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Review
"Parker... lumbers through the pages of Richard Stark's noir novels scattering dead bodies like peanut shells.... In a complex world he makes things simple." - William Grimes, New York Times "Richard Stark's Parker novels... are among the most poised and polished fictions of their time and, in fact, of any time." - John Banville, Bookforum "The Parkers read with the speed of pulp while unfolding with an almost Nabokovian wit and flair." - Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times "Parker is refreshingly amoral, a thief who always gets away with the swag." - Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly "Whatever Stark writes, I read." - Elmore Leonard"
Product Description
By the time Richard Stark sat down to write "Deadly Edge" in 1971, he'd been chronicling the adventures of his antihero, Parker, for nearly a decade. But it turns out he was just warming up: the next three "Parker" novels would see Stark crank everything up a notch - tightening the writing, heightening the violence, and, most of all, hardening the deadly heister at the books' heart. "Deadly Edge" kicks things off by bidding a brutal adieu to the 1960s: Parker robs a rock concert, but the heist goes sour, and he finds himself - and his woman, Claire - menaced by a pair of sadistic, drug-crazed hippies. Slayground turns the hunter into prey, as Parker gets trapped in a shuttered amusement park, besieged by a bevy of local mobsters. He's low on bullets - but, as anyone who's crossed his path knows, that definitely doesn't mean he's defenseless. Finally, in Plunder Squad, job after job disintegrates into failure and violence, and a rare act of mercy from earlier in the series comes back to bite Parker - hard. These books by Stark reveal a master craftsman working at the height of his powers, and they deserve a place on the bookshelf of every fan of crime fiction.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the twelfth Parker novel I have read and I always thought of him as a product of the 1950's/1960's so it came as something of a revelation to realise that this story begins with a robbery at a rock concert in the early 1970's. Fortunately the Parker character is so well conceived he has a timeless quality about him that makes dates almost irrelevant. Acting on inside information our villainous anti-hero plans to steal the 'gate money'(cash, of course)of the rock concert and the step by step progress of the task in hand makes it easy to understand why this series of books is so difficult to put down. Parker and his three associates perform their parts with ruthless efficiency and his manipulation of his victims during a robbery is a lesson in criminal efficiency. Naturally things soon start to go wrong. An unexplained corpse at the gang's hideout is a sign of problems to come and it isn't long before the inevitable trail of corpses make it necessary for Parker to become the hunter as well as the hunted. In previous stories it has been a cardinal rule for Parker to keep his professional activities completely separate from his private life. That changes as he and his partner, Claire, settle into a kind of domestic bliss. She buys a house for them to live in on a fairly permanent basis (they intend to spend summers away when neighbours move into their lakeside 'holiday homes') and makes it clear that, even when putting down roots means they are vulnerable to unseen adversaries, she has no intention of going into hiding until Parker can resolve their problems. Another well told story unfolds and I for one cannot wait to find out what's going on, who will survive, and will Parker make any money from his latest 'score'. One of Richard Stark's reviewers said that you won't need a bookmark because his books are impossible to put down. Not strictly true of course but it sums up the Parker experience perfectly. As usual, highly recommended.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Dark Battle
13 Jun 2011
Format:Paperback
Deadly Edge, by Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westlake) is more action packed than previous Parker novels. Deadly Edge begins with Parker and his team of thieves stealing the receipts of a rock concert. As usual with Parker, it is a masterful plan where they sneak into the accounting room undetected, and escape before authorities become aware that a crime has occurred. The team makes it to their pre-arranged hideout, divides the loot, and after a few days each goes his separate way.
As in all Parker novels, something goes wrong. The first hint is when they get to their hideout, they discover the dead body of a man who had been on the team but was unable to participate due to problems of his advanced age. Nobody has a clue who killed him, but they assumed they would be safe once they split and disappeared from the scene.
Parker has rules designed to prevent a caper from failing. He works only with professionals, discusses the job only with members of the robbery team, and will not allow a person to quit who is knowledgeable about the job. In this story Parker makes the mistake of letting someone know the plan's details who was not in on the job.
Deadly edge turns ugly as two men track each team member separately and kill them. Who could do this? How could they obtain secret information concerning where each member of the team resides? Parker conducts a hunt to find and eliminate this threat as he must protect his money, his woman, and his pride.
Deadly edge is a more violent novel than those earlier in the series. It has constant action and suspense. We read about intricate planning and use of tactics by Parker in this attempt to win his cat and mouse game.
Deadly Edge is one of the better Parker stories. It includes the details of the well executed robbery of the concert and entertains us with precise details of the struggle with his new enemies.
I highly recommend this book to all mystery crime lovers.
As in all Parker novels, something goes wrong. The first hint is when they get to their hideout, they discover the dead body of a man who had been on the team but was unable to participate due to problems of his advanced age. Nobody has a clue who killed him, but they assumed they would be safe once they split and disappeared from the scene.
Parker has rules designed to prevent a caper from failing. He works only with professionals, discusses the job only with members of the robbery team, and will not allow a person to quit who is knowledgeable about the job. In this story Parker makes the mistake of letting someone know the plan's details who was not in on the job.
Deadly edge turns ugly as two men track each team member separately and kill them. Who could do this? How could they obtain secret information concerning where each member of the team resides? Parker conducts a hunt to find and eliminate this threat as he must protect his money, his woman, and his pride.
Deadly edge is a more violent novel than those earlier in the series. It has constant action and suspense. We read about intricate planning and use of tactics by Parker in this attempt to win his cat and mouse game.
Deadly Edge is one of the better Parker stories. It includes the details of the well executed robbery of the concert and entertains us with precise details of the struggle with his new enemies.
I highly recommend this book to all mystery crime lovers.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Best of the Parkers
7 Jan 2011
Format:Paperback
Some of the other reviews here reamrk the series is getting old by the end (this one comes near the end). That's true but for someone new to the series that does not matter. Of the 60s and 70s Parker books I liked this one the best. No silly stuff about The Outfit or ex-Nazis. Just a dark hard edged unsentimental story swiftly told, with good insight into the people swept up in Parker's path. Stark's strength is that while he shows little violence he shows the effects of violence, and that is a strong theme here.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Slow Start and Not One of the Best of the Series
21 Nov 2010
Format:Paperback
The thirteenth novel in Donald E Westlake's (a.k.a. Richard Stark) sensational Parker series suffers a little bit from being a bit wordy. I guess Westlake and importantly the Richard Stark brand had become so big by 1971 (when this was first published), that editors didn't even touch these novels anymore. This results in Deadly Edge being about twice as thick as most other Parker novels. Whilst more Parker seems like a great concept, it isn't really with Deadly Edge. At the beginning we have to endure a lengthy account of Parker and other criminal colleagues swinging an axe into the roof and old stadium they are planning on robbing. This axe chopping just goes on, and on, with Westlake telling us about each chop, moving the feet and so on. Honestly if this was my first Parker novel or exposure to Westlake's work I would have stopped reading and moved onto something else. When the actual heist of the stadium's concert takings (remember this is set in the days before credit cards and any major alternative to cash) gets underway, the normal Parker standard returns, but as a reader we had to wait a fair while to get to this. Amongst the rest of the novel there's a lot of padding as well, with real estate selling descriptions of every room in Claire's brand new house, and we even have a complete retelling of the exact same phone conversation between Claire and Parker spaced out in the novel like both were supposed to be tried, and one later chosen. It wasn't even an important conversation to the plot with a much more important later phone call we don't even experience Parker's point of view. Claire also recounts the whole plot from the Rare Coin Score, so make sure you've read that one first!
Basic plot of Deadly Edge is Parker and a few others rob a stadium where a rock concert is playing and escape with a considerable amount of cash. However when they get to the getaway house they find the body of a crim who was previously in on the heist but had decided he was too old to join in one last time. Parker returns to his away from crime life and to Claire at a new home she has just bought for the two of them. No more staying in hotels for the two of them but it's not long before Parker's go between warns Parker one of the men on his last caper is trying to track him down. When Parker catches up with him he's been nailed to a wall. Parker doesn't know what's going on but is determined to find out. He wants Claire to go on holiday for a while but she stubbornly refuses to leave their new house. Parker has to catch up with this new threat before it arrives on his doorstep.
Deadly Edge is an okay read but if you're not a fan of the whole series and aren't reading every single novel, you'll probably want to give this a miss. The next novel after Deadly Edge in this series is Slayground.
Basic plot of Deadly Edge is Parker and a few others rob a stadium where a rock concert is playing and escape with a considerable amount of cash. However when they get to the getaway house they find the body of a crim who was previously in on the heist but had decided he was too old to join in one last time. Parker returns to his away from crime life and to Claire at a new home she has just bought for the two of them. No more staying in hotels for the two of them but it's not long before Parker's go between warns Parker one of the men on his last caper is trying to track him down. When Parker catches up with him he's been nailed to a wall. Parker doesn't know what's going on but is determined to find out. He wants Claire to go on holiday for a while but she stubbornly refuses to leave their new house. Parker has to catch up with this new threat before it arrives on his doorstep.
Deadly Edge is an okay read but if you're not a fan of the whole series and aren't reading every single novel, you'll probably want to give this a miss. The next novel after Deadly Edge in this series is Slayground.
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