quips

finished reading on the plane Grofield novel #2 by Richard Stark The Dame. #1 was an escape, #2 is a whodunit, #3 (i’m reading now, The Blackbird) is a hapless spy novel with Grofield at its center, his brief liaison with his Banana Republic friend and Third World player figuring prominently in #3. Westlake rules

Just finished reading another of Richard Stark’s Parker series, The Sour Lemon Score in which the double cross is the whole caper. Brilliant.

just finished reading another in Richard Stark’s Parker series, The Green Eagle Score. a payroll heist and the impracticality of psychoanalysis. great.

just finished reading another in the Parker series by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake’s dark side), Slayground. Parker’s trapped with the cash from an armored car heist in a closed amusement park, unarmed. awesome.

just finished reading another in the Parker series by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake’s darkest nom de plume), Plunder Squad. it amazes me how many different ways a job can go so wrong. lots of loose ends, jobs considered and discarded. this series never is less than astonishingly inventive and fresh, even as Parker remains …

Read more

just finished reading another in Richard Stark’s Parker series, The Score. Parker & Co. knock off a whole town. first appearance of Alan Grofield, thespian thief and lothario, who’ll have his own handful of Stark novels to himself shortly in the scheme of things. tight as a drum.