Donald Westlake died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 75. My condolences to his wife and family.
I read a bunch of Westlake’s caper novels when I was a kid, and recently returned to the first one (which I took out of my local library, 25 years ago). I picked up a few others in the last month or two. In 2003, Michael Blowhard made him the first recipient of the Michael Blowhard Award for Excelling at Making Me Happy.
He wrote till the end of his days while I, meanwhile, have yet to start on the caper novel that I felt inspired/justified to write after re-reading The Spy in the Ointment. But I refuse to revise my New Year’s resolutions.