
But that's not all -- Hard Case Crime has unearthed an unpublished Westlake novel. Memory was written in the early 1960s, but Westlake's agent suggested it was too "literary" and encouraged the author to concentrate on more commercial crime fiction. Memory is the story of a man who is assaulted and wakes up in a hospital bed suffering from a peculiar sort of brain damage that makes it hard to form new memories or retain old ones. Far from home, hounded by the police, and desperate to reconstruct his lost life, he sets out on an extraordinary private investigation -- a missing persons case in which he himself is the missing person.
Memory finally sees print April 2010. Check out the cover and a sample chapter at HardCaseCrime.com.
In related news, Westlake's Parker series (written under the name Richard Stark) are being adapted into graphic novels by Darwyn Cooke. The first volume, Parker: The Hunter (Richard Stark's Parker)
Related links:
Donald Westlake 1933-2008
Adapting Richard Stark's PARKER
Crime Fiction with the masters