I read Stark books both in Italian and English. 

In Italy there is a very famous and well selled series of novels, called "Giallo Mondadori".  Mondadori is the name of the publishers, while "Giallo" is the Italian for yellow, as the book covers was always of this color. Those books was so successful that in Italy "giallo" now stands for "whodunnit".  Well, in 1964, when the editors read Parker books, they found them very good, but too dark, too violent to join the "Giallo" novels. So they created a new series of novels, called "Neri Mondadori" (Neri=Black="noir") to publish Parker books, and also James Hadley Chase's, Cornell Woolrich's and Jim Thompson's books.  However, some years later, Parker join the normal "Giallo".

In Italy, we change the name of the foreign books and movies. We do that because we look down on every Italian, and we think that no Italian can understand or appreciate the original title. For example, in Italy "Citizen Kane" became "Quarto potere" ("Fourth power"), "The Grifters" - with Westlake's screenplay - became "Rishiose Abitudini" (Risky Habits), "Point Blank" became "Senza un attimo di tregua" (Without a moment of break), and so on ... . However Helgeland's (or Gibson's ...) "Payback" remained "Payback", but it has a subtitle: "La rivincita di Porter" (Porter's Revenge).

So in Italy every Parker book had is title changed, with no regard to the original one:

The Hunter:  Anonima Carogne=Swines Inc.

The Man with the Getaway Face:  Salva la Faccia, Parker!=Save Your Face, Parker!

The Outfit:  Liquidate quel Parker=Get Rid of That Parker!

The Mourner:  Fatti Sotto, Parker!=Push Yourself Forward, Parker!

The Score:  La Notte Brava di Parker=Parker's Wild Night

The Jugger:  Hai Perso il Morto, Parker!=You Lose the Corpse, Parker!

The Seventh:  Parker, il Rischio è la Mia Droga=Parker, Risk is My Drug

The Handle:  Parker: a Ferro e a Fuoco=Parker: to fire and sword

The Rare Coin Score:  Parker: Rapina a Sangue Freddo=Parker: Cold Blood Score

The Green Eagle Score:  Guardati le Spalle, Parker!=Look Out, Parker!

The Black Ice Score:  Parker e i Diamanti Neri=Parker and the Black Diamonds

The Sour Lemon Score:  Bada Alla Pelle, Parker=Save Your Skin, Parker

Slayground:  Luna-Parker=This is a wordplay between Parker and Luna-Park, Italian for Funfair, amusement park

Deadly Edge:  Lotta libera per Parker=Wrestling for Parker

Plunder Squad:  Parker: Via con il Piombo=Parker: Go With the Lead

Butcher’s Moon:  Parker: Luna Nuova, Buio Pesto=Parker: New Moon, Pitch Dark

As you can see, except for "The Hunter", every Italian title has the name Parker in it, just to say "Hey, you, reader, this is a Parker novel!  Buy it at once!". Morover, there isn't an Italian version of Comeback, Backflash or Flashfire.  In fact, today Stark has no success in Italy (!). Westlake is not so popular. Only Dortmunder's book are currently published, by a very little publishing firm.

Is there an Italian Stark? Of course not. I think that the only one could be Giorgio Scerbanenco. Born in Kiev, he wrote a lot (really a lot) of novels, and some of them are noir. I suggest you "Venere Privata" and "Traditori di tutti" (I don't know if they have an English translation, however).

Bye.

Flavio

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