The New York Times was informed by Donald E. Westlake’s wife Abigail that the prolific mystery writer, vacationing in Mexico, died of an apparent heart attack while going for New Year’s Eve dinner. He was 75. Other than his wife, he is survived by four sons from previous marriages, three stepchildren and four grandchildren.

Born July 12, 1933, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Donald Edwin Westlake brought up in Yonkers and in Albany. Though he attended several colleges in New York State, he was not a graduate. In the 1950s, he served in the Air Force.

Westlake began his writing career in 1960, his first novel being ‘The Mercenaries’ published by Random House. Most of his early works dealt with premeditated crime as seen from within. He authored more than 90 books – a majority of them written on a typewriter – and was renowned for his cinematic storytelling.

Since people could not believe that he could write as fast as he actually did, he wrote under a different pen names like Samuel Holt, Richard Stark, Edwin West, and Tucker Coe. Of late, he wrote either under his own name or the pseudonym Richard Stark.

With novels like The Hot Rock (1970) and Bank Shot (1972), both of which were adapted into hit films, Westlake depicted his mastery of the comic heist lark. In fact, nearly fifteen of his books were made into films. During his five-decade long career, he won three Edgar Awards and an Academy Award nomination for screenplay adaptation in 1991 – for “The Grifters,” which was the adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel.