Two recent deaths seem to have gone unnoted by the Monitor.

Film director Robert Mulligan had a spotty career, but at least three times he had notable success focusing on rural and small-town Southern life. The best-known of them is certainly To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). My favorite is Man in the Moon (1991), with the young Reese Witherspoon, and I have had a soft spot for Steve McQueen and Lee Remick in Baby, the Rain Must Fall ever since that movie's release in 1965. Fear Strikes Out and Love with the Proper Stranger are also worth watching or seeing again. Mulligan died on Dec. 20, 2008.

Donald E. Westlake, who suffered a heart attack New Year's Eve, wrote more than 100 novels under various names. As Richard Stark, he created the professional thief known only as Parker. People who don't read much may have seen one of two movies adapted from The Hunter, the first book in the series: Point Blank, with Lee Marvin, in 1967, and Payback, with Mel Gibson, in 1991. In a very different mode, Westlake authored a series of funny novels under his own name about the hapless gang of thieves led by John Dortmunder. Two of the best are the first, The Hot Rock, and What's the Worst That Can Happen? These have both been filmed also, leading to the interesting trivia question: Who is the only literary character played by both Robert Redford and Martin Lawrence?

ROBERT S. PINGREE

Concord