Kemper's Reviews > The Sour Lemon Score

At this point in the series, you gotta wonder how anybody in the criminal underworld that Parker inhabits could possibly think that it’s a good idea to try and rip him off. Stark (a/k/a Westlake) always did a terrific job of creating greedy characters and making you understand why they‘ve decided to take it all for themselves. But still, the word on Parker has to have made it around the thieves’ grapevine. It’d sound like this:

“Parker? He’s good. Great planner and never loses his head. He’s not a mad dog, but he’d kill his own mother if she was between him and the money. He’s got no sense of humor or social skills, but he’s the man you want pulling a job with you. As long as you do your part and don’t make any waves, Parker will always give you a square deal. But whatever you do, do NOT even think about trying to double cross that grim bastard. He will hunt you down to the ends of the earth if you try to take a dollar from him or if you’ve made trouble and you may be a loose end. Hell, he took on the entire Outfit once over a beef about money, and he won. You want to mess with a guy like that?”

Of course, just as there are always people willing to sign up for pyramid schemes and send money to Nigerian princes, there is always someone stupid enough to cross Parker. In this case, it’s a driver named George Uhl. Shortly after pulling a successful bank job, Parker and his crew are hiding out and getting ready to split the cash when Uhl makes a violent bid to keep all the loot. Parker escapes, but Uhl has the money. While trying to track down Uhl, Parker creates competition when he inadvertently puts another dangerous man on the trail of the cash.

I loved the first section with Uhl’s betrayal, and Parker scrambling to get away from the bad situation Uhl has left him in. However, at the end, Parker has acted very unlike his usual self and left a big loose end hanging. Stark often left something unresolved to carry over into another book, and that may be the situation here, but the way this one is set up is such an obvious mistake on Parker’s part that it took me out of the story. It’s still one of the better Parker novels.