Review by C.J. Bunce

Lemons Never Lie may be Donald Westlake’s best novel published under the pseudonym Richard Stark.  It’s not a Parker novel, and yet it stars Parker universe character Alan Grofield–with no Parker at all.  Grofield appeared in eight of twenty-eight Stark novels and here he is your atypical criminal.  And that makes this book a true gem.  Grofield’s joy is the local theater he runs in his backyard in Indiana with his wife.  He only takes on the job as secondary gunman on heists to supplement his income and support his theater, in addition to renting out his house for more money, living out his life with his wife literally on the stage while he scrapes up every last penny.

And he never gambles.

Lemons Never Lie has been republished this month by Hard Case Crime, and if you’re as big a fan of Westlake as I am, you’re going to want to run right out for this one.  It’s available now here at Amazon.

Just like reading one of Max Allan Collins’ Nolan novels, this book will prompt you–require you–to get caught up on Alan Grofield’s past appearances.  This novel is edgier than the other Westlake novels we’ve reviewed here at borg.  The crimes are similar to those in the Hard Case Crime imprint over the past 20 years.  It’s the protagonist who is completely different.

Have you ever known a theater person?  Imagine a guy after a life in both theater and in small-time crimes.  What qualities do both aspects hold in common?  Maybe there aren’t any.  Maybe there isn’t anything to learn about the human condition from Alan Grofield.  And yet…

In the first act of the story, Grofield travels to Las Vegas to meet the players on just another project, a brewery heist.  Familiar players from his crime world are present with some new people, in particular a loose cannon named Myers running the show.  Grofield and another guy opt out of the heist because it’s too risky. Instead, he tags along as the other man, Dan Leach, decides to do a little gambling, winning a big pile of cash.

But Myers isn’t happy that they backed out, and he and his guys attack them and take Leach’s winnings.  What does Grofield do?  He goes home.  Turns the other cheek.  But Leach–the man who won all the money–wants it back and won’t stop until he gets it.

In the second act Leach tracks down Myers, and for some reason brings him beat-up and near-dead in the trunk of his car out to Indiana to visit Grofield.  Grofield is a thief–he’s not interested in guns or murder.  So he tells Leach to go away.  Grofield is re-painting walls for his theater stage.  He has other work to do.

But as we see in the third act, Grofield still needs money for his next stage production.  And this takes him to the novel’s Big Score: breaking a safe at a grocery store with a different group of players, an easy job to net him a quick fifteen grand.  Here Westlake leans into the genre and it’s great fun at every step.

But Grofield just can’t keep Myers out of the picture.  And this brings him back to page one and the scene of the heist Myers wanted him in on in the first place–the brewery score.  Only Myers doesn’t want him in on the heist now.

First published in 1971, Lemons Never Lie is the fourth standalone Grofield tale.  It’s well known that Westlake/Stark’s Parker is the inspiration for Max Allan Collins’ character Nolan, so this is as if Collins’ supporting player Jon got his own mini-series of novels.  That would be a pretty great thing.

And this is a pretty great read.

A criminal that isn’t cocky or lazy, dangerous or dumb…  It’s actually pretty rare in the genre.  As is a criminal with a supportive wife and a comfy home in the Midwest (the scenes of Grofield and his wife eating and sleeping on a stage set are priceless).  Grofield is definitely in the realm of a Nolan-esque hero, but he’s absolutely one of a kind, too.  I love that most of the action takes place in the Midwest.  New York City and Los Angeles stories have a tendency to blur over time, and a story set in new locations is always refreshing for the genre.

A Westlake read is like the best dessert, and Lemons Never Lie is no exception.  It’s another Westlake classic, and although published as Richard Stark and a tangent of the Parker stories, it is indistinguishable in literary quality from his novels published in his own name.

Don’t miss it–it’s available now here at Amazon with a new painted cover by Paul Mann.  And don’t miss my prior reviews at borg from Westlake’s extensive library: Forever and a Death, Castle in the Air, Help I Am Being Held Prisoner, Brothers Keepers, Double Feature, and Call Me a Cab.