Tag Archives: richard stark

The Sour Lemon Score, by Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark)

Posted on September 28, 2018 by pete

The twelfth entry in Westlake’s Parker series, The Sour Lemon Score (1969) is also the last of the “Score” books to debut as a Gold Medal paperback. The “sour lemon” choice for the title (assuming it was the author’s choice … Continue reading →

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The Black Ice Score, by Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark)

Posted on August 15, 2018 by pete

The eleventh novel in the famous Parker series, The Black Ice Score (1968) once again features the inventive criminal on a well-planned burglary with a messy and violent aftermath. This time, however, he is hired as a consultant and stays … Continue reading →

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The Green Eagle Score, by Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark)

Posted on April 20, 2018 by pete

Donald Westlake’s series character Parker has been called the greatest antihero in all crime fiction. I haven’t enough experience with the genre to credibly make that statement, but with each Parker novel I’ve been increasingly convinced that the series is … Continue reading →

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The Rare Coin Score, by Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark)

Posted on December 10, 2017 by pete

The tightly-written, unforgiving heist novel is an enduring sub-genre of crime fiction, and Richard Stark’s Parker series just might be its most sustained multivolume representative. I would have to read the entire series to make that judgement. So far, all … Continue reading →

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The Handle, by Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark)

Posted on December 1, 2017 by pete

Donald Westlake’s Parker series, featuring the stoic and violent thief Parker, is a celebrated franchise of paperback crime fiction. The books are renowned for being fast-moving, unsentimental and flavored with irony and dark humor. The University of Chicago Press has … Continue reading →

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The Seventh, by Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark)

Posted on November 14, 2017 by pete

First, a preamble about the highly regarded Parker series so far . . . Under the Richard Stark pseudonym, the mystery writer Donald Westlake wrote a very successful series of masculine crime novels about the violent thief Parker. Starting with … Continue reading →

Posted in books, crime fiction | Tagged , , | 7 Comments