Books: The Dame By Richard Stark (1969)

“Alan Grofield, still in the arms of Elly, but preparing to return to the United States to see his wife, when receives a message asking him to go to Puerto Rico as a favor to a friend to help out a woman in distress. Curious, Grofield flies to Puerto Rico and meets the woman and her several houseguests at an isolated mansion out in the countryside. Grofield and the lady immediately annoy each other and he decides not to take the job. However, before he can leave someone in the house is murdered. It's clear that the killer must have either been a guest or a member of the staff, and Grofield is everyone's number one suspect. Grofield becomes suspect number one, but to clear his name, he relunctantly assumes the role of detective. But can he amuse the husband of the murdered woman –a crime boss himself- until he can discover who killed her?”

The Dame is the second of Westlake’s four pseudonymous Parker spin-off novels starring actor-turned-thief Alan Grofield, and follows on almost directly from the first book, The Damsel. The premise is a bit wobbly and vague here. While Grofield is more wittier and less violent than Parker, he still is a smart man and I began to wonder why he would take this job –he still has his take of the money from his recent adventure with Parker (see The Handle)- mostly because that gig set him up with enough cash for a year or more. So why go to Puerto Rico to begin with? Thus it becomes a straight whodunit with plot contrivances and some action thrown in to remind readers that Donald E. Westlake is writing under his hard-broiled noir nom de plume of Richard Stark.

And sort of like The Damsel, Grofield no longer has some of the quirks Westlake created for him in his appearances in the Parker books, which adds to the boring murder mystery. Another word, some of his wittiness has been diluted, making The Dame sit awkwardly between two writing genre styles, neither tough, smart or violent enough to be a good Parker novel nor funny enough to be a good Westlake caper.

Still, it is Westlake and book does have some redeeming values –the murder mystery is thin, but him playing detective and asking questions does sparkle. Maybe it’s only for those who consider themselves a Parker completists –which I’m not, but these books are still better written than most other crime novels of the modern age.

Books: The Damsel by Richard Stark (1967)

The eighth Parker novels was The Handle. At the end of that book, partner Alan Grofield is wounded and Parker gets him safely to a hotel in Mexico City and has a doctor tend to the wound. Then Parker returns to the U.S., leaving Grofield with his share of the cash from the job, to recover.

It's at this point, The Damsel (the first of four tales spun-off from the Parker series) begins. Grofield is lying in bed in his fourth floor hotel room when, seemingly out of nowhere, a very attractive young woman climbs through the window. She's apparently fleeing from someone and thinks the room is empty because it is dark. Grofield surprises her and demands to know what she's doing. She tells him a few obvious lies; he tells her a few in return, and the story is off and running.

However, It doesn’t take the thugs long to figure out where Elly is hiding, and soon both are on the run.  The rest of the plot revolves around a complex web involving three fathers and three grown children, an imminent political assassination, a former governor of Pennsylvania, the current dictator of a banana republic, and a one-eyed scarred ex-convict running around half-naked with a very large knife.

There is an odd mix of violence and witty dialogue here, a far-fetched plot, and a bit of a travelogue thrown in as well. It seems, from my perspective, The Damsel is also a dry run for what would become the Dortmunder tales a few years later. Alan is an interesting character and Elly is perhaps Stark’s first genuine female character who is not out for herself.

So Grofield falls somewhere between Parker and Dortmunder. He has some dark aspects of the violent world of Parker, but offers a somewhat cheerful outlook, with some wittiness here and there. A fun diversion away from Parker and his killer takes all world.