Sunday, May 06, 2012

Six top heist novels


It was a tough call, but over at the MysteryPeople blog, I chose six of my favorite heist novels of all time (with an appropriate emphasis on the novels of Donald E. Westlake).

3 comments:

Dave O'Gorman said...

Great list; thanks for re-posting it here!

I am working on a novel right now and I'd be grateful if you had any recommendations for me, for similar titles I might dip into, to see what the pros are doing with the genre. Basically what I'm looking for is something contemporary, southern-gothic, but also heisty, too, with overlapping subplots, and not just drug-addled-violent. If one imagines Winters' Bone was a Guy Ritchie Movie, that'd be perfect. Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.

Dave O'Gorman said...

Great list; thanks for re-posting it here!

I am working on a novel right now and I'd be grateful if you had any recommendations for me, for similar titles I might dip into, to see what the pros are doing with the genre. Basically what I'm looking for is something contemporary, southern-gothic, but also heisty, too, with overlapping subplots, and not just drug-addled-violent. If one imagines Winters' Bone was a Guy Ritchie Movie, that'd be perfect. Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.

Wallace Stroby said...

I have two recommendations that might fit exactly - David Bottoms' novels ANY COLD JORDAN (1987) and EASTER WEEKEND (1990). They're both out of print, but worth seeking out, and used copies are easily found. They're set in Fla. and Ga., and in addition to being evocative Southern novels (Bottoms is now the poet laureate of Ga.), they also have heist-related plots. I often cite JORDAN as one of best crime novels no one's ever read: http://goo.gl/HlT3x
Hope this helps. Best of luck.
W.