Parker Score: Run Lethal

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

Returning, belatedly, to the Parker Mega Score—that stack of Coronet paperback editions of the Parker novels I acquired over the summer—we have Run Lethal, published in the UK by Coronet/Hodder Fawcett under a Raymond Hawkey-designed “bullet hole” double-cover in 1972—the […]

Review: Killing Time by Donald E. Westlake

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

Thanks to a series of Westlake Scores, I’ve ended up reading—and reviewing—some of Donald E. Westlake’s earliest novels this year. I wrote about his debut novel—under his own name, that is; he’d had a number of pseudonymous sleaze works published […]

Like having a scorpion in the room: an interview with Darwyn Cooke on Richard Stark’s Parker: The Score

Introduction

Darwyn Cooke does one in-depth interview for each volume in his series of comic book adaptations of Richard Stark’s [pseudonym of Donald Westlake] Parker novels. (Here are the interviews for The Hunter and The Outfit.) For his new one, The Score, he was kind enough to invite The Violent World of Parker to conduct the interview. “I thought it was time I geared whatever big interview I did more towards Don’s [Donald Westlake’s] fans, rather than my own,” he told us.

For better or worse, he got what he asked for. Nick and I managed two conference calls with Darwyn across three countries, three time zones, and two continents.

There are minor spoilers sprinkled throughout, but nothing, I think, that will affect the enjoyment of the reader of either Darwyn’s great adaptation or its source material. (I did remove one major spoiler, although not for this book.)

Thank you for sitting down with us, Darwyn, and thank you for your immense contributions to the violent world of Parker, and to The Violent World of Parker.

Dear reader: Dig in. I think you’ll find it as fascinating as Nick and I did.

Interview

Nick: [Opening after some green room chatter] Speaking of The Score: How was it this time? How did you find it? How did you adapt to it this time out?

Darwyn: There’s sort of a built-in need to find a way to make each one better than the last. That usually adds to stress and anxiety and all sorts of things you can’t control, but the more I work with Parker, the more comfortable it gets. It’s a pretty easy ride now.

I know how I feel about the character and I know how people have reacted to it, so I feel really free just to go ahead with it? And, in every case with Parker I’m just out to please myself. And that happens to be pleasing other people, so that’s great.

I’m never sitting there worrying about what it is I’m doing. It’s just a very comfortable, really gratifying job now.

We’re like old buddies.

Continue reading Like having a scorpion in the room: an interview with Darwyn Cooke on Richard Stark’s Parker: The Score

Dan J. Marlowe and Earl Drake, 4: the Richard Stark and Parker of spy fiction

(NB: This post also appears on Existential Ennui.)

For Part 1, go here; for Part 2, go here; for Part 3, go here.

Much as Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake had done in his eighth Parker novel, The Handle (Pocket Books, 1966), with the third Earl Drake thriller, Operation Fireball (1969), Dan […]

The Grofield Files: The Dame (1969) by Richard Stark; a review

Time for the second of my reviews of Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake’s Parker spin-off Alan Grofield novels, which I’m re-posting from Existential Ennui ahead of a new review of the final book in the quartet, Lemons Never Lie. As with the previous review—of 1967’s The Damsel—you can, of course, find an alternative view […]

Finally: The Handle/Hammett challenge winner announced

I know this is way late, but I just got off the road–I thought I’d have time to post from the road, but that didn’t work out.

So, for those of you just tuning in, or who have forgotten because this took so darned long, this was the challenge that novelist and Parker […]

Last call for a pull from The Handle

The contest Wallace Stroby and I put together to identify a reference in The Handle is drawing to a close. If you missed this earlier, details are here.

Entries will be accepted until midnight central time on Monday, April 11. I’ll be traveling, but will try to announce the winner from the road […]

Contest: The Handle/Hammett challenge

In the comments section on the recent review of The Handle by Olman Feelyus (AKA regular commenter WalkerP) at his Olman’s Fifty blog, novelist and Parker fan Wallace Stroby noted that the novel contained a Dashiell Hammett reference. Since no one over there knew what it was (including me), Wallace suggested […]

Guest slot: Richard Stark, Harry Bennett, Parker book covers, and The Seventh

Today’s guest piece is by Nick Jones, AKA Louis XIV, who blogs about books (and sometimes comics) at Existential Ennui. You may be (should be!) familiar with him, because I’ve frequently linked both his book reviews and the great covers he digs up as he obsessively collects Stark and Westlake titles. In fact, I’ve […]

U of C reprints: The Handle

Cover art for the new University of Chicago Press reprint of The Handle.

By the way, dear readers, I am told by a U of C representative that their Parker reprints are selling very well, and that they will be reprinting all of the books they have acquired the […]