The Damsel (Alan Grofield, #1) by Richard Stark

The Damsel (Alan Grofield, #1) Reviews

• 
  James Thane

  One of my favorite crime fiction series is the Parker series, written by Donald Westlake under the name Richard Stark. Stark wrote twenty-four of these novels featuring the humorless, amoral professional criminal, Parker, who usually recruited or was recruited by other professionals to pull off robberies of banks, armored cars and other such targets.
  
  One of Parker's most dependable henchmen was Alan Grofield who appears in several of the novels. Grofield is an actor by profession and he owns a small theater company. But there's not enough money in acting to keep hearth and home together, and so a couple of times a year Grofield joins Parker and others in a heist of some sort to bring in additional cash. Grofield is a somewhat lighter and more reflective man than Parker, and in 1967, Stark decided to give Grofield a book of his own, The Damsel.
  
  The eighth of the Parker novels is
  The Handle. At the end of that book, Grofield is wounded. 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.
  
  The Damsel opens at that point. 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.
  
  It turns out that the woman, Elly, is on a mission, and some very bad men are attempting to stop her from accomplishing it. The mission itself is beside the point, and the plot is pretty far-fetched. But that doesn't really matter either. There's a lot of witty banter and a great deal of sexual chemistry between Grofield and Elly, and their adventure together allows Grofield to demonstrate some very clever moves as they attempt to evade the goons who are now pursuing both of them as they race from Mexico City to Acapulco which is where Elly's mission will end. All in all, it's a lot of fun, and this is a book that should certainly appeal to the legion of Parker fans and to a lot of other readers as well.
• 
  Kemper

  Alan Grofield is laying in a hotel bed in Mexico City trying to recover from a gunshot wound in the back with a suitcase full of stolen money in the closet when a strange woman looking to escape some thugs comes into his room though the window.
  
  We’ve all been there, right?
  
  This is a series spun off of Richard Stark’s (a/k/a Donald Westlake’s) better known Parker novels about a professional thief. Grofield started out as a supporting player in those books, and the story of how he ended up in in that Mexican hotel room is part of a Parker novel. While the two characters are both criminals written by the same man, they don’t have much in common. Whereas Parker is a humorless pro who is all about getting the job done, Grofield’s career as a criminal is a side gig while he pursues his true calling, acting. As such, while Grofield is smart and has some devious moves, he’s also more funny and whimsical, and he has a tendency to fantasize that the actions he’s taking are part of a movie.
  
  The novel follows the structure of most Parker ones. We get the set-up and spend time with the lead character, but then there’s a shift so that we get the bad guys’ point of view. In this case that involves a plot involving a wealthy politician who is making a power play. That’s where the book slowed down for me. I was into the first part with Grofield and his new female friend on the run, but the machinations of the politician weren’t a lot of fun. A bit too close to reality these days for my taste.
  
  Grofield himself falls into a kind of odd category for Stark/Westlake thief characters. The Parker series were hard boiled and gritty crime stories while the Dortmunder books were comic capers about a luckless sad-sack of a criminal. Grofield is somewhere in between the two with some darker violent things happening, but at the same time his cheerful demeanor and witticisms make this far lighter than Parker.
  
  It’s a fun read, but Grofield definitely comes in third behind Parker and Dortmunder for me so far.
  
• 
  Dave

  Here, Grofield has left Parker and other conspirators, after pulling off a casino heist on a small island off the Texas coast. Grofield has a suitcase filled with money, a bullet wound in his back, and is sleeping most of the time in a Mexico City hotel as he tries to recover from his wounds. In his fifth story window bounds a beautiful pair of tanned legs: Elly. After some witty reparte about how she is just in time to scratch his back, it turns out that Elly is involved in some political
  intrigue involving gangsters and assasinations and three or four tough guys are out to keep her from a rendevous in Acapulco.
  
  This was about a three hour read. It was a smooth, quick reading tale that had Grofield and Ellie on the run from a group of tough gangsters as they tried to figure out how to get through the only road to the coast. It's really not like the Parker novels, but it is an excellent series in its own right. Although the underlying political plot is a little bit goofy, the story is well told and was enjoyable to read.
  
  The relationship between Grofield and Elly is well paced and comical as they meet in his hotel room and both try to sell the other ridiculous stories about how they ended up there. She climbed out a sixth story window on a rope of bed sheets to escape an overprotective aunt and he got an arrow in his back when a woman's husband showed up unexpectedly. The truth about who they are and how they ended up there takes a while to come out, but eventually Grofield signs on as her escort through the Mexican mountains and jungles. All in all, a book well worth reading.
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  So I guess I wouldn’t recommend you pick this up to read without knowing who the main character is. So, in short, read some of Richard Stark’s Parker series, where Alan Grofield is one of the guys Parker hires on various heists. And he’s obviously popular or Stark wouldn’t have written a four book spin-off series featuring Grofield.
  
  But it’s more complicated than that, actually. Stark is just one of the many pseudonyms used by lauded mystery writer Donald Westlake. One of Westlake’s most popular series is the Dortmunder novels, that are known for being funny. Westlake, writing as Stark, created a humorless, starker anti-hero in Parker, a career criminal, and these books are really good. I don’t know, think of James Coburn with even less smiling than you usually get from him in films. Not much for small talk, stripped down plots, no nonsense. Stark!
  
  But Westlake is a funny guy, and may have felt someone constrained by the Parker character and tight plots, so he created Grofield as a kind of foil for Parker, an actor who does heists when the acting money runs out. He’s handsome, clever, wise-cracking, a ladies man, the anti-Parker, though also good at what he does so Parker respects him and puts up with him.
  
  In the eighth Parker novel, The Handle, Parker and his henchmen knock off a casino on an island off Texas. At the end of that book, Grofield is wounded. Parker gets him safely to a hotel in Mexico City and leaves him with his considerable share of the money. Stark decides to 1) go on with the Parker series, following Parker, of course, and 2) also follow Grofield in his own separate series.
  
  The novel opens with Grofield--with a suitcase full of cash, recovering in his room, when a girl is lowering herself by sheets from the room above into his room. This is Elly, the “damsel” (sort of) in distress. The opening dialogues that ensue are worthy of Dashiell Hammett in The Thin Man, a series of lies they tell each other to avoid telling each other the truth. This is by far the best part of the book, though they are always funny together throughout.
  
  The plot is not as interesting as most of the Parker stories, but we discover Elly is involved in some political intrigue about a small fictional island somewhere in the Atlantic. Assassination plots, escape routes, a road trip, and eh, I am forgetting it already and I just read it. So it lost gas for me, but it is still better than most books. I’d say given the five star opening and the five star smoothly articulate character and the meh plot we come to 3.5. But Grofield is worth the detour if you ever read any of the Parker books.
  
• 
  Jim

  Spin-off series are often a bust. Not in this case, so the first book earns an extra star. I really like the Parker books although I'd never want to meet him in real life. Grofield is nothing like him. He's a thoroughly likable hoot & he manages to get into plenty of trouble which he gets out of one way or another while entertaining the ladies.
  
  This book comes right after
  The Handle, but I read it way out of order & it was still very enjoyable. Both series are predictable & simple enough that order isn't a real problem save for spoilers.
• 
  Mike (the Paladin)

  I'm a fan of Stark's (Donald E. Westlake's) Parker novels. They are what I call a sort-of guilty pleasure, the "bad guy" with whom you can sympathize...or at least enjoy his story. Parker is NOT a nice guy. However in reading his adventures you may have encountered Alan Grofield...he's a different story.
  
  You can like this guy. Here Grofield meets a "Damsel" who leads (drags ?) him into an adventure (or series of adventures) risking his life...and his ill-gotten gains (see his working relationship with Parker).
  
  Starting out the book our somewhat good-humored protagonist ends up fleeing across Mexico with said damsel only the fleeing turns out to be a rescue, sort-of.
  
  Look just try the book. Good brain candy, adventure, action laughs.
  
  Enjoy.
• 
  Stven

  I couldn't tell you its name, but I did read the Parker caper which is the prequel to The Damsel. Grofield was one of the guys in on the heist, and at the end of the story he's recuperating from a gunshot wound in Mexico with a suitcase full of money.
  
  That's where this one starts.
  
  I didn't find Grofield quite as much fun to follow around as I typically do Parker, though there's a lot of the same sequence of problem solving, new problem, problem solving, new problem, etc. Grofield is flip and witty and has a pretty good running conversation with the damsel in the story.
  
  If they fall into my hands, I'll read more of these, but I doubt I'll seek them out.
• 
  F.R.

  Whereas ‘The Handle’s is Stark clearly channelling Ian Fleming (or, at least, Broccoli/Saltzman), his follow up ‘The Damsel’ feels a lot more as if he’s been flicking through Leslie Charteris. We have here a professional thief in a Latin American country, a beautiful lady in distress, various less than bright hoods and a revolution that our hero has to stop. It’s like one of those post-thirties Saint novels where Templar gets out his passport and stretches his international legs.
  
  I said in my review of ‘The Handle’ that that was as close as Stark was going to get to breaking the mould for a Parker novel, well this is him shattering the mould for a Stark novel as for the first time Parker isn’t in it. This is the first of the four Grofield novels Stark wrote, which sit in an odd neglected corner of his canon. Even the introduction to this says if you’ve never read a Richard Stark novel, go away and read most of the others before coming back.
  
  Alan Grofield is a chattier and looser character than Parker, and our author clearly wants to have fun with his openness and to try out some snappy dialogue. What I wasn’t expecting though is, with a different leading character, how flabby the book would be. A Parker novel has a certain – ahem – starkness of prose. This is a lot more lackadaisical. It’s fleshy and unhurried and thinks nothing of including a chapter where two characters just hang out at a pool. It’s not bad, it’s just that in between the exciting and dramatic bits, it’s more than a bit dull. And dullness isn’t something I’ve ever experienced in a Stark novel before.
  
  I will read the other Grofield novels as I get to them, but for now, I wonder what old Parker is up to…
• 
  Maddy

  PROTAGONIST: Alan Grofield
  SETTING: Mexico
  SERIES: #1
  RATING: 3.5
  WHY: As professional actor and part-time thief Alan Grofield is sitting in his hotel room with a suitcase full of money when a woman comes in through his window. Ellen Marie Fitzgerald tells a story about needing to get to Acapulco to prevent a political assassination. Involved are presidential hopeful and the governor of Pennsylvania, Luke Harrison, and a banana republic dictator. Grofield is very clever about eluding the people who are after Elly. Grofield is an associate of another Stark creation, Parker, but a much sunnier character. He’s wisecracking and the book is fun.
  
• 
  Sandi

  Actor Alan Grofield, a supporting character in the Parker series, gets the lead in this book which is set right after the events of
  The Handle. While this was in no means a bad book, it just was not quite up to the standards of the Parker books. Listened to the audio version which was narrated by R.C. Bray who gave a very good performance.
• 
  Nanosynergy

  2.5 stars - if Goodreads had this option.
  
  This is the first in a spin-off short series of books with character Alan Grosfield as the main character. Grosfield is a regular character in many of the
  Richard Stark/
  Donald E. Westlake Parker series - an actor/thief, humorous ladies man. I liked the bantering humor in this book, but found the plot a bit dull. And fictitious leaders of made up countries generally don't, in my opinion, work all that well in books like this - too fairy-tale-ish a feel ("once upon a time in a faraway land there was a tiny kingdom"). But I did like the twists at the end of the book. The book's humor and the ending nudged it up a star, but not quite up to three stars for me.
• 
  Alan Teder

  Grofield stops an Assassination
  Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (May 2013) of the Macmillan paperback original (1967)
  
  Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific crime author
  Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008), who wrote over 100 books. The Stark pseudonym was used primarily for the Parker novels and their spinoff series, the Grofield novels. The Parkers are a hardboiled noir series but the Grofields have more of a lighter touch, often with humorous banter.
  
  In The Damsel, Alan Grofield is still in Mexico and recovering from his injuries suffered during the Parker novel
  The Handle (1967). In his hotel, a 'damsel in distress' sneaks in through his window trying to escape her captors in an upper room. The two proceed to banter and lie to each other for an extended time about who they are, but Grofield eventually agrees to help her and the rest of the book has them travelling through Mexico to prevent an assassination. I liked the comic banter of the book but the actual plot seemed quite ridiculous. This is more of a buddie comedy / road trip romcom with a few perilous escapes and situations along the way. It is definitely not in the vein of the noir and hardboiled world of the Parker novels.
  
  Narrator R.C. Bray does a good job in all voices in this audiobook edition.
  
  The 4 Grofield books are all available for free on Audible Plus.
  
  Trivia and Links
  There is a brief plot summary of The Damsel and of all the Parker & Grofield books and adaptations at The Violent World of Parker
  website.
  
  Although The Damsel's 2013 Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition shares the same cover art as the University of Chicago Press 2012
  reprint, it does not include the Foreword by author
  Sarah Weinman.
• 
  David

  The first novel starring Grofield, Parker's sometime accomplice, could have been a Parker novel, but only up to a point. The Damsel picks up with Grofield right where The Handle, the eighth Parker novel, left him, and the opening is similar to the second and third Parker novels: Grofield is minding his own business in a hotel room when the title character invades through a window. She is on the run, we soon learn, from people who are trying to prevent her from making it to Acapulco in time to warn a South American dictator that his life is in danger. Her motivation for doing this (for risking her life for doing this) is thin at best. Parker, the pragmatist, would have gotten far away from her as quickly as possible. Grofield, the romantic, throws his lot in with her. Bottom line: Stupid plot, please give me the next Parker novel.
• 
  Martin

  Grofield, the charming actor-slash-thief of
  Richard Stark's Parker books gets his own spin-off series! Be careful now, all you fans of heist stories: this book isn't one of them.
  
  This novel picks up right where
  The Handle left off. The plot is okay, nothing spectacular, and certainly lighter in tone than Stark's Parker books. This novel is an easy read, if a bit longer than the Parker books up to that point.
  
  Not bad at all, though a far cry from Stark's better works. Still, I'll be reading the other Grofield books (there are 3 others), if only because he's such a great character, and I'm curious to see what the author will do with him.
• 
  Mike

  Oh boy. Well, after nine great novels, Stark/Westlake finally struck out with the first book of the Grofield series. I like the character Grofield, but he doesn't hold my interest like Parker does. Even worse, the plot wasn't as tightly woven as the previous Parker novels, so I was left just trying to make my way through the final third of the book. Part Three was just a dreadful collection of character sketches, with poorly conceived "types" being introduced for the first time in the novel only to be discarded pages later. It felt rushed and sloppy--two words that I never thought I'd associate with Stark. In any case, I'll be excited to get back to the next Parker novel in the series and will hope that the next Grofield novel doesn't disappoint as much.
• 
  Stoltman

  This book wasn't the easiest to find but I'm really glad I did. I heard that some fans of Stark's Parker novels don't like the Grofield books nearly as much. I enjoyed this as much if not more than any of the Parkers that I have read. Parker is a great character but Grofield is so much more relatable. A lot of this book is Grofield traveling with a women he meets. They have interesting conversations. Parker's refusal to engage in any small talk would be a problem in this situation. (I can't even imagine a long car ride with Parker.) After enjoying this book so much, now I'm even more annoyed that I can't find the 2nd and 3rd Grofield novels.
• 
  Mike French

  My first book by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark. Westlake has always been one my favorite authors,especially the Dortmunder series! I am looking forward to reading the Parker books by Stark.
• 
  Tim Deforest

  Alan Grofield is a part of Richard Stark's Parker Universe, an actor who supplements his income by working as a thief. This novel, in fact, is a direct sequel to the Parker novel "The Handle," in which Parker and Grofield were part of a team robbing an island casino. That novel ended with Grofield recovering from a gun shot wound in Mexico City, with his take from the robbery in a suitcase.
  
  "The Damsel" picks up when a lady, escaping from a trio of hired thugs, climbs through Grofield's hotel window, where he's still recovering from his wound. Soon, he's hip deep in escapes, chases and a mission to try to prevent the assassination of a Central American dictator.
  
  The garrulous Grofield is a lot different from the close-mouthed and brutal Parker (who would have dumped the girl without a thought at the first opportunity). It's also interesting to meet several characters who are actually trying to do the right thing--a rarity in the Parker universe. So "The Damsel" is a nice change-of-pace from the novels starring Parker, just as enjoyable in its own way and adding additional richness to the Parker Universe.
  
• 
  Tom Gaetjens

  As a character, Grofield is head and shoulders more interesting than Parker. Less of a strict audience cypher and more of an attempt at actual traits and attributes. The rest is interchangeable, but it's remarkable to see just how much that adds to the equation.
• 
  Charity Jenkins

  A really fun read. Following on from a Parker novel from Grofield's perspective, which means a bit of extra flair and drama plus soundtracks for action scenes as Grofield turns everything into a movie in his head.
• 
  Bill

  (3.5 stars if I could give half stars.)
  
  Stark (aka Donald Westlake) is best known for his 'Parker' novels. 'The Damsel' is the first of four he wrote featuring Alan Grofield, one of Parker's occasional partners in crime.
  
  The action picks up after the events of 'The Handle.' Grofield is recuperating from a gunshot in Mexico when he meets up with a young American woman being pursued by generic thugs. They escape, he eventually gets her to explain her situation, and he tries to come up with a plan to help her.
  
  The structure is similar to the Stark uses with Parker: two acts setting up the action, a third act from the POV of the other players, and a final act wrapping things up. But Grofield is no Parker - he's less cold-blooded, more willing to lend a hand. And the story is not about pulling off a job so much as it is about Grofield rescuing the 'damsel' of the title.
  
  I don't find Grofield as interesting a character as Parker. But the action moves at a decent clip and the prose is typical of Stark. It's an interesting diversion, but not classic in the same way as the 'Parker' books are.
• 
  Robert

  I love Alan Grofield and am always delighted when he turns up in a Parker novel. Giving him his own book here, after the hijinks of The Handle, seemed like fertile territory, but what we get is a pretty run-of-the-mill "couple on the run" yarn. The tone of the book definitely takes its cue from the personality of Grofield, who is more breezy and care-free than the cold, brutal Parker. I guess this is as it should be, but the sense of urgency, along with many other qualities of the Parker novels, are absent here. The repoire between Grofield and his thrust-upon female companion is not as sharp as it should be, and borders on tedious at times. Stark's penchant for throwing an unexpected wrench into the structure of his novels is present here, and welcome. The timeline and principal characters flip halfway through, and it's always fun to see how it comes together. The highlight of The Damsel actually comes in the form of a completely incidental Central American psychopath, who, in his own chapter, swiftly enters and then exits the events of the principal narrative with violent aplomb.
  
• 
  Dominick

  This is an atypical Stark. It's one of the few about Grofield rather than Parker, and it's not about a heist but rather more of an action/adventure story about a plot to murder a South American dictator. Grofield, wounded in Mexico, rather improbably gets tangled up (in more ways than one) with the nubile eponymous young thing as she tries to warn the general while being pursued by thugs. Follows the typical Stark book structure, effectively enough. There's some delightfully cold violence, though not at the same level as in the Parker books; Grofield's interesting in his own way, but not at the same level as Parker. Still, fun stuff if you like economically-written, plot-driven adventure stories, with a mild seasoning of sex and some moderately interesting character twists.
• 
  Matt Sabonis

  It's great, getting to read that spare, trademark Stark style again. But...sad as I am to say it, Grofield's not nearly so magnetic on his own as he is in the Parker books (at least in this one). It was a fun adventure, but man, I wanted another heist out of this one! And he didn't try to steal anything, which was too bad. But still, fun stuff, and Stark's prose carries the narrative along effectively.
• 
  Mohammed Abdikhader Firdhiye

  Grofield wasn't as funny as i expected in this book but he was interesting enough to carry the book well for me.
  
  A weird little book, at times it was a bit hard-boiled,gritty and others it was typically Westlake comic crime.
  
  Not one of DEW strongest books but it was good enough to enjoy the ride.
• 
  Rick Winters

  To be honest, I came across this book after searching an online bookstore with key word "lemon" This book is the first in a four book series with the forth being "Lemons Never Lie" The books were written in the late 60's and I enjoyed the visit back to the culture of that day and the quick read that kept me interested to the end.
• 
  Bruce

  My first Westlake book but already I feel that we're going to have a LONG relationship! Face paced, and has a slight tinge of dark humor. A quick entertaining read. Recommended.
• 
  Josh

  Good book, but I did miss Parker. Of course, Parker would never have put up with all this crap. He would have just put an end to it in the first chapter. Grofield is much more accommodating.