Money for Nothing » (Reprint)

DONALD E. WESTLAKE has written numerous novels over the past thirty-five years under his own name and pseudonyms, including Richard Stark. Many of his books have been made into movies, including , which became the brilliant film noir Point Blank, and the 1999 smash hit Payback. He penned the Hollywood scripts for The Stepfather and The Grifters, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. The winner of three Edgar awards and a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, Donald E. Westlake was presented with The Eye, the Private Eye Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award, at the Shamus Awards.

When it comes to crime-the good, the bad, and the hilarious-nobody does it like Donald E. Westlake, the creator of the uproarious Dortmunder novels and the dark classic The Ax. Westlake's outrageous new thriller is all about something too good to be true...and too terrible to believe. Every month a $1000 check came to Josh Redmont, as regular as clockwork. Somewhere along the line, Josh stopped wondering why an untraceable organization in Washington was sending him money. His career took off and his bank account swelled-he didn't even need the money anymore. Then, one day on a ferry to Fire Island, a stranger approaches Josh with words that chill him to the spine: "You are now active." Josh has been paid for a job that he must do-a job that will turn out to be a growing horror for him, for his family, and possibly for the whole country...

The Washington Post

While Hollywood would have turned this set of unlikely circumstances into a clunky melodrama, Westlake shrewdly keeps the proceedings lighter than air, with former Soviet republic caricatures who mistakenly view Redmont as a sleeper agent whose time has come to help with the assassination of the visiting premier of Kamastan in Yankee Stadium. That sounds serious, but all the details are satiric and frequently funny. — Richard Lipez