian Koo Davis, friend to generals and presidents and veteran of countless USO tours to buck up American troops in the field. And not the five remaining members of the self-proclaimed People’s Revolutionary Army, who’ve decided that kidnapping Koo Davis would be the perfect way to bring their cause back to life… The great-looking cover art is by Greg Manchess. Below the fold is the full press release from Hard Case Crime’s new publisher, Titan Books. Hard Case Crime impresario Charles Ardai drops some knowledge at Rara-Avis. > Oh, one other question: I guess this means there were no > just-finished works left behind when [Donald Westlake] died? No, no just-finished works. At the end of his life, Don was publishing his books as quickly […] |
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