Richard Stark, as is well known, was just one of the pseudonyms employed by the prolific author Donald E. Westlake. Stark was his most famous and frequently-employed nom de plume; generally he wrote his humorous books under his own name, and his cold, hard-boiled ones as Stark.

The Dame is one of the Stark books, an offshoot of his Parker series. The hero here is Alan Grofield, right-hand-man to the larcenous Parker and a sometime actor. Westlake/Stark gave Grofield four books of his own, of which this is the second.

The story begins with Grofield arriving at the airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He has been summoned here by way of a mysterious message, relayed by a corrupt general he knows. Someone wants to talk to him, and pays the way. Mostly out of curiosity, Grofield follows instructions, arriving at last at a remote jungle estate, where he meets the wife of a criminal boss along with her house guests. She wants Grofield to be her bodyguard. But he has taken an immediate dislike to her and turns the job down.

That night there is a murder. Soon the mob boss shows up with the announced purpose of identifying the murderer and administering some swift private justice. His chief suspect is Grofield. Grofield will have to come up with some fast moves and fast arguments to identify the true killer and save his own neck.

I can’t fault The Dame in terms of writing. Westlake/Stark was a pro, and he knew his business. The story offers plenty of danger and plenty of suspense, along with a certain mordant humor.

If I say I didn’t like it much, that’s simply personal taste. I tried reading Westlake some years back, reading a few of his much-admired Dortmunder books. But I could never get into them. Basically, I think I’ve never been able to sympathize much with criminals. Call it a prejudice.

I also noted some sophomoric Freudianism in play here, taking it for granted that chastity is just an expression of repression and neurosis.

So, my bottom line is that I recognize the quality of the product, but it wasn’t to my taste. Most readers seem to disagree.