The Hunter by Richard Stark (1962): I'm Goin' Back to New York City, I Do Believe I've Had Enough

On a cross-country trip this past summer I lucked into finding a few Richard Stark reprints in good condition from Avon Books for only a couple bucks each, which is a steal since they often go for double-digit prices on Amazon and eBay if you can find them at all. The Hunter is the first in the Parker series and Avon began its republication with it in June 1984. I like them all a lot: the cheap photo-session setups with various criminal props, the armed and blow-dried '80s macho model in silhouette, the midnight-blue cityscape horizon beyond. Looks like my next collecting jag is fixed.

The novel itself is Parker standard and that's a good thing. Westlake's prose is clean and tight and expectedly brutal. Reading the way he treats his wife Lynn after she betrays him and leaves him for dead (during a backstory heist) after he practically walks to New York from California to track her down seems abusive and cruel today even considering... she left him for dead. But that's Parker. In fact he tracks down all the people who wronged him and goes after them ruled by his ruthless single-minded will. Laconic Parker effortlessly dispatches any and all who stand in his way whether they're the muscle or the boss. "In twenty-four hours you'll be dead! No lone man can buck the organization." "I'll be seeing you," Parker said.

This all might seem unbelievable but the writing is so simple and events move almost as if predestined you will believe. And if Parker doesn't kill you right away don't think you're safe. It's only that he needs more info from you so you're dead later rather than sooner. Then he took Mal's neck in his hands again, and this time he didn't let go till Mal stopped breathing.

Pocket Books, 1962. First edition paperback, really dig the outsized hands. It's how Parker does his work.  Stegman looked back at him. "I don't see no gun. I don't see no weapon." Parker held up his hands. "You see two of them."

Gold Medal, 1967. Retitled to coincide with the Lee Marvin/John Boorman flick (in which Parker is renamed Walker but I think that is fine). Terrific cover painting illustrating Parker's confrontation with his wife. "I was never a whore, Parker," she said. "You know that." "No. You sold my body instead."

Berkley Medallion, 1973. Serialized to look like men's adventure but done so out of order. Vivid image of Parker's wife's betrayal although it didn't exactly happen like pictured. I don't think a woman wears a man's shirt over bra and panties to an airport heist. His hand on the knob, she called his name. He turned around, questioning, irritated, when he saw the Police Positive in her hand... she pulled the trigger and a heavy punch in his stomach drove the breath and consciousness out of him.

You can't go wrong with Parker. You'd better not go wrong with Parker.

The Outfit by Richard Stark (1963): To Live Outside the Law You Must Be Honest

It's been more than three years I've been looking for cheap copies of Richard Stark's novels featuring his laconic, professional, and very very deadly criminal called Parker, no-first-name. When I found last week a thin, cracked-spine copy of the 1984 Avon reprint of The Outfit, I began reading it immediately. I finished it immediately too. Violent, efficient, ballsy, pulpy but without cheapness, The Outfit bristles with macho energy but doesn't feel creepy or dated. This is classic crime fiction utterly assured of its mission: that you never put the book down and that you believe in its characters.

1973 movie tie-in edition from Berkley Medallion

The titular organization is basically the mob or Mafia but it doesn't go by that name. The Outfit wants Parker dead for past deeds they think were wrong but Parker knows were right. The guy they send to do the job louses it up and now it's Parker who's hunting the Outfit. In fact through a letter-writing campaign he encourages his fellow professionals - not friends, not for Parker, but men he's worked with - to knock over various illicit "businesses" run by the Outfit. This works extremely well, like clockwork even, and soon the Outfit's out nearly a million and the head, Bronson, wants Parker... you guessed it, dead. But Parker's got other plans.

1963 original edition from Pocket Books

My mind is boggled by the effortless way in which Westlake depicts the criminal underworld and their Byzantine cons and double-crosses and set-ups. One great thing about The Outfit is the time Stark spends detailing said cons, like numbers-running or betting on horses. Even though I love good crime fiction I find it difficult to grasp these logistics. He makes it easy. Stark's spare and precise prose makes you feel smart and tough at once. I like that in a book. Hell, I love that in a book.

Stark is the famous pen name of crime writer extraordinaire Donald E. Westlake and it was under this name Westlake put out all his Parker novels. The Outfit is 3rd in the series and I'm getting more.