These are such wonderful appreciations. Westlake's passing is
obviously a tremendous loss for crime fiction. His body of work--the
quality and quantity--is unsurpassed in the history of the genre. I
had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times at the Edgars and
he was always very gracious and friendly. Hard to pick a favorite
book, but I love The Ax. I also think The Grifters was by far the
best Jim Thompson adaptation--not an easy thing to pull off, and it
was a rare time that Hollywood chose the right person for the job. We
lost a true Grand Master, and I'm sure his work will continue to
resonate for decades to come.
Jason Starr
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
>
> Jeff asked:
>
> "So, The Hunter is the second Paker novel?"
>
> According to Berkeley Medallion it was. They started their
numbering
> with Slayground, which was the one new paperback they published in
their
> short Violent World of Parker series (with that label in the upper
left
> hand corner of each cover, along with the number they assigned),
then
> followed it with four or five more, starting with Point Blank (the
title
> they used for The Hunter, even though the movie was largely
forgotten in
> those pre-home video days. The others were random choices, too, no
> order. I remember they published The Score as Killtown, The Outfit,
> maybe one or two of the others with Score in the title, but not Man
with
> the Getaway Face or, I don't think, The Jugger.
>
> Mark
>
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