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Product Description
Review
"The Parkers read with the speed of pulp while unfolding with an almost Nabokovian wit and flair.... Original editions of these books, and even later reprints, change hands for scores or hundreds of dollars on the Net, and it's excellent to have them readily available again - not so much masterpieces of the genre, just masterpieces, period." - Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times "Parker is refreshingly amoral, a thief who always gets away with the swag." - Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly "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 "Whatever Stark writes, I read. He's a stylist, a pro, and I thoroughly enjoy his attitude." - Elmore Leonard "Westlake knows precisely how to grab a reader, draw him or her into the story, and then slowly tighten his grip until escape is impossible." - Washington Post Book World "Donald Westlake's Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you've been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust - these are the books you'll want on that desert island." - Lawrence Block"
Product Description
You probably haven't ever noticed them. But they've noticed you. They notice everything. That's their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers' work habits, the positions of the security guards. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brink's truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack. They're thieves. Heisters, to be precise. They're pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. If you're planning a job, you want him in. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is the heister's heister, the robber's robber, the heavy's heavy. You don't want to cross him, and you don't want to get in his way, because he'll stop at nothing to get what he's after. Parker, the ruthless antihero of Richard Stark's mystery novels, is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose style - and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency - Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of this series to print for a new generation of readers to discover - and become addicted to. This season's offerings include volumes 4-6 in the series: "The Mourner", "The Score", and "The Jugger". "The Mourner" is a story of convergence - of cultures and of guys with guns. Hot on the trail of a statue stolen from a fifteenth-century French tomb, Parker enters a world of eccentric art collectors, greedy foreign officials, and shady KGB agents.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The toughest "hero" - well, main character, anyway - in any fiction, ever. Makes Don Corleone look gently, friendly, supportive.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Whilst we all Mourn Westlake's (aka Richard Stark) Death, It's Great Parker and His Older Adventures Have Been Given Life Again!
22 Aug 2009
Format:Paperback
It's great to see publishers such as University of Chicago Press republishing old classics such as Westlake's originally published in 1963 Parker novel The Mourner. They've actually republished quite a number of his novels from the start of his under Richard Stark pen name Parker novels, all have a similar gun silhouette and a couple of images in front, with of a different colour background for each book which incidentally all look quite good together on a shelf. I wasn't even alive back when this originally came out so am quite grateful to be able to read these now without having to pay a small fortune for them.
You certainly don't need to have read the three previous Parker adventures to enjoy this as a standalone read but this one (in chapter 4) does give away key happenings in those first three books so it's probably a good idea to put this one aside and pick up the other three first. In order they are The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face (aka The Steel Hit) and The Outfit. If you've just finished this, the next one to look for is The Score (aka Killtown).
In The Mourner, Parker needs to steal a 15th century small white statue of mourner (hence the title of the book) which a Russian diplomat named Kapor has in his collection. Unfortunately for Parker, this diplomat has funded his collection by syphoning off money that should have gone back to the Soviet Union, so KGB policeman August Menlo, has been sent to discreetly dispose of Kapor and bring back the money. However first he's got to find just where Kapor hid it, so when Parker's colleague in this caper Handy McKay shows an interest in one of Kapor's female servants, Menlo has him abducted. Parker has no idea why Handy was taken but he doesn't take kindly to someone else muscling in on his action.
This is easily the best novel in the series up to this point since The Hunter. August Menlo is an excellently written character who you'll thoroughly enjoy following his journey through the pages.
It's a shame Donald E Westlake passed away in December 2008 so the Parker adventures ended with Dirty Money published that year. It's a great series and it's great that these old adventures that were published before many of our times can be obtained again so easily through republication. Incidentally Westlake's first ever novel (not a Parker adventure) has also been republished under the title The Cutie.
You certainly don't need to have read the three previous Parker adventures to enjoy this as a standalone read but this one (in chapter 4) does give away key happenings in those first three books so it's probably a good idea to put this one aside and pick up the other three first. In order they are The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face (aka The Steel Hit) and The Outfit. If you've just finished this, the next one to look for is The Score (aka Killtown).
In The Mourner, Parker needs to steal a 15th century small white statue of mourner (hence the title of the book) which a Russian diplomat named Kapor has in his collection. Unfortunately for Parker, this diplomat has funded his collection by syphoning off money that should have gone back to the Soviet Union, so KGB policeman August Menlo, has been sent to discreetly dispose of Kapor and bring back the money. However first he's got to find just where Kapor hid it, so when Parker's colleague in this caper Handy McKay shows an interest in one of Kapor's female servants, Menlo has him abducted. Parker has no idea why Handy was taken but he doesn't take kindly to someone else muscling in on his action.
This is easily the best novel in the series up to this point since The Hunter. August Menlo is an excellently written character who you'll thoroughly enjoy following his journey through the pages.
It's a shame Donald E Westlake passed away in December 2008 so the Parker adventures ended with Dirty Money published that year. It's a great series and it's great that these old adventures that were published before many of our times can be obtained again so easily through republication. Incidentally Westlake's first ever novel (not a Parker adventure) has also been republished under the title The Cutie.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Parker's Maltese Falcon
12 Feb 2011
Format:Paperback
One of the things you realize reading these in their University of Chicago "approved classic" editions is that the guy who wrote them was a working stiff trying to find what would sell; so while the character of Parker is fairly constant, the situations hop genres. This one clearly starts out in a mix of Dashiell Hammett and 60s spy movie territory, with a Peter Lorre-esque collector on the trail of a Maltese Falcon-like historical dingus also sought by KGB agents and other grotesque characters, the kind of caper that was typical back then in movies like Topkapi or The Pink Panther. At first that seems a little cheap, but in the end it's interesting to see how Parker functions in that environment-- and the answer is, ten times more unsentimentally than even Sam Spade, since he's not going to fall in love with any dame, or worry about sending one up the river, either. Still, too much of this seems out of place in Parker's world, too movieish for a guy who inhabits a lowlife world of untraceable cars and stagnant small towns, and the convenient use of a genuine piece of standard issue spy equipment to finish off one major character seems cheap and wrong. The next book, The Score, will return Parker to a world he belongs in.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
We do not remember birth, and death is not a part of life
6 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This series started at a wrong time, it went entirely against the spirit of the 60s, says John Banville in his introduction to vol 4 of the Parker series. You can say that again. Parker cares nothing about politics or wars or love, but he will rob you and kill you if you are in the way.
He cares nothing about art or history, but here he gets involved in art theft. Business is business. Parker works for money. If there is a history behind an art object, what does he care. The statuette in question, the mourning monk, hails from Dijon. Various historical events moved it to Canada, then Atlanta, then Boston, now Washington D.C. in the embassy of a fictional iron curtain country --- another intricacy that Parkers cares nothing about. Parker's patience is heavily tested by this tale. He likes his briefs to be brief.
The fact that the University of Chicago Press reprints the Parker series, and that they get highbrow Banville to write an introduction, proves at least, if nothing else, that the author Westlake/Stark has found influential supporters. It doesn't prove the high value of the writing. For that you need to see for yourself.
I have myself nearly quit the habit of reading crime series, but there are always exceptions.
He cares nothing about art or history, but here he gets involved in art theft. Business is business. Parker works for money. If there is a history behind an art object, what does he care. The statuette in question, the mourning monk, hails from Dijon. Various historical events moved it to Canada, then Atlanta, then Boston, now Washington D.C. in the embassy of a fictional iron curtain country --- another intricacy that Parkers cares nothing about. Parker's patience is heavily tested by this tale. He likes his briefs to be brief.
The fact that the University of Chicago Press reprints the Parker series, and that they get highbrow Banville to write an introduction, proves at least, if nothing else, that the author Westlake/Stark has found influential supporters. It doesn't prove the high value of the writing. For that you need to see for yourself.
I have myself nearly quit the habit of reading crime series, but there are always exceptions.
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