A letter of note

Shameless plug time, I’m afraid. Earlier today I posted a letter on Existential Ennui by British crime/spy/thriller writer Gavin Lyall (of whom I’m a huge admirer), which makes for fascinating reading if you’ve any interest in matters to do with publishing (which I know some of you have). The letter dates from […]

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 […]

Point Blank! by Richard Stark: the 1967 Fawcett Gold Medal edition (slight return)

Just a (not so) brief follow-up to my examination of the 1967 Fawcett Gold Medal edition of Point Blank! (retitled from The Hunter). If you’ve seen the comments on that post, you’ll know that TVWoP regular Jeffrey Goodman mentioned he had in his possession a piece of paraphernalia related to the Gold […]

Westlake Score: Point Blank! by Richard Stark; Fawcett Gold Medal, 1967

Here’s a Westlake Score which has been the cause of a certain amount of consternation and confusion over the years, due to it being misidentified as an earlier edition of Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake’s debut Parker outing. What it actually is, in fact, is the 1967 Fawcett Gold Medal printing of The Hunter—which was […]

Westlake Double Score: Killtown and The Score by Richard Stark (Parker #5, Berkley, 1973 / Avon, 1984)

I should probably apologise in advance for the essentially pointless nature of this post, but if nothing else it’ll afford a glimpse into my diseased, obsessive psyche…

This latest Westlake Score—or, more accurately, and as the title of this post suggests, Double Score—came from two separate British eBay sellers who coincidentally listed different editions […]

Westlake Score: The Split by Richard Stark; UK movie tie-in edition (Coronet paperback, 1969)

This latest Westlake Score was inspired by my learned friend Olman, who almost secured a copy of the book in question during a recent holiday ramble around a number bookshops in the Canadian Maritimes (not as unusual as that sounds; I did a similar thing on my holiday this year). Olman spied this book […]

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 […]