READINGS : On the Road for a Novel Tour : Prolific author Donald E. Westlake is now signing copies of his latest work, ‘Baby Would I Lie?’ for fans at a bookstore near you.

If this is Wednesday, it must be North Hollywood.

Donald E. Westlake, master of the comic mystery, is on a national book tour, flacking his latest, “Baby, Would I Lie?” from Mysterious Press.

The cross-country trek started Sept. 6 in Chicago, and by mid-September Westlake is in Greater Los Angeles, signing books and doing whatever else it takes to pique the interest of potential buyers. On a recent Wednesday morning, he is in the North Hollywood studios of Pacifica Radio’s KPFK (90.7-FM), where he is deftly fielding the questions of Pearl Skotnes, veteran host of “All About Books.” Also on Westlake’s local schedule: signing books until it hurts at bookstores from West Hollywood to Pasadena.

The book tour, and the interviews and book signings that are its heart, is a necessary evil, says Westlake, who in 1993 received the highest honor of the Mystery Writers of America and was named a Grand Master. Actually, he says, a book tour isn’t nearly as ghastly as the other necessary evil in his professional life, taking meetings with movie producers.

Westlake has produced more than 80 titles, if you count those written under at least five pseudonyms (“Nobody has ever asked me to write faster,” he notes). But he is also a successful screenwriter. His script for “The Grifters” was nominated for an Academy Award, and he also wrote “The Stepfather,” screenplays as dark as many of his novels are hilarious. Westlake says his mentor in the screen trade was the masterful William Goldman, who adapted Westlake’s comic caper “The Hot Rock” for the 1972 film starring Robert Redford as hard-working criminal John Dortmunder. Instead of simply cringing at every change Goldman made, Westlake listened and learned as Goldman explained what works and what doesn’t on screen.

But today Westlake is in town to move copies of “Baby, Would I Lie?” “To go on the road to hawk a book is certainly not as bad as not being asked to go on the road to hawk a book,” he says philosophically.

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No one knows exactly what impact book signings have on book sales, although Westlake says he’s heard that signed books move twice as fast as unsigned ones. Signings are good for business, especially at specialty bookstores such as Mysterious Bookshop in West Los Angeles, says manager Shelly McArthur. McArthur’s regulars, many of whom would rather skip Christmas than a favorite writer’s new novel, happily queue up to exchange a few words with an author and have him or her inscribe a pristine copy of the book. “Many times we’re offering the one thing people can’t get by buying the book at discount,” McArthur says.

A book signing can be a sobering experience, according to Westlake. “It’s very like drowning. My whole life passes before my eyes. The only difference is I have to sign it.”

That can be a tall order. A fan once showed up at a local signing with two shopping bags full of back issues of Playboy magazine featuring Westlake stories to be signed. Unlike writer John Irving, who now only signs books for friends and overseas admirers, Westlake almost always obliges. His attitude toward fans, he says, is much like that of fellow novelist Stephen King. King’s daughter once complained about the amount of time her Dad devoted to autographing books for devotees. “Those people buy your shoes,” King told her.

And then there are the fans themselves. “You get the fans you deserve,” says Westlake. His own followers are a fairly sunny lot, but mystery and suspense is a genre with a decidedly dark side, and some of his fellows attract a bizarre crowd indeed. According to McArthur, appearances by writer Clive Barker are the ones most likely to bring out the creatures of the night. Barker, who writes horror as well as suspense, is always being asked to sign fans’ body parts, McArthur says. One local admirer even slashed his wrist so Barker could autograph his latest book in blood. The fan thoughtfully provided a quill pen as well.

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Appealing to a different crowd, Westlake’s new book is set in Branson, Mo., mecca for some of the nation’s most rabid country-music fans. A New Yorker to the bone, Westlake spent several long weeks soaking up local color in Branson, where no breakfast is served without its grits and gravy. “It didn’t seem like more than seven or eight years,” he recalls. His wife refused to accompany him on the last visit, inquiring acidly, “Why can’t you ever think of a story set in Paris or Rome?”

“Baby, Would I Lie?” deals with the murder trial of a country singing star (whose discography includes “If It Ain’t Fried, It Ain’t Food!”) and the media circus that surrounds it. If all this sounds vaguely familiar, Westlake couldn’t be happier. He is shamelessly willing to talk to interviewers about the sometimes startling parallels between his fiction and the O. J. Simpson case, including the high jinks of the tabloids and the use of a mock jury. “I’ve found a phrase for what I’ve been doing,” says Westlake, whose book was finished before the Simpson-Goldman murders. “I’m surfing the Zeitgeist .”

Enormously respected by his peers, Westlake doesn’t sell as many books as Dick Francis or Sue Grafton, but he isn’t complaining. “Without doing it on purpose, I think I’ve found the perfect middle ground,” he says. “I haven’t had an honest job since April, 1959 . . . and I’ve never had the down side of fame.” Instead of spelling out the down side, he does what he does best: He tells a story about it. It seems that Stephen King owns a baronial home in Bangor, Maine, and in puckish King fashion had finials in the shape of bats installed on his wrought-iron fence. One after another, the bats disappeared, sawed off by King fanatics. At first King had them replaced. Eventually he realized fame no longer allowed him to have them.

Pearl Skotnes’ interview with Donald E. Westlake airs at 11:30 a.m. Saturday on KPFK radio (90.7-FM).

Upcoming Book Signings

Noon Saturday, Dangerous Visions, 13563 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, Richard Laymon signs “Midnight’s Lair” and “Savage,” followed at 2 p.m. by David Brin signing “Otherness.”

1 p.m. Saturday, Barnes & Noble, 8800 Tampa Ave., Northridge. Julie Stein and Sam Bobrick sign “Sheldon & Mrs. Levine.”

Noon Thursday, Supercrown, 101 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, George Rodrigue signs “Blue Dog.”

1 p.m. Oct. 1, Barnes & Noble, 8800 Tampa Ave., Northridge, Patricia Nell Warren reads from and signs “Harlan’s Race.”

2 p.m. Oct. 2, Bookstar, 21440 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills, James P. Miller signs “Convergence.”

7:30 p.m. Oct. 3, Barnes & Noble, 8800 Tampa Ave., Northridge, Leslie Laurence discusses and signs “Outrageous Practices.”

1 p.m. Oct. 9, Barnes & Noble, 8800 Tampa Ave., Northridge, James Miller discusses and signs “Convergence.”

2 p.m. Oct. 22, Bookstar, 21440 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills, Bonnie Mandoe signs and prepares Hawaiian dishes from “Vegetarian Nights.”

1 p.m. Oct. 23, Barnes & Noble, 8800 Tampa Ave., Northridge, Michael Newton discusses and signs “Journey of Souls.”