Donald E. Westlake

Specialist in the scam, the con, and the rip-off, Jerry Manelli is running around New York hot on the trail of a priest: a thousand-year-old, two-foot-tall, ugly, misshapen, dancing Aztec priest....

It would take a miracle to keep Dortmunder out of jail. Though he cased the electronics store perfectly, the cops surprised him, turning up in the alley just as he was walking out the back door....

Cab driver Chet Conway was hoping for a good tip from his latest fare, the sort he could spend....

In his day, Tom was a hard man. He came up with Dillinger in the 1930s, and pulled a lot of high-profile jobs before the state put him away. They meant it to be for good, but after twenty-three years the prisons are too crowded for seventy-year-old bank robbers, and so they let the old man go

John Dortmunder and his gang set out on a treasure hunt for a long-lost chess set. Success is not inevitable with Dortmunder leading the attack, but he's nothing if not persistent....

The Byzantine Fire is much more than a flawless ninety-carat ruby. As a stone it's worth over a million dollars....

Dortmunder and his gang are determined to split their time, fighting the mob and robbing the rich simultaneously....

John Dortmunder and company are hired by an U.N. African Ambassador to steal the famed Balabomo Emerald from the hands of a rival African country....

It was supposed to be a simple caviar heist. Dortmunder is almost in the building when the alarm sounds, forcing him up the fire escape and onto the roof....

Kelp has a plan, and John Dortmunder knows that means trouble. His friend Kelp is a jinx, and his schemes, no matter how well intentioned, tend to spiral quickly out of control....

The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blazing. When Ray Kelly woke up in the hospital, it was a month later, he was missing an eye, and his father was dead....

Meehan, a career thief staring at life without parole, is awaiting sentencing at the Manhattan Correctional Center when he is called to a meeting by someone masquerading as his lawyer....

John Dortmunder and his merry band of crooks return to the scene of the crime world in an attempt to steal a fleet of automobiles that would leave the Sultan of Brunei blushing....

There is no such thing as a free lunch, but it takes Josh Redmont a while to figure that out....

Al Engel had worked his way up to being Nick Rovito’s right-hand man, near the top of the syndicate....

The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s....

Bank robber John Dortmunder puts a set of wheels under a trailer that just happens to be the temporary site of the Capitalists' & Immigrants' Trust and hauls it away....

John Dortmunder doesn't like manual labor. So when he gets the offer of money to dig up a grave, he balks....

Listen to mystery stories by today's top writers and the masters who inspired them. The idea for this collection...

Well, for one thing, Fred Fitch is the man with the most extensive collection of fake receipts, phony bills of sale, and counterfeit sweepstakes tickets in the Western hemisphere....