Score gone sour. Parker and three other outlaws - Weiss, Andrews, Uhl - pull off a bank robbery with perfect execution: preparation, at the bank itself, getaway all textbook. Of course, there's no academic textbook on how to rob a bank but if such a textbook existed, the author could use this heist as a case study - how to do it right without getting caught. But then it happens: the boys reach their farmhouse hideout twenty miles from town and are about to sit down at the kitchen table to divvy

"Always blabbin'. You know what your problem is, Parker? You talk too much"--MadgeBack to basics for Stark in volume #12 of the Parker series. Parker is not:--taking on the mob, or trying to rip off a whole town, or take all the receipts from a football game, or taking on a small African country.--softened too much by the presence of girlfriend Claire.Parker is, on the other hand,--in the short first third of the book, pulling off a simple bank heist, which goes flawlessly. When the four way spl...

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

I enjoy the capers most, and this one was not focused on the job, but on the betrayal. Parker is wary of George Uhl, the driver on the job. He'd never worked with him before and he seemed nervous and fidgety. When they get back to the safe house, Uhl decides it's every man for himself, but misses Parker. Bad mistake. With only the thinnest of leads, Parker goes searching for Uhl and finds himself competing for the loot. At the end, Parker does something completely out of character too.

Maybe when I'm all done with the Parker novels I'll go back and award five-stars to some of them. This might be one of them. In the Parker oeuvre this is the 12th novel and like a tonal scale this returns to the same note the scale started with in a different octave. In this case the scale was descending, and The Sour Lemon Score is a lower, darker and more ominous version of The Hunter. The novel starts with Parker and three professional cronies doing a relatively easy job that goes sour when t...

When the loot from a heist falls short of expectations, George Uhl kills two of the men and takes the money. Too bad he didn't finish the job and kill Parker too. Now Parker's on his tail and wants his money and George Uhl's hide. Too bad other people are after George and the money as well...The Sour Lemon Score really washed away the lingering bad taste of The Black Ice Score. Parker does what he does best, solving problems. With no Claire to soften him, he's the relentless Parker of old. The p...

Originally published in 1969, this is one of the "Early Epoch" Parker novels written by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake). Like all of the others it's written close to the bone with no wasted words and no sentimentality whatsoever. In this case, Parker and three other men take down a bank just after an armored car has made a delivery to the bank. Parker knows two of the other men in the crew, but he's uneasy about the driver, George Uhl, who he doesn't know but who has been vouched for by one of t...

I hate to sound blood-thirsty, but Parker should have killed three double-crossing, dishonorable, non-code following killers when he had the chance. I realize it isn't his job to keep the criminal world free of riff-raff, but people who try to kill Parker more than once should expect to die. Great story though....my predictions and expectations are destroyed in every story. I did love the twist at the end..... the thought of the bitchy suburban lady left to mete out Parker's revenge on the men w...

Let me say, right up front, i ADORE the 'Parker' Series. Without doubt Parker is my favourite non-hero.This is #12 of 16 in the original series. Stark/Westlake put Parker to rest for 20+ years, then resurrected the character for an additional 8 installments. I have now read all 24 Parker books & even though i didn't enjoy the last 4 as much, they were still better than many writers achieve in their entire careers. This series is the ONLY one I've read in it's entirety, by ANY author. It's that g...

Parker returns. A robbery goes south and Parker goes west to find the man who mucked it all up. One of my favorites in the Parker series. Must read!

Another day another Parker story and this time from the FPE, First Parker Epoch 1962-1974, and one of the shorter tales from the fist sixteen books.In this book we see a bank robbery go well and as soon as the robbers come back in their hiding place and find out that the heist actually made less money than they estimated the driver George Uhl starts killing his fellow robbers. He makes one mistake and did not kill Parker first by the time he realises his mistake Parker has left the building and

A solid Parker novel of the aftermath variety: A heist goes so sour that it resembles a lemon, and Parker is hellbent on getting his money back. The narrative makes one serious misstep early on: In a ludicrous sequence, a fellow career criminal drugs Parker and injects him with truth serum so that he can interrogate Parker to determine how much of a threat he poses. I mean, seriously? The man has no reason on earth not to kill Parker, plain and simple. Starklake tries too hard with the truth ser...

The Sour Lemon Score is the 12th book in the Parker series by Donald Westlake, published under the name Richard Stark. It is among the best of the Parker books. Parker is a thief, a heister, a hijacker. He is known as being cold, professional, emotionless. He is the best at what he does. But Parker has his own notions of morality and they include standing by your word and dividing the loot equally. He is not sadistic or vicious. He only does what he needs to get the job done. Knowing all this ab...

Parker never kills just for the sake of killing. And this entry shows Parker's idea of justice.Great ending."No, I'm not leaving you to the cops. I'm leaving you to Saugherty's wife."

"I did it for the money," she said.A little more frustrating that a lot of other Parker novels, since our hero is on the back foot the whole time and rarely catches a break. Still, he powers through with his animal cunning and ice-cold demeanor. Some really nice characterisations throughout the book, too: Brock/Rosenstein; Grace Weiss; Andrews all convincingly fleshed out.

I didn't bother reading the back cover and was surprised at how dark this was. The most violent one in the series so far.

4 ½ stars. I liked getting revenge, and I liked Parker’s detective mystery solving.The bank robbery is a short section at the beginning. Then one of the group (George) kills the others and takes all the money. The problem is when he tried to kill Parker, he missed. So the rest of the book is watching Parker survive the double cross and then hunt George in various places across the country. I had no idea how Parker would be able to find someone who was on the run and in hiding, but he does. Good

One of these days, I will start at the beginning and read through all the Parker novels from first to last, but until then I will continue to dip into the ones I haven’t perused. Actually ‘The Sour Lemon Score’ is not a bad episode to just dip into, in that it doesn’t require great knowledge of previous capers or comrades in arms introduced in other books. That said, the blurb does pronounce it as one of the darkest entries in the series, and so this might not actually be the best entrance point...

After a bank robbery that goes off without a hitch, one of the string double-crosses Parker and the others and proceeds to kill them off. Except for Parker (of course!) who manages to escape and live to rob another day. He then goes on the hunt for George Uhl, that vile traitor. Parker goes about finding his prey methodically and relentlessly. Oh, if only Parker had used his powers for good! He would've made a hell of a detective.I won't be spoiling anything when I tell you Parker catches his pr...

I could imagine this being Westlake’s response to complaints that Parker always wins. Of course, since Parker lives when few in these stories seldom do, Parker does win again. But not everything. In fact, if not for Deadly Edge, the next book in the progression, this could be considered the first small step in a series of losses that Parker would take. Not your typical Parker in content or structure but still enjoyable, still worth the read, just nothing great.

3.5 & as good as the last, but I gave that 4 stars, so I'm trying to even out. It was another fun, screwed up Parker adventure. Nothing else to say without spoilers, though. Sorry.

My favorite by Richard Stark so far.

Twelve books into the series, and I have just read the perfect Parker novel.

I have mixed feelings on this one, it's probably a 3.5/5, rounded down to a 3/5. THE GOOD:-A small scale, nasty little story. I like that. No robbing an entire town, or a military base, or taking on the mob. This is a bank heist gone wrong story. -Stark's economical prose and genre savviness are sharp and boldly on display here. The pacing is tight and fast.-Some of the side characters are cool and memorable.-Overall, what I like best about the Parker series can be found in The Sour Lemon Score....

PROTAGONIST: ParkerSERIES: #13RATING: 3.25WHY: There were 4 of them doing the bank robbery, but one of them turned on the others to keep the loot for himself. Parker managed to dive out a window and escape and set himself on a new mission, to find George Uhl and get the money back. Unfortunately, Uhl wasn’t a real player in the game so tracking him down is very difficult. Parker is adept at uncovering the slimmest of leads. I enjoy the Parker books a lot with their noir outlook and antihero prot...

Bound: A Six Pack of KickassA Half Dozen More Heist Books from Richard StarkSunPost Weekly August 5, 2010 | John Hood http://bit.ly/doqxmv Gotta luv the folks at University of Chicago Press. Not only have they decided to bring back Richard Stark’s belovedly badass Parker novels, but they’ve been doing so in sequence, with a niftily packed series that smacks back to the ’60s beginning and — Zeus-willing — won’t let up till its 21st century end. The beginning, for those few who don’t know, was The...

I love Richard Stark's brand of gritty criminal-focused heist noir. Excellent, quick reading that I didn't want to put down.

“Parker put the revolver away and looked out the windshield.”

Great noir when it was still cool to write it.

solid but not as satisfying as most Parkers