Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder's Reviews > The Sour Lemon Score

Parker and the Greedy Heist Partner
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (March, 2012) of the Fawcett Gold Medal paperback (1969)

Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific crime author Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008), who wrote over 100 books. The Stark pseudonym was used primarily for the Parker novels, an antihero criminal who is usually betrayed or ensnared in some manner and who spends each book getting revenge or escaping the circumstances.

The Sour Lemon Score finds Parker on the run after being betrayed by one of the crew after a bank heist. Per the formula of the series, Parker regroups to seek revenge and to recover his money.

Narrator Stephen Thorne does a good job in all voices in this audiobook edition.

I had never previously read the Stark/Parker novels but became curious when they came up in my recent reading of The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives (Sept. 2020) by Nancy Pearl & Jeff Schwager. Here is a (perhaps surprising) excerpt from their discussion with Amor Towles:

Nancy: Do you read Lee Child?
Amor: I know Lee. I had never read his books until I met him, but now I read them whenever they come out. I think some of the decisions he makes are ingenious.
Jeff: Have you read the Parker books by Donald Westlake [writing as Richard Stark]?
Amor: I think the Parker books are an extraordinary series.
Jeff: They feel like a big influence on Reacher, right down to the name. Both Reacher and Parker have a singular focus on the task in front of them.
Amor: But Parker is amoral. Reacher is just dangerous.
Jeff: Right. Reacher doesn't have a conventional morality, but he has his own morality. Parker will do anything he has to do to achieve his goal.
Amor: But to your point, Westlake's staccato style with its great twists at the end of the paragraphs, and his mesmerizing central character - these attributes are clearly shared by the Reacher books.

The 24 Parker books are almost all available for free on Audible Plus, except for #21 & #22 which aren't available at all.

Trivia and Links
The movie City of Industry (1997) dir. John Irvin has a very similar plotline to The Sour Lemon Score but Richard Stark is not credited and instead the screenplay is by Ken Solarz. Harvey Keitel plays the role of the Parker equivalent character and a jewelry store is the focus of the movie heist rather than the bank heist of the book.

There is a brief plot summary of The Sour Lemon Score and of all the Parker books and adaptations at The Violent World of Parker website.

Like many of the 2010-2013 Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook editions which share the same cover art as the University of Chicago Press 2009-2010 reprints, this audiobook DOES NOT include the Foreword by author Dennis Lehane.