HOOK, THE by Donald E. Westlake - SIGNED BOOK - ADVANCE READING COPY

Bryce Proctorr has a multimillion-dollar contract for his next novel, a trophy wife raking him over the coals of a protracted divorce, a bad case of writer's block, and an impending deadline.Wayne Prentice is a fading author in a world that no longer values his work. He's gone through two pseudonyms, watched his book sales shrivel, and is contemplating leaving the writing life.Proctorr has a proposition: If Prentice will hand over his unsold manuscript to publish under Proctorr's name, the two will split the book advance fifty-fifty. There's just one small rider to the deal...THE HOOKIn the history of literary collaborations there has never been one as fiendishly fascinating, and exquisitely explosive, as the one that Donald E. Westlake has cooked up in his new novel. The tale of two men who live in a world of fiction, words, scenes, characters, and the tyranny of the New York Times bestseller list, THE HOOK brilliantly unveils a literary deception fueled by envy, fury, guilt, anger, and admiration. When Wayne Prentice sells his soul to his old friend, he begins a Hitchcockian journey to all the things he has ever wanted--at a price far to great too pay...Once again, Donald E. Westlake proves that on the landscape of American letters he is a unique force of his own. From his hilarious Dortmunder comic capers to his novels written under the name of Richard Stark and his psychologically galvanizing The Ax, Westlake has delivered one agonizing twist and turn after another. In THE HOOK, he is at his best. And for the reader, there is no getting away."