LEMONS NEVER LIE

Westlake’s fourth and last novel about actor/thief Alan Grofield, originally published in 1971 under the Stark name, focuses on the perilous consequences of refusing an offer you can’t refuse.

Even though Grofield’s old acquaintance Dan Leach has made a point of inviting him to join in the payroll theft of a brewery in Monequois, New York, masterminded by thoroughgoing Andrew Myers, the job doesn’t tempt him once Myers explains it. The logistics are complicated, and the estimated haul of $120,000 is too small to split six ways, especially after the local mob takes its cut. So Grofield bows out. As a result, so does Leach, and Myers ends up canceling the job. Still in need of a bankroll for the summer theater he owns in Mead Grove, Indiana, Grofield joins the crew of another heist in a St. Louis supermarket that looks much more manageable. And indeed this job goes off without a hitch until the moment it’s disrupted by Myers, who’s still holding a grudge over the job he had to scratch after putting all that work into it. Although Grofield manages to escape, he knows he’s in serious danger, and he resolves to take out Myers before Myers comes after him again. But his general distaste for killing people puts him at a serious disadvantage when he returns, against all odds, to Monequois, New York. Throughout it all, the author maintains the dead-eyed tone of Stark while plotting as generously and inventively as Westlake.

Trust Stark, or Westlake, to make even the most ordinary heist nail-biting.