Donald E. Westlake's "Forever and a Death" with Phil Poggiali

*Full disclosure, this episode was recorded in early July 2020 at a time when no one knew what was to become of "No Time to Die" November release.

Much of the early portion of the conversation was edited for brevity's sake, to say nothing that much of what was speculated on became obsolete n September 1st.

Hello dear listeners!

By now you know friend of the show Phi Poggiali rather well.

He ragaled us in the fall of 2018 about what could have been Timothy Dalton's 4TH Bond film.

He returned in January of this year to guide us through the Find Your Fate books from the 1980s.

A common theme ran through many of those episodes, that being of authors and screenwriters who at one time had a hand at writing a Bond movie script, only for their efforts to not feature in the final product (not much anyways)..

The name Donald E.

Westlake came up more than once in fact.

So now we have Phil back on the show for the conclusion of any Bond-themed Westlakian episodes we can muster (although not necessarily the concluding episode to feature Phil!).

A couple of years ago a boutique crime fiction publishing house released "Forever and a Death", an adventure novel Westlake wrote in the late 1990s that was heavily inspired by his ideas for Bond 18, which eventually became "Tomorrow Never Dies." Wriggling with 007 goodness despite not being an official 007 novel, it produced yet another bountiful collection of discussion topics: Donald E.

Westlake many pen names, Phil's sleuthing some years ago to learn of the manuscript's existence, the usefulness of the Gottlieb archives, the author's penchant for given characters full development even if he's going to ax them a few chapters later, and of course everybody's favourite game at the podcast: CASTING CALL!

So sit back, relax, and allow a different author to transport you to a world of danger, action, intrigue, and romance.

It isn't Fleming, but it's damn well worthy of the 'Everything in Between' saying.