The Sour Lemon Score: A Parker Novel

This is a standard review for the University of Chicago published Parker series by Richard Stark. Overall the quality of the stories is very high. They are tightly plotted with dialogue fitted to the voices of the different characters. The descriptions of places and objects are brief but clear and connected to the characters' perceptions.Now the negatives: These stories average about $9.99, and I expect that some editing must have been done to warrant so high a price for what are rather short novels. There are egregious editing errors in every book in the series, some with only a few, most noticeably the first four books in the series. The rest have over a dozen spelling and grammar errors that were no doubt due to the OCR scanning process on the original books/manuscripts. The software just can't identify certain words and doesn't always fix hyphenated words back to whole words. Having the choice all over again, I would look for the paper backs and read those. The books just aren't worth the $9.99 average price.

Just because you're having a bad day doesn't mean things can't get worse. This is how Stark ends chapter three:(The heist is successful, but the take is only $33,000, split four ways)“You know what kind of day this is?” Weiss said. “I'll tell you what kind of day this is. The kind of day this is, we'll come down off this hill a couple days from now, the government will have devalued the dollar. How much is singles and fives?”“Maybe a thousand,” Parker said.“Another two hundred fifty dollars bye-bye,” Weiss said, and Uhl shot him in the head.... which really gets the ball rolling. Every Parker novel can be read once as a fast-paced pulp thriller. Read a second time, they reveal Stark as a classicist: teaching in a restrained and clear-eyed way the virtues of restraint and clear-sightedness:There was a long, taut second when it could go either way—she could fall to the floor or go on making the coffee—and then she sighed, a long, shuddering sound, and shifted her weight and reached for the coffeepot.Still with her back to him, hands busy making the coffee, she said, “That wouldn't be why you're here. Not just to tell me about it. You aren't the type, Parker. You never were, you never will be.”“That's right,” Parker said.“You're strictly business,” she said.“I didn't kill him,” Parker said. “Don't take it out on me.”She stopped what she was doing and just stood there for a minute. Then, in a muffled voice, she said, “Excuse me,” and hurried from the room, keeping her face turned away from him.The form Stark/Westlake invented for Parker novels- three parts from Parker's point-of-view, and a middle section of five or six other points-of-view, does not hinder the story at all, and in fact, speeds it along. Stark also creates several females here, from Weiss's widow to Barri the ballerina, none of them pulp cliches, or male fantasies.

One of the most frequent recipes in the Parker series is a robbery that is successfully executed, but is then followed by mishaps, usually due to the greed or inadequacy of one or more of the "string" of professionals put together for the occasion. Parker is his usual (rather predictable, cartoonish) self and, mainly because of this, after a while, the stories tend to become repetitive in what is essential for holding the readers' interest in the characters and in the plot. The Sour Lemon Score is a very welcome exception to this: the successful robbery followed by mishaps is certainly there, at the beginning of the book; but after this interlude the plot becomes a tale of hunting and revenge, where the characters (and even Parker himself!) are developed by the author with unusual richness and depth, without this interfering even for a second with the pace and suspense of the narrative. The result is a gripping and violent story, exceptionally well-told, and completely freed of the déja vu effects present in some of the previous (and subsequent) books of the Parker series. Whatever you think of the Parkers, do not miss this one: an exceptional read!

Donald Westlake, writing as Richard Stark, pens the Parker books, about a professional thief. Parker is rational - he doesn't kill unless necessary to protect himself, he agrees to robberies when he can plan the caper himself, and once he has decided on vengeance, he gets vengeance no matter how long it takes. The books should be read in order. The character does grow, and the plots of earlier books are referenced in later books. Westlake is a wonderful writer; his characters are varied and interesting. If you like Parker, try the Dortmunder novels for a change of pace.

Stark continues to explore variations on the theme. In “Sour Lemon” the heist and the double-cross occur in the first three chapters. Parker spends the remainder of the story tracking down the traitor, George Uhl. This proves difficult because the guy is relatively new to the trade and few of the regulars know Uhl and where to find him. Parker soon discovers that someone else is on their trail, bumping off Uhl’s contacts in order to find Uhl and the money before Parker. Parker leaves an unusual number of bodies alive in this outing – maimed but alive – and Stark throws in a clever bit of payback at the very end.

This is one of the better books in the Parker series. All twenty-four books are highly recommended. Read and enjoy.

The Sour Lemon Score is Richard Stark's best Parker novel so far. Motivated by vengeance and trying to recover the loot stolen by one of his partners in crime, Parker travels through an amazing cast of characters until he at least exacts revenge. Full of action, this was a great read.

Awesome!!!

Of course I love it: it's a Parker book! Arrived on time

Wer Ed McBain oder Joeseph Wambaugh mag, wird auch The Sour Lemon Score mögen. Das Buch war oft meine Reiselektüre, dann verschenkt. Aber nicht vergessen. Und jetzt, dank Amazon, wiedergefunden. Vielen Dank

Nobody comes close to matching Donald Westlake's skill when writing as Richard Stark. The series of novels about Parker, a career criminal, are unmatched in crime fiction. Simply the best, if what you are looking for is hard boiled, ingenious, pared down, thrilling writing. Get all of them.

スタークの文章は本当にすっきりしていて、いいですね。お馴染みのホテルのおばさんも懐かしいし、裏切り相手を探していく過程もうまい。けれど、ラストがちょっとsour!