Westlake Score: Killtown

Stark-Killtown-UK

NB: A version of this post also appears at Existential Ennui.

This Westlake Score may not be quite as exciting a proposition, or indeed acquisition, as the T. V. Boardman edition of Pity Him Afterwards I blogged about last week (for me anyway; who knows—perhaps it will be for you), but like that book it does complete a run of novels in my seemingly ever-expanding Westlake collection—in this instance the British paperback first editions of the Parkers.

Published by Coronet/Hodder Fawcett in 1971, Killtown is the fifth of Westlake’s Parker novels, retitled—presumably by Coronet, said new title also utilized by Berkley in the States for their 1973 paperback edition—from the original title of The Score, i.e. the one where Parker and crew take down an entire town. Now, I do, it almost (almost) goes without saying, already own four other editions of the novel—that aforementioned Berkley paperback, a 1984 Avon paperback, an original 1964 Pocket paperback and a 1985 Allison & Busby hardback—but when I spotted this copy of the Coronet edition on eBay I couldn’t resist bidding for it (and winning it, for just over four quid). Reason being, it was the only one of the sixteen Parkers published by Coronet that I didn’t own. And now I do, which means that I have a complete set of first printings of the British first editions of the initial run of Parkers.

Stark-Killtown-UK-back

The urge to buy a book when one already owns four other editions of that same book is the kind of madness that is probably only explicable to other book collectors (and even then…), but in my defence I should like to point out that this is quite a scarce edition, certainly in its first printing (which my copy is): I can only see one other copy listed for sale online at present, offered by an American seller at $35. Admittedly there are a half a dozen or so reprints listed on AbeBooks and Amazon and the like, but who in their right mind wants a reprint of anything? (Ahem.)

Stark-Killtown-UK-icf Stark-Killtown-UK-icbIn common with the bulk of the Coronet Parkers, the cover of Killtown is a double-cover “bullet hole” affair—a design attributed to the late great Raymond Hawkey—with the shiny black paper inner cover beneath the silver card outer cover bearing the legend “Parker is in” followed by the book’s title—which shows through the bullet hole—on the front, and on the back a photo of Westlake/Stark and a brief bio. (I say “the bulk of the Coronet Parkers” because some of them were initially issued by Coronet with illustrated and photographic covers.) And like a good half dozen or so of the other bullet hole cover Parkers, on its first page it sports this character sketch:

Stark-Killtown-Parker

Not sure that’s an entirely accurate description of Parker, but I do like the bit about how “in his mean, dark world he is almost a god.” Anyway, should anyone be remotely interested—or even still reading by this point—here is Killtown nestling in amongst my complete collection of first printings (plus a few reprints) of the Coronet editions:

Stark-Parkers-Coronet-collection

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