“When he’s not carrying out heists with his friend Parker, Alan Grofield runs a small theater in Indiana. But putting on shows costs money and jobs have been thin lately—which is why Grofield agreed to fly to Las Vegas to hear Andrew Myers’ plan to knock over a brewery in upstate New York. Unfortunately, Myers’ plan is insane—so Grofield walks out on him. But Myers isn’t a man you walk out on, and his retribution culminates in an act of unforgivable brutality. That’s when Grofield decides to show him what a disciple of Parker is capable of.”
Lemons Never Lie would be the last Alan Grofield spin-off novel, but the character would make another appearance in the 1974 (sort of) final Parker novel, Butcher’s Moon. The more reliable Westlake Review can’t come to any conclusion as to why Stark stopped writing about him, but like Parker, there’s an assumption the 1970s was causing problems for thieves who are stealing large amounts of cash from banks, entertainment venues, local stores and other places –those places were drying up, mostly due to the credit card boom, and money being transferred electronically, so there no need to have large amounts of loose cash on hand. They also noted: “It does, like the others, refer to Parker, remind us of Grofield’s connection to him (there’s even a brief cameo by Handy McKay). Westlake was well aware of the fact that Grofield had not developed much of an independent fanbase, and that Grofield’s readership was, in the main, a subset of Parker’s.”
So after Butcher’s Moon, Grofield never appeared in another Parker novel (though Westlake would revive that character in 1997). Though, on a side note, Westlake did create a sort of alternate universe version of Grofield (who had sold out and become a prosperous star of film and TV) who periodically would popup in the Dortmunder books.
Finally, perhaps by the time Westlake restarted the Parker novels after a twenty-three year absence, the rise of the information age would’ve stretched the concept of an actor who also committed robberies using the same name a bit hard to cover up. For many, those latter Parker tales were already stretching the believability factor.
Out of the four books, Lemons Never Lie comes the closest to what Westlake created in the Parker character. Seems ironic that a lot of Stark/Westlake fans did not really enjoy this off ramp into the mind of Grofield, but here, in this last book, Grofield is closest to being part of the darkness that surrounds Parker.
The most interesting thing about the book is that it actually shows Grofield working at his small theater – an out the way place in rural Indiana. It recounts the mundane aspect he and his wife Mary go through to put on highly unprofitable plays (and one where we see Westlake/Stark take a jab at the current medium of popular TV, movies, and even tedious plays. He only puts on “legit” plays). This also sort of really shows why Grofield has his side business as a thief – it raises the capital to put on his shows.
As well, though, Lemons Never Lies doesn’t read like a last book in the series, it yet somehow kind of works as such. I liked Grofield and despite being a less ruthless thief and killer that is Parker (and he’s less humorous here), he remains just as complex and interesting as Parker.
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