Backflash: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels) - Softcover

Stark, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226770605 ISBN 13: 9780226770604

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2011

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

A large part of the pleasure of having Richard Stark back writing about the master criminal Parker is the obvious delight that Stark (a pen name for Donald Westlake) takes in doing the research for his capers. This one must have been a blast. Certainly, he must have spent time on board a cruise ship to get all the inside details for Parker's planned robbery of a fictional floating casino called the Spirit of the Hudson--details such as how to get the cash off (inside a wheelchair's converted potty seat) or how to make use of a hard-shelled female publicist.

Then there must have been a tour of old towns along the Hudson, to come up with this letter-perfect description of a seedy saloon: "It was called the Lido, but it shouldn't have been. It was an old bar, a gray wood cube cut deep into the ground floor of a narrow 19th Century brick house, and at two on a sunny afternoon in April it was dark and dry, smelling of old whiskey and dead wood.... At the bar, muttering together about sports and politics--other people's victories and defeats--were nine or ten shabbily dressed guys who were older than their teeth."

After Comeback (Parker's triumphant return to action after a 20-year hiatus), readers know that all the best planning in the world can't account for fate or human weakness. This time, a weirdly motivated retired civil servant, an out-of-control smalltown cop, and some greedy bikers stand in the way of Parker and Co.'s successful removal of $400,000 from the gambling boat. Stark is too gifted an artist to make their intervention trivial, and also too talented an entertainer to leave his old and new Parker fans unsatisfied with the outcome. --Dick Adler

About the Author:

Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008), a prolific author of crime fiction. In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America bestowed the society's highest honor on Westlake, naming him a Grand Master.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0226770605
• ISBN 13: 9780226770604
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304