The Sour Lemon Score

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226772950
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description
Bank robberies should run like clockwork, right? If your name’s Parker, you expect nothing less. Until, that is, one of your partners gets too greedy for his own good. The four-way split following a job leaves too small a take for George Uhl, who begins to pick off his fellow heisters, one by one. The first mistake? That he doesn’t begin things by putting a bullet in Parker. That means he won’t get the chance to make a second. One of the darkest novels in the series, this caper proves the adage that no one crosses Parker and lives.

Nobody Runs Forever

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022650848X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Together at last. Under the pseudonym Richard Stark, Donald E. Westlake, one of the greats of crime fiction, wrote twenty-four fast-paced, hard-boiled novels featuring Parker, a shrewd career criminal with a talent for heists and a code all his own. With the publication of the last four Parker novels Westlake wrote-Breakout, Nobody Runs Forever, Ask the Parrot, and Dirty Money-the University of Chicago Press pulls the ultimate score: for the first time ever, the entire Parker series will be available from a single publisher. Nobody Runs Forever opens a three-part saga with a job at a poker game that sours into a necktie party. When Parker goes in on a messy scam-stealing an armored car-with someone he barely knows, as usual the amateurs get in the way of the job. Featuring new forewords by Chris Holm, Duane Swierczynski, and Laura Lippman-celebrated crime writers, all-these masterworks of noir are the capstone to an extraordinary literary run that will leave you craving more. Written over the course of fifty years, the Parker novels are pure artistry, adrenaline, and logic both brutal and brilliant. Join Parker on his jobs and read them all again or for the first time. But don't talk to the law.

Ask the Parrot

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648579X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
The coldblooded criminal known as Parker tries, and fails, to stay under the radar in rural New England: “Nobody does the noir thriller better than Stark.” —San Diego Union-Tribune In Ask the Parrot, the followup to Nobody Runs Forever, ruthless thief Parker is back on the run, dodging dogs, cops, and even a helicopter. His escape brings him to rural Massachusetts, where he is forced to work with a small-town recluse nursing a grudge against the racetrack that fired him. Even in hiding, Parker manages to get up to no good. It’ll be a deadly day at the races . . . “Richard Stark’s Parker crime novels are the ultimate page-turners.” —Jonathan Ames, The Boston Globe “Parker is a blunt instrument of a human being.” —John Hodgman, Parade “Often funny, laced with Stark’s brutally morbid humor . . . fast-moving, tense scenes that drip with potential violence before, inevitably, exploding into actual violence.” —Christopher Bahn, AV Club

The Black Ice Score

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226772810
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 167

Book Description
A corrupt African colonel has converted half his country’s wealth into diamonds and smuggled them to a Manhattan safe house. Four upstanding citizens plan to rescue their new nation by stealing the diamonds back—with the help of a “specialist”: Parker. Will Parker break his rule against working with amateurs and help them because his woman would be disappointed if he doesn’t? Or because three hired morons have threatened to kill him and his woman if he does? They thought they were buying an advantage, but what they get is a predated death certificate.

Deadly Edge

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226772969
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
Deadly Edge bids a brutal adieu to the 1960s as Parker robs a rock concert, and the heist goes south. Soon Parker finds himself—and his woman, Claire—menaced by a pair of sadistic, strung-out killers who want anything but a Summer of Love. Parker has a score to settle while Claire’s armed with her first rifle—and they’re both ready to usher in the end of the Age of Aquarius.

Backflash

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226770605
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Book Description
After the publication of Butcher's Moon in 1974, Donald Westlake said, "Richard Stark proved to me that he had a life of his own by simply disappearing. He was gone." And readers waited. But nothing bad is truly gone forever, and Parker's as bad as they come. According to Westlake, one day in 1997, "suddenly, he came back from the dead, with a chalky prison pallor"--and the novels that followed showed that neither Parker nor Stark had lost a step. Backflash finds Parker checking out the scene on a Hudson River gambling boat. Parker's no fan of either relaxation or risk, however, so you can be sure he's playing with house money--and he's willing to do anything to tilt the odds in his favor. Featuring a great cast of heisters, a striking setting, and a new introduction by Westlake's close friend and writing partner, Lawrence Block, this classic Parker adventure deserve a place of honor on any crime fan's bookshelf.

Plunder Squad

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226772918
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Book Description
“Hearing the click behind him, Parker threw his glass straight back over his right shoulder, and dove off his chair to the left.” When a job looks like amateur hour, Parker walks away. But even a squad of seasoned professionals can’t guarantee against human error in a high-risk scam. Can an art dealer with issues unload a truck of paintings with Parker’s aid? Or will the heist end up too much of a human interest story, as luck runs out before Parker can get in on the score?

Firebreak

Author: Richard Stark
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226770656
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
Parker and his team attempt to get past a mansion's security and heist a Montana millionaire's stolen paintings. No matter how untamed the wilderness, Parker's guaranteed to be the most dangerous predator around.

Wake Up Dead

Author: Roger Smith
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429953497
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
An amphetamine-fueled thriller about a bombshell American widow on the run in Cape Town's violent badlands—from a writer being compared to George Pelecanos and Richard Price A split-second decision with no second chance: get it wrong and you wake up dead. On a blowtorch-hot night in Cape Town, American ex-model Roxy Palmer and her gunrunner husband, Joe, are carjacked, leaving Joe lying in a pool of blood. As the carjackers make their getaway, Roxy makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever. Disco and Godwynn, the ghetto gangbangers who sped away in Joe's convertible, will stop at nothing to track her down. Billy Afrika, a mixed-race ex-cop turned mercenary, won't let her out of his sight because Joe owed him a chunk of money. And remorselessly hunting them all is Piper, a love-crazed psychopath determined to renew his vows with his jailhouse "wife," Disco. As these desperate lives collide and old debts are settled in blood, Roxy is caught in a wave of escalating violence in the beautiful and brutal African seaport. With savage plotting and breakneck suspense that ends in a shattering cataclysm of violence, Wake Up Dead confirms Roger Smith as one of the world's best new thriller writers.

Parker: The Outfit

Author: Donald E. Westlake
Publisher: IDW Publishing
ISBN: 1600107621
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description
Darwyn Cooke is the Eisner Award-winning writer/artist of such classics as DC: The New Frontier, Selina's Big Score, and last year's smash-hit, The Hunter. Now, Cooke is back and following up the New York Times best-selling Hunter with a heart-pounding sequel: The Outfit. After evening the score with those who betrayed him, and recovering the money he was cheated out of from the syndicate, Parker is riding high, living in swank hotels and enjoying the finer things in life again. Until, that is, he's fingered by a squealer who rats him out to the Outfit for the price they put on his head and they find out too late that if you push Parker, it better be all the way into the grave! Darwyn Cooke is an Eisner- and Emmy-winning creator whose adaptation of Richard Stark's first groundbreaking Parker novel has earned him multiple 2010 Eisner Award nominations! Parker: The Outfit is the latest offering in IDW Publishing's series of Digital Graphic Novels. We've assembled the best of favorite brands and respected creators for you to collect on your digital bookshelf. Story and art: Darwyn Cooke Editor: Scott Dunbier Features: - Page by page viewing, pinch and zoom for details - Tap user controls or swipe to turn pages - "See all" table of contents keywords: Darwyn, Cooke, Richard, Stark, Westlake, comic, graphic, novel, crime