Butcher's Moon

Rating:
Summary: Hard to find classic!
Review: It took me 13 years to find this book and I can honestly say it was worth the wait. Those who have encountered Parker before do not need encouragement to read this, but for the first timer this book will open your mind to a totally different kind of hero, one you find yourself rooting for even though you find no common principles between you. Fairness, the ability to see an argument from another's view, willingness to compromise, to Parker these are foreign phrases. In this book a Mafia boss tries to make Parker understand that what he wants is simply not possible, indeed more than one person tries to make Parker see sense. But Parker is as unstoppable and inevitable as the juggernaut, if you attempt to interfere, at best, you can hope he'll ignore you, at worst, you'll make him mad. This book showed for the first time that Parker can get emotionally involved, which he had always resisted as it may have affected his judgement. The "new" side to Parker merely cemented his reputation as the toughest antihero in crime fiction. If you read this book you will read the rest of the series. In a lifetime of reading books this is the only series I continue to come back to. After writing this Stark could not "find the voice" for nearly twenty years. Thankfully this is not the last Parker, but if it had been I'm sure the author would have been justifiably proud to have ended on this high note.

Rating:
Summary: A dangerous pick up.
Review: Parker, Richard Stark's anti-hero, is running low on funds, so he and a friend got to a small city to pick up his cut of a heist done a few years ago. Except that now it isn't there. He goes to the local mob cheif and is told it has been used for a new cartel. Now Parker and his friend Grofeild decides to start robbing some mob operations, just to hut them, except it backfires on them and leaves Grofeild shot and in enemy hands. Now Parker calls in all his friends and pull off several jobs in one night, not to mention a major assault on the cartel headquarters. It is wild, fast paced, and the longest of all the Parker novels, but that's fine. I loved this one, as Parker shows he dose actually care about someone. Once again Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westerlake) comes up with creative and origanal robberies and makes them seem believeable. A must for crime noir lovers.

Rating:
Summary: A dangerous pick up.
Review: Parker, Richard Stark's anti-hero, is running low on funds, so he and a friend got to a small city to pick up his cut of a heist done a few years ago. Except that now it isn't there. He goes to the local mob cheif and is told it has been used for a new cartel. Now Parker and his friend Grofeild decides to start robbing some mob operations, just to hut them, except it backfires on them and leaves Grofeild shot and in enemy hands. Now Parker calls in all his friends and pull off several jobs in one night, not to mention a major assault on the cartel headquarters. It is wild, fast paced, and the longest of all the Parker novels, but that's fine. I loved this one, as Parker shows he dose actually care about someone. Once again Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westerlake) comes up with creative and origanal robberies and makes them seem believeable. A must for crime noir lovers.

Rating:
Summary: The MAGNUM-OPUS of Parker novels!
Review: What's common with most Parker novels (and let me say that this is the ONLY common thing about them), is the length, around 200 pages a pop. But for the 20th and final Parker adventure--until the aptly titled COMEBACK was published in 1995--Richard Stark has treated us with a fat 300 page epic called BUTCHER'S MOON. And what a treat it is! Parker, our favorite anti-hero, has once again teamed up with fellow professional thief, Grofield, to recover the stashed loot from a previous score. The loot is long gone, of course, and soon getting it back takes a back seat to getting revenge. Parker calls in all of his old friends--and I mean ALL of 'em, even retired thief Handy McKay jumps at the chance to join the party--because what Parker has planned is nothing short of a war, The Thieves vs. The Hoods, and when it's over an entire town will be cleaned out, a mob outfit will lay in ruins and Parker & Company will be stepping over the bodies.