Donald Edwin Westlake was an American crime novelist, who has written over one hundred novels and nonfiction books. He is the creator of John Dortmunder, the most clever and least lucky thief in crime fiction, and, writing as Richard Stark, the hard-boiled heist master Parker.
The novelist was known as Tucker Coe, Curt Clark, Samuel Holt, Timothy J. Culver, J. Morgan Cunningham, and Judson Jack Carmichael.
Donald E. Westlake has authored more than a hundred books, mostly in the genre of crime fiction, but also in genres ranging from biography to history, science fiction, and children's stories.