Westlake Score: The Sour Lemon Score (Gold Lion, 1973)

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

For the final Westlake Score from the 2012 London Paperback & Pulp Bookfair—although not, it almost (but not quite) goes without saying, and doubtless to the immense regret of all concerned, the final Westlake Score overall—here’s a book which I showcased […]

UK first editions of the Parker novels (plus some reprints), 1967–1970

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

Last week I posted a Westlake Score—a 1969 Hodder Fawcett/Coronet paperback of Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake’s Parker novel The Sour Lemon Score—which, for me, completed a run of British first editions of the Parkers—i.e. those editions Coronet published in the UK […]

Westlake Score: The Sour Lemon Score (UK Coronet first edition, 1969)

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

Here’s a Westlake Score which, for me, completes a particular run of Westlake’s Richard Stark-written Parker crime novels. It’s the British first edition of The Sour Lemon Score, the twelfth Parker outing, published in paperback by Coronet Books/Hodder […]

Guest slot: The Man Who Doesn’t Wink, by Christopher Lyons

It’s guest slot time here on The Violent World of Parker. Trent has of course hosted guest posts before—one of them by me, no less, in my pre-co-blogger days—but now I’m muscling in on the act as well—partly because it saves me writing anything (apart from this intro), but mostly because this […]

The Grofield Files: Lemons Never Lie (1971) by Richard Stark; a review

After a slightly-longer-than-intended gap following my re-posting on The Violent World of Parker the other week of my three previous reviews of Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake’s Parker spin-off Alan Grofield novels—The Damsel (1967), The Dame (1969) and The Blackbird (also 1969)—here, finally, are my thoughts on the fourth (and final) Grofield solo outing, Lemons […]

Richard Stark’s Parker novels: the US Fawcett Gold Medal and UK Hodder Fawcett Coronet paperback editions, 1967-9

Earlier in the week, at the end of this post on the review slip in Jeffrey Goodman’s copy of the 1967 Gold Medal edition of Point Blank!, I mentioned that seeing that review slip helped me make a connection that answered a question I’d been pondering for a while, and that as a consequence […]

Richard Stark’s Parker novels: the British Gold Lion editions

Always nice to start the week with a massive pistol, I find.

Now, chances are, you won’t have seen this particular Parker cover before. It’s a hardback-with-dustjacket, it dates from 1973, and it’s one of three Parker novels issued by the same publisher in that year which, together, rank among the most elusive—and expensive—editions […]

Westlake Score: The Sour Lemon Score / Deadly Edge (Avon softcover, June 1985); plus little-seen Avon covers

Having posted a lengthy, self-serving introduction on Monday, let’s begin my posts proper with what I cunningly call on my blog a Westlake Score—i.e., a post in which I detail a Donald E. Westlake book I’ve bought recently—in this case on eBay (for a pittance). And the book in question is a […]

U of C reprints: The Sour Lemon Score

Third and final cover from the latest batch of University of Chicago reprints. Collect ’em all!