Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark

Latest new arrival is this:














A first edition of Richard Stark's fourth Alan Grofield novel, Lemons Never Lie, published in hardback in the US by The World Publishing Company in 1971. Stark/Westlake wrote four books starring Grofield; I already have a 1968 first UK edition of the first one, The Damsel:














And now I have the final one. Grofield, an actor and theatre-runner who funds his thespian career with heists, occasionally features in the Parker books – he's in the one I'm reading at the moment, The Handle – but his own books are apparently lighter in tone than the Parker ones (a lot of Parker fans don't like them, as they're closer to Westlake's comedy caper novels). I'll find out once I finish The Handle, as, chronologically speaking, The Damsel is next in line. But I read on The Violent World of Parker that Lemons Never Lie is much more like a Parker book: lean and mean. I'll find out how true that is once I've read the Parker novel Slayground (which comes before it).

This copy of Lemons Never Lie is ex-library, this time from the Reading Public Library. That's Reading Pennsylvania, not Reading Berkshire (where the big rock festival is). It's in good condition though. I'm slightly mystified by Westlake's dedication, however:








If you can't read that, it says, "This is for Edgar Carreras, wherever he may be." So who's Edgar Carreras? Google has failed me on this one. Answers on a postcard, or, possibly more helpfully, in the comments, please.

(NB: a review of Lemons Never Lie can be found here.)

Oh,

and I got the Chris Sprouse variant cover of Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1 instead of the regular edition:














Don't really go in for variants so much these days, but I like this one a lot.

Give Us a Ring

Back from the comic shop, with ten comics. Ten! That's almost unheard of these days! I didn't cave in to my desire for a catch-up on the Superman comics as I had a quick flick through War of the Supermen and it looked as predictable and uninspired as all the other Superman comics from the past two years or so, and I didn't get that Fallen thing cos it seemed to consist of lots of Marvel superheroes standing around Sentry's grave and remembering how great he was (sorry, Marvel superheroes: he was a pointless waste of ink, which is why he's been offed. Get over it.). But I still emerged with ten comics. How did that happen?

One of the ones I got was Brightest Day #1, which came out last week. I've blogged before about my weird compulsion to buy this, but even given all that, I still picked it up. But when I went to pay for my comics, the nice lass spotted my copy of Brightest Day #1 and said, "Oh, you get a free ring with that." And then she went, "Here, have one of these too."

For those who don't know, DC Comics have been running a promotion for a while now whereby comics retailers who order a certain number of Blackest Night and Brightest Day-related comics can then order a bunch of differently hued rings, each one tied to a different 'Corp', i.e. the Green Lantern Corp, the Red Lantern Corp, and so on. So I am now the, er, proud owner of a White Lantern ring and a Green Lantern ring:










Fuck knows what I'll do with 'em, but it's always nice to get free stuff.

Fall Guy

So it turns out the mystery comic called Fallen that Marvel are publishing this week (which I mentioned here) is in fact this:













Judging by that cover, it looks like much-unloved retcon Superman knock-off The Sentry will cop it in the final issue of Marvel's Siege, also out this week. Which isn't much of a surprise. I've blogged about Sentry before, about how he was a creative dead end, and now he's apparently reached the end of that dead end. Or something. In the words of Captain Blackadder, a fate worse than a fate worse than death. Farewell then, Sentry, if you really are dead. Unlike Gordon Brown, you won't be missed at all.

More Shelf Porn!

Where were we? Ah yes, the main bookcase. Well, my main bookcase. There's another one with all of Rachel's books on it, which is, frankly, a bloody mess. I tidied my main bookcase up over the weekend. Hint hint. But here's a section of one of Rachel's shelves, with all her Agatha Christies on:











Lovely. Back to my shelves. From the top: (Well, nearly the top; the very top shelf has got CDs on it. Chaos!)











All fairly self-explanatory. And the next shelf down:











And the next one:











Nice bit of double-stacking there, I think you'll agree. Those Marvel hardback graphic novels sticking up at the back are the first couple of collections of Ed Brubaker's Captain America. There's also a French collection of Jim Woodring's Frank nearest to us, next to another Paul graphic novel (see previous post), which is obviously in the wrong place. Jesus. In the front row are some Jim Thompson paperbacks (you can just about see The Killer Inside Me and Nothing More Than Murder), various other paperbacks, a first edition hardback of Brian Aldiss' book about science fiction, Billion Year Spree (the yellow cover down the other end), and, nearest to us, a novel I actually edited – Tank Girl: Armadillo. Next!











And the bottom one:











And now, full frontal shots (phwoar, slight return) of the top two and bottom two shelves, but not the middle one, which I inexplicably forgot to photograph. Top two shelves:











Looking a little disorderly there. Possibly could do with another tidy. And finally, the bottom two shelves:











On the upper shelf there we have some old Marvel Treasury Editions sitting on the top (including Kirby's 2001: A Space Odyssey adaptation); the two collections of Chris Ware's sketches; lots of Fantagraphics' indie Mome anthology; and all sorts of magazine-size comics, including all the A4 copies of the brilliant British anthology Escape (the A5 ones are on the lower shelf in the previous picture). And on the lower shelf, Superman/Batman graphic novels (the whole of the Jeph Loeb run, which I really liked, so ner); Alan Moore's Top Ten hardbacks; various other DC hardbacks; lots of books by Norwegian cartoonist Jason; the whole run of Lucifer graphic novels (I also have the original comics, saddo that I am); a few more indie things, some more DC stuff, and right on the end, Joe Matt's first oversized hardcover Peep Show collection. Marvellous. Any questions, see me after.

Of course, this doesn't include all the comics I have stashed in the big spaces above the built in wardrobes, nor all the comics I have in my mum and dad's loft, nor all the books I have up there too. Hoarder much?

Shelf Porn!

It's a new day
It's a new dawn
It's the same old Tories
So let's have some shelf porn!

Yes, we may be lumbered with a Conservative (and Liberal Democrat, although that's essentially the same thing these days) government, but we'll always have Paris. I mean we'll always have books. Not Paris. Paris is lovely, but it's irrelevant. I mean irrelevant to this post. Not irrelevant in a wider sense. Although it is to the Tories. But anyway.

Thus far, we've had Richard Stark/Donald Westlake Shelf Porn and Patricia Highsmith Shelf Porn. Now I'd like to take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of Lon-- no, hang on, I'd like to take you by the hand and guide you around the rest of my bookshelves. Let's take a look, shall we?









This is the shelf underneath my Highsmith and Stark (and Kingsley Amis) books. From left to right we have two big Love & Rockets hardbacks (Palomar and Locas, the first of which I bought in the famed Lambiek comic shop in Amsterdam I think); then some Joe Sacco graphic novels (Safe Area Gorazde among them); a couple of Michael Rabagliati Paul graphic novels; epic alt-comix anthology Kramers Ergot volumes 4 to 6; some DC Comics crossover Crisis collections (including the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths, a comic I absolutely loved when I was younger); a few Daniel Clowes books; and various Marvel hardcovers, including X-Men: Messiah Complex, which is probably the best post-Morrison X-Men story. And then at the back a few hardback novels (including Stephen King's The Stand) and some political tomes, Alan Clark's brilliant Diaries among them (there are more political memoirs and the like behind the books on the top shelf).

Three views of the shelf above my record collection. Various things here, including, from left to right, J. G. Ballard's Running Wild (illustrated by Janet Woolley); first editions of Gregory Mcdonald's first three Fletch novels; assorted crime and SF novels, including a first edition of Poul Anderson's Brain Wave; my Gavin Lyall collection; a first of Peter O'Donnell's debut Modesty Blaise novel; the Kinglsey Amis-written James Bond Dossier and Book of Bond; Book Club editions of Ian Fleming's From Russia, with Love and Dr. No; Pan paperback editions of Bond novels (lots of first paperback editions there); and Richard Stark paperback editions.

Phew. To be continued...