Oceanview, Los Angeles, 1962.

Stark is a rat and a con-artist. Nobody's friend. The kind of guy Eddie Bunker met in San Quentin. Stark thinks he can beat the suckers and outsmart the cops. When a big score comes his way, he's lucky to escape with his life. Four others are not so lucky.

Eddie Bunker described Stark as a story about a con man. Eddie didn't think much of con-men, because, as a rule, they preyed upon people weaker than themselves. But he understood them.

Stark was Eddie Bunker's first novel, written in the early 60s and a harbinger of the books that brought him critical acclaim such as No Beast So Fierce. Never published during his life time, the manuscript was only rediscovered after his death and is published in English for the first time by No Exit.