You know those silly lists, 5 authors you could read over and over, want to be stranded on a desert island with (or their books) … Donald E Westlake was on there, every time. Now he’s on the “people, dead or alive, I’d like to have dinner with” list; the dead side. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/books/02westlake.html
Mr. Westlake’s cinematic style of storytelling, along with his carefully crafted plots and crisp dialogue, translated well on the screen. More than 15 of his books were made into movies. In addition, he wrote a number of screenplays, including “The Grifters,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991.
Mr. Westlake wrote seven days a week, his friends said. His productiveness was honed in part by an era in which publishing houses churned out books at a relentless pace. During that time, he also wrote erotic literature, science fiction and westerns.
Mr. Westlake resisted computers and typed his manuscripts on manual typewriters. “They came in perfectly typed,” Mr. Kirschbaum said. “You felt like it was almost written by hand.”
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