Under an alias

The late Donald E. Westlake was such a prolific writer that he could afford to do what a few other prolific writers such as Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates have done — write novels under another name in order to have more than one new book in bookstores at the same time. Westlake had another purpose back in the 1980s: He wanted to see whether his books would sell as well if readers and reviewers didn't know he was the one writing them. Thus came a brief series of books under the name of Samuel Holt.

His experiment failed miserably because his publisher couldn't keep the secret. Their business is selling books, after all, and they knew Westlake books would sell better than Holt books. So the series was short-lived. One of these novels is What I Tell You Three Times Is False (1987), a meaningless title except that it tells you it's the third book in the series. Other titles include One of Us Is Wrong and I Know a Trick or Two of That.

This mystery falls somewhere between the comic caper novels Westlake wrote under his own name and the hardboiled Parker novels he wrote under the name of Richard Stark. It may remind you of one of those Agatha Christie novels where a group of  people are isolated and then murdered one after the other. In this case several actors known for playing famous fictional detectives, along with a few other people, gather on a remote island to make a film for charity. The murders, plus a prolonged tropical storm, force the actors to try to equal the detective skills of their fictional personas, the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Jane Marple and Charlie Chan.

Sam Holt, who played a popular TV detective named Jack Packard and who is the actor most eager to put the role behind him, is nevertheless the one who eventually identities the murderer. The novel stays interesting and fun while never becoming exciting or memorable. Westlake may have had another good reason to want to publish this book under another name.