The University of Chicago Press continues its reissuing of Richard Stark's great Parker novels in a new trade paperback format and--best of all--in chronological order. The latest gang of three includes novels seven through nine, from 1966 and 1967: The Seventh, The Handle, and The Rare Coin Score.
The Seventh--chronicling yet another Parker job gone bad, this time with seven men, hence the title (indicating each's share in the score) is the weakest Parker novel I've read so far, out of the first nine. Part of the problem is Parker isn't it in for long stretches. The gang robs a football stadium during a big college game, and if everyone sticks to the meticulous plan, everyone will get their seventh of the take. But fate lends a hand when the woman Parker is staying with is murdered, and the gang suspects one of their own did her in. Like the Marx Bros., even "bad" Stark is great...so when I say "weakest" remember what I'm comparing them to: the other eight novels.
The Handle is as close to a James Bond novel as Stark (really Donald Westlake) was ever going to write. You can tell some bright-eyed and busy-tailed editor wanted to do something even remotely Bondian during the peak of 007 mania. Stark and cronies invade a small island, home of Wolfgang Baron's gambling mecca. The Outfit comes back into the series, paying Parker to put together a plan to take down the island and Baron. It's an exciting, cinematic story, and the book even adds in footnoted references to previous Parker novels, just to push the fact that this--like the Bond novels of Ian Fleming--is also a series.
The Rare Coin Score is my favorite of this set of three Parker novels. It introduces Claire, the woman who becomes a constant in Parker's life and the rest of the books, and delves into something near and dear to my heart: the collector's mentality. Parker and Claire rip off a coin collectors' convention in this one, and as usual it just takes one almost member of the gang to turn the tide.
I love the Parker novels for their economy of story-telling, their tight plots, and the discipline of Westlake as a writer. His Parker books are almost always 160 pages, as if there's a magic bell on the typewriter when he reaches that count. I've never really encountered another character like Parker in fiction: Tough, amoral, but also honest (in his own way) and fair, Parker is a one of a kind character by a one of a kind writer.
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