HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONER
Donald E. Westlake
February 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78565-682-8
Cover art by Paul Mann

Read A Sample Chapter

Order Now


JAILED FOR A JOKE

It isn’t easy going to jail for a practical joke. Of course, this particular joke left 20 cars wrecked on the highway and two politicians’ careers in tatters—so jail is where Harold Künt landed. Now he’s just trying to keep a low profile in the Big House. He wants no part of his fellow inmates’ plan to use an escape tunnel to rob two banks. But it’s too late; he’s in it up to his neck. And that neck may just wind up in a noose...

HELP I AM BEING HELD PRISONER is Donald E. Westlake at his funniest and his most ingenious, a rediscovered crime classic from the MWA Grand Master returning to stores for the first time in three decades.

  • First appearance in bookstores in 30 years
  • Donald E. Westlake is a multiple Edgar Award winner—and a nominee for the Academy Award!
  • The wildest caper ever by the master of the heist story

Acclaim for DONALD E. WESTLAKE...

"One of the great writers of the 20th Century."
Newsweek

"Westlake has a genius for comic strategy...a lunatic brilliance."
New York Times

"If there is any funnier mystery novelist around, I can’t imagine who it would be."
USA Today