Westlake Dead at 75

It’s too early in the year for me to be writing something like this. Yet here we are.

Bestsellling mystery author Donald Westlake collapsed on his way out to New Year’s dinner, according to The New York Times:

Donald Edwin Westlake was born to Lillian and Albert Westlake on July 12, 1933, in Brooklyn, but raised in Yonkers and Albany. He attended a number of colleges in New York State, but did not graduate from any of them. He married his current wife, Abigail, in 1979, and the couple made their home in Gallatin, N.Y. He was previously married to Nedra Henderson and Sandra Kalb. He is survived by his wife; his four sons by his previous marriage, Sean Westlake, Steven Westlake, Paul Westlake, Tod Westlake; two step-daughters, Adrienne Adams and Katherine Adams; a step-son, Patrick Adams; his sister, Virginia; and four grandchildren.

The Rap Sheet remembers Westlake:

Known best for comic mysteries written under his own name and the harder-boiled Parker novels under the pseudonym “Richard Stark,” Westlake had published over 100 novels during a career that spanned half a century. Westlake was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

At her Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind blog, Sarah Weinman is collecting Westlake tributes until week’s end:

Suffice to say this is NOT the way to ring in 2009. So through the end of the week, the tributes will be collected and the floor’s yours to pay tribute to someone truly beyond measure in the mystery genre.