Books by "Donald W. Lake"
6 books found
DIVA ruse to bed a pair of twins quickly grows complicated /divDIV/divDIVArt doesn’t mean to tell Liz Kerwin that he has a twin. He’s on Fire Island, and she’s so beautiful that he’s willing to say anything for a chance at getting rid of her clothes. So when Liz mentions an identical twin sister, Art blurts out that he has a twin too. His name is Bart, he says, and describes the most boring man he can dream up. Liz thinks he would be perfect for her sister Betty./divDIV /divDIVWhen Art meets Betty—who is, of course, just as lovely as her twin—she asks about his brother. Hoping for a chance at the family fortune, Art dons a pair of glasses, slicks back his hair, and soon has “Bart” engaged to the sister. As his simple lie spins out of control, Art learns that wooing sisters is never as easy as it seems./div
A couple’s insurance scam could turn a faked death into a real one, in this witty crime thriller by the Edgar Award–winning author of the Dortmunder novels. After more than a decade of skipping out on their debts, Lola and Barry owe a lot of money to the wrong people. To escape the loan sharks, Barry decides it’s time for one of them to die—or at least to pretend to. As the venue for this insurance fraud, they choose Lola’s home country, Guerrera, where death certificates come cheap and government record-keeping is sketchy at best. There is only one problem: la familia. After Barry’s “death,” Lola returns to the US, leaving her husband in the hands of her family as he begins to assume her brother’s identity. But the South-American hospitality of Lola’s relatives soon wears thin as they realize that their lives might be easier if Barry’s death weren’t just an act. Conning an insurance company is tricky enough, but no matter the country, no one is more dangerous than the in-laws.
The hunt is on for a valuable statue in this comic crime thriller from “the funniest man in the world” (The Washington Post). A small South American republic has decided to capitalize on its national symbol: a prized gold statue of a dancing Aztec priest. The president asks a sculptor to make sixteen copies of it for sale abroad. The sculptor replaces the original with one of his fakes, and ships the real one to New York City for an under-the-table sale to a museum. The statues travel to America spread out among five crates, labeled to ensure that delivery goes as planned. But it doesn’t work. Asked to pick up the crate marked “E” at the airport, delivery man Jerry Manelli, confused by his client’s Spanish accent, takes crate “A” instead. The statue disappears into the city, leading him on a baffling chase, which—if he comes up with the wrong Aztec—could cost him his life.
Archaeological Reconnaissance in Northern Interior District of Mackenzie: 1969, 1970 and 1972
by Donald Woodforde Clark
1974 · University of Ottawa Press
Approximately seventy-five prehistoric sites and nearly fifty historic or recent camps are reported in the areas north and west of Great Bear Lake. Collections are small and in most cases superficial, but groupings and periodization are attempted. Published in English.
“Merriment, mayhem and a plot that really keeps you guessing” from the Grand Master of Mystery and author of the John Dortmunder novels (Kirkus Reviews). The corpse isn’t anybody special—a low-level drug courier—but it has been so long since the organization’s last grand funeral that Nick Rovito decides to give the departed a big send-off. He pays for a huge church, a procession of Cadillacs, and an ocean of flowers, and enjoys the affair until he learns the dead man is going to his grave wearing the blue suit. Rovito summons Engel, his right-hand man, and tells him to get a shovel. Inside the lining of the blue suit jacket is $250,000 worth of uncut heroin, smuggled back from Baltimore the day the courier died. When Engel’s shovel strikes coffin, he braces himself for the encounter with the dead man. But the coffin is empty, the heroin gone, and Engel has no choice but to track down the missing body or face his boss’s wrath.
DIVIn the comfort station at Bryant Park, worlds collide and lives are changed forever/divDIV Look past the grandeur of the famous New York Public Library and you will see the true architectural marvel of Forty-Second Street: the comfort station. A small building, modest in its proportions but undeniable in its importance, its handful of stalls and urinals provide a haven for rich and poor alike. The restroom’s keeper is Mo Mowgli, a meek man whose only trouble is chronic tardiness, and who is about to have the encounter of a lifetime./divDIV Today, a strange cast of characters descends on the comfort station: a mobster and a cop, a countess and a dictator, colliding with a force that will upend Mo Mowgli’s world. When this globetrotting group gets together, no stall is too small for adventure./divDIV Written in the style of Hotel, Airport, and—perhaps more accurately—Airplane!, Comfort Station shows the genius of Donald E. Westlake at his comic best./div