Castles in the Air / The Green Ripper / Casa Madrone (Detective Book Club)

Donald Edwin Westlake (1933-2008) was an American crime writer born in Brooklyn, New York. He published over a hundred novels and non-fiction books, many under pseudonyms including Richard Stark (the Parker novels), Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Curt Clark. He is best known for comic capers such as the Dortmunder series, alongside the hard-boiled Parker books, with occasional science fiction. He won three Edgar Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

John D. MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania. He attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania but dropped out to move to New York City, where he took menial to support himself. While attending the School of Management at Syracuse University, he met Dorothy Prentiss, and they married in 1937. He graduated from Syracuse the following year, and in 1939 he received an MBA from Harvard University. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services in the Far...

An American author of mystery novels. She had one of the longest careers (from the 1920s to the 1980s) among major American mystery writers (Wikipedia).