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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.

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A bright reprint from 1974 that shows [Westlake] working the field in which he remains unrivaled: the comic caper in which Murphy´s law reigns supreme...Fans of Westlake´s Dortmunder series, which got started around the same time with The Hot Rock (1970), will appreciate the author´s consummate blending of comedy and suspense, often within the same sentence, and rejoice that more Westlakes are slated for resurrection. --Kirkus Review

"Fans both old and new will be tickled." Publishers Weekly

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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.

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