Crossover Cover: The Hot Rock

John Dortmunder attempts to break fellow professional thief (and occasional actor) Alan Greenwood out of prison. Greenwood plans to change his name to Alan Grofield after the escape. A professional thief named Alan Grofield appears in Westlake’s Parker novels, written under the pen name “Richard Stark,” and is also the protagonist of four other novels written under the Stark pseudonym. Can the two Alan Grofields be the same person? Another Dortmunder novel, Nobody’s Perfect, claims Greenwood became a successful television actor under his original name. This seems exceedingly unlikely, since Greenwood would be wanted by the police for his prison escape. Since both the Parker and Dortmunder series have links to the CU, it is more likely the reference in Nobody’s Perfect is a distortion, and the two Grofields are indeed one and the same.

Crossover Covers: Dead Skip/Plunder Squad

P.I. Dan Kearny, investigating the attempted murder of one of his agents, visits the house where professional thief Parker is planning a heist. Joe Gores’ DKA novel Dead Skip and “Richard Stark’s” (pseudonym for Donald E. Westlake) Parker novel Plunder Squad each describe Kearny and Parker’s meeting from the respective authors’ own characters’ points of view.

Crossover Cover: Butcher's Moon

In this Parker novel by "Richard Stark" (Donald E. Westlake), the American Alliance of Machinists and Skilled Trades is mentioned. The Alliance is from Westlake's non-series novel Killy. Since Parker is in the CU, so are the events of Killy.

Crossover Cover: Hard as Nails

In this novel, P.I. Joe Kurtz tells his ex-girlfriend Rigby King, “My mother was a whore. I didn’t see much of her even before the orphanage. Once when she was drunk, she told me that she thought my old man was a thief, some guy with just one name and that not even his own. Not a second-story guy, but a real hardcase who would set up serious jobs with a bunch of other pros and then blow town forever. She said he and she were together for just a week in the late sixties…She said that he never wanted sex except right after a successful job.” The implication is that Kurtz's father is Parker, a professional thief appearing in novels by "Richard Stark" (Donald E. Westlake.) The Parker novel Plunder Squad shares a scene with Joe Gores' DKA novel Dead Skip, with the same scene being shown from the POVs of the respective authors' characters.