Donald E. Westlake began his career at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency in the late 1950s where he published short stories in the Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen and other mystery magazines. His first novel, The Mercenaries, was published by Random House (1960) and was a finalist for the Edgar. His short story, Too Many Crooks, won the Edgar in 1992, and Westlake received the MWA Grandmaster Award in 1997. Westlake has worked in both television and film, winning an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for The Grifters in 1992, and many of his novels have been the basis of films, among them, The Hot Rock, The Bank Shot, Cops and Robbers, Why Me?, The Busy Body, and Point Blank. Point Blank, based upon the novel The Outfit was one of a series of hardboiled suspense novels written as "Richard Stark" and was remade as Payback starring Mel Gibson in 1998.