A Summing Up

Thanks to all of today's contributors. If I forgot anyone, please let me know.

First from Wallace Stroby re: his forgotten book The Rare Coin Score.

More Stark raving

I've received a couple e-mails since last week, bemoaning the fact that my Forgotten Book Fridays choice - the 1967 Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark novel THE RARE COIN SCORE - is not only out of print, but pretty much unavailable from used book vendors
for less than $30, and often closer to $100. Unfortunately, it's the same way with many of the later Stark books, especially from 1966's THE SEVENTH (aka "The Split") through 1974's BUTCHER'S MOON, which may be the rarest of them all (at right is the original Fawcett Gold Medal edition of 1969's THE SOUR LEMON SCORE).

Coincidentally, just this week comes news (to me at least) that the University of Chicago Press, of all people, plans to reprint all the Parker novels in chronological order, beginning in September with THE HUNTER (aka "Point Blank," aka "Payback"), THE MAN WITH THE GETAWAY FACE and THE OUTFIT. Not since the 1985 Avon paperback editions has someone actually pulled this off. In the early 1980s, Gregg Press published a handful of the early ones in limited edition hardcovers, and on the heels of the 1999 Mel Gibson film PAYBACK, Mysterious Press/Warner Books reprinted some of the earlier novels along with the most recent (with somewhat generic covers). Now even those are out of print. Here's hoping U of C stays the course.

And from Peter Rozovsky:

The Split, The Score and The Handle are or were until recently available in a reasonably priced British paperback omnibus edition from Allison & Busby. Aside from an alarming number of typographical errors, the edition is eminently readable. (The Score is probably my favorite Parker, and I've read all but the new one, which I just bought and 00 you guessed it — Butcher's Moon.)

The Summing Up for June 6, 2008

Robin Agnew, The Last Witness, K.J. Erickson
Patrick Shawn Bagley, When the River Flows North, Howard Frank Mosher
John Baker, Murphy, Samuel Beckett
Joe Boland, The Art of Losing, Keith Dixon
Julia Buckley, I Don't Kow How She Does It, Allison Pearson
Sean Chercover, Derek Rayond's Factory Series
Bill Crider, Down and Dirty, W.B. Murphy
Travis Erwin, You Never Believe Me: And Other Stories, Davis Grubb
Anne Fraiser, Uther and Igraine and Sorrell and Son, Warwick Deeping
Steve Hockensmith, I Am the Cheese, Robert Cormier
Caroline Leavitt, After Life, Rhian Ellis
Steve Lewis, 57, Chicago, Steve Monroe
Lee Lofland, Postmortem, Patricia Cornwell
Jeff Marks, Home, Sweet Homicide, Craig Rice
Russel McLean, The Shark-Infested Custard, Charles Willeford
Medora, Guard of Honor, James Gould Cozzens
James Reasoner, The Sharpshooters, John Benteen
Clea Simon, Crooked Man, Tony Dunbar
Jay Tomio, Brittle Innings, Michael Bishop