Forever and a Death

by Donald E. Westlake

Overview

A formerly rich businessman thrown out of Hong Kong when the Chinese took over from the British decides to fix his dire financial problems and take revenge on the Chinese by tunneling under Hong Kong's bank vaults and stealing all their gold, then using a doomsday device to set off a "soliton wave" that will turn the ground to sludge, causing the whole city to collapse. Only the engineer on his staff who designed the soliton wave technology (intending it for good purposes, to help with construction projects) can stop him, working together with a beautiful young environmental activist who gets caught up in one of the soliton tests and nearly killed. From the deck of a yacht near the Great Barrier Reef to Australia and Singapore and finally Hong Kong itself, it's a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as our heroes first struggle to escape the villain's clutches and then thwart his insanely destructive plan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785654244
Publisher:	Titan
Publication date:	06/13/2017
Series:	Hard Case Crime
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	1,013,997
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Donald E. Westlake is widely regarded as one of the great crime writers of the 20th Century. He won three Edgar Awards and was named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America. Many of his books have been made into movies, Westlake also wrote the screenplay for "The Grifters", for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

Editorial Reviews

04/17/2017
This high-stakes standalone from MWA Grand Master Westlake (1933–2008) originated as a script treatment that was never used for a 1990s James Bond movie, as film producer Jeff Kleeman reveals in a fascinating afterword. Businessman Richard Curtis is out for revenge against the entire city of Hong Kong, having been driven out of the place, recently returned to China, by “mainland bastards.” He and his mostly unwitting minions plot to steal the gold from Hong Kong’s bank vaults, remove it through tunnels crisscrossing under the city, and then set off explosions in the tunnels. The explosions will create a soliton wave, causing the ground to liquefy and the buildings above to come crashing down, killing thousands but covering his tracks. George Manville, a brilliant engineer, and Kim Baldur, a volunteer with an ecological guardian group, inadvertently interfere and then fall in and out of danger as they try to figure out and thwart Curtis’s plan. Credible characters and tangible suspense distinguish this highly readable thriller, which is longer and more complex than most of Westlake’s work. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Shamelessly escapist fun" - Seattle Times

"The orange wetsuit, that gun pose, the comma of hair above the eye - stop twisting my arm, Hard Case!” -  Birth. Movies. Death

"unexpected treat...a posthumous bonus fans will cherish" - Kirkus Reviews

“There are real Bond villains in this ever-changing world in which we live in.  But there is no James Bond.  It’s up to us to stop them.  Or join them.  Or be destroyed and/or ruled by them.  There are no other choices." -The Westlake Review

"great fun to read...and speculate on what a Westlake-written Bond movie might have been like. A newly discovered novel by one of the true grand masters of the genre is always a cause for celebration." - Booklist

“great stuff. Hugely recommended”  Atomic Junk Shop

"This is not the first time Hard Case Crime has published a neglected or forgotten work by Westlake. So we are again in their debt for gracing us with another reason to both mourn the loss and celebrate this incredibly talented author – and spend another few hours in his creative company." - Bookgasm 

“Hard Case Crime has another winner.” Noir Journal

“my favorite posthumous Westlake so far and a fun read” Dangerous Dan’s Book blog

“it’s a bitch that we didn’t get a Donald Westlake James Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan, but for me, we got something even better…a brand-new Westlake novel.” Criminal Element

"An excellent thriller that, paired with the afterword, offers a revealing look at the inner workings of the Bond machine and there are certainly plenty of us who care about that. It’s also a must-read for Westlake fans." - Military.com

"FOREVER AND A DEATH is worthy of an audience beyond Westlake completists. Even if Westlake is treading in somewhat unfamiliar waters here, his trademark setups are present, and frequently so." - BookReporter
 
“Highly recommended and one of the best reads of 2017”  Borg.com

 “a fantastic take on what an action thriller that dares to think outside of the box can be”  The Crime Review

From the Publisher

06/01/2017
In the early 1990s, the producers of the James Bond films approached the late Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Donald Westlake (1933–2008) to write the next 007 adventure. The story the author envisioned centered on the then recent transfer of Hong Kong to Chinese control. Deciding the plot would be too controversial, the producers scrapped the movie. Westlake reworked this idea into a novel, which has never been published until now. Business titan Richard Curtis's latest real estate development is just a Ponzi scheme to acquire money for his real motive, revenge on the Chinese who kicked him out of Hong Kong after their takeover of the British colony. If enacted, his scheme will cause the physical destruction of Hong Kong and the acquisition of the gold in the city's banks. Standing in his way are an engineer, an environmental activist, and a beautiful blonde. VERDICT Westlake's fans will rejoice at the discovery of this lost thriller, which is closer in tone to the author's "Parker" series than the humorous caper Dortmunder novels. James Bond devotees will also savor this retro page-turner.—Lynnanne Pearson, Skokie P.L., IL

Library Journal

2017-04-04
Fans of the beloved Westlake (1933-2008) will rejoice in this unexpected treat: a novel based on a treatment for a 1997 James Bond movie that the Chinese government's displeasure prevented from going into production.Approached by movie producer Jeff Kleeman, who provides an informative afterword here, about writing a sequel to Goldeneye, the first of the Pierce Brosnan Bonds, Westlake (The Getaway Car, 2014, etc.) spun out a doozy of a premise: a businessman who's been tossed out of Hong Kong just as the Chinese take over the British colony plots revenge by using a soliton to create mega-waves that will flood tunnels bored into the landfill beneath parts of the island, bringing much of the place down in piles of rubble as the villain escapes with a fortune in looted gold. (You can see why the Chinese objected.) Unfortunately for scheming construction king Richard Curtis, his warm-up, in which he uses the soliton on his own private island off the Australian coast, is witnessed by Jerry Diedrich, the environmental activist of Planetwatch, who has a special reason for keeping a close eye on Curtis, and volunteer diver Kim Baldur, who leaps into the water in defiance of Curtis engineer George Manville's no-trespassing warning moments before the soliton starts churning the waters. Against all odds, Kim survives the shock waves that follow. Curtis wants her dead anyway; Manville struggles to keep her alive. So begins a tale that caroms from Brisbane to Singapore to Hong Kong in the sturdiest Bond tradition, with all the obligatory double-crosses, counterespionage, and action set pieces you'd expect from a franchise entry that ticks off every Bond box except for Bond. What's most fascinating here, in fact, is watching Westlake thriftily remix the ingredients he originally assembled for a franchise entry into a stand-alone that's all his. Not as tough as Westlake's Richard Stark stories about Parker, not as humorous as his tales of the hapless thief Dortmunder, but a posthumous bonus fans will cherish anyway.

Kirkus Reviews