Backflash

Following on the heels of Comeback, a New York Times Notable Book, a new Parker adventure finds the master thief deep in troubled waters when his plan to hijack a riverboat casino goes awry. 20,000 first printing.

Stark is, of course, a pen name used by Donald E. Westlake, and Parker is his very tough protagonist?last seen, after a 20-year absence, in Comeback (1997). Parker is a hard-nosed crook indeed, quite unlike the giddy opportunists who often brighten Westlake's lighter tales. He is serious about his business, and anyone who tries to cross him?as several people do in this dark tale of piracy on the Hudson River?is likely to end up perforated. Parker's game plan this time is to rob a floating casino being tried out on the Albany-Poughkeepsie run in upstate New York. His informant is odd (an apparently upright state pol turning to crime in his old age), but Parker goes ahead anyway and puts together a gang with an ingenious plan to smuggle guns aboard the high-security boat and get the money off it. It seems to work, but more people know about his scheme than Parker could ever have realized, and at the end there's a great deal of bloody cleaning up to do. Stark's narration is deadpan tough, full of hard, realistic detail about places and people and with just enough salty dialogue to move things along briskly ("'We live and learn, Ray,' Parker said, and shot him"). No need to lament a golden age of hard-boiled writing; it's right here, now.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Last year, the king of the comic caper, Donald E. Westlake (aka Richard Stark), revealed in the Booklist Interview that he was resurrecting Parker, his hard-as-a-tungsten-carbide-drill-bit criminal, after a hiatus of two decades. Westlake was as good as his word, and Comeback was superb. Now Parker is back again, and crime fans are in for yet another terrific excursion into the world of a skilled and chillingly dangerous professional. This time the target is a floating casino that plies the Hudson River between Albany and Poughkeepsie. Security on the boat is first rate, and Parker doesn't like boats because the options for getting away are limited. Even worse, the job is handed to him by a retired state bureaucrat whose motives are unclear; however, the potential score is too big to ignore. Westlake/Stark puts the reader into the midst of the planning process and imparts some fascinating criminal tradecraft. The Hudson Valley is also the author's home turf, and he makes the river and the forlorn towns along it winning characters in a must-buy, must-read novel. Thomas Gaughan

Master crook and murderer Parker (Comeback, Mysterious, 1997), approached by a retired anti-gambling state-bureaucrat-turned-consultant, organizes an attempt to rob a riverboat casino during its trial run on the Hudson River. Despite reservations about the consultant's motivations, Parker gathers a group of heisters, who board the boat, where an undercover newspaper reporter threatens to ruin the plan. No unnecessary words here, just the cool, resourceful Parker, careful plotting, dry humor, and thorough preparation. A solid and entertaining addition to the series. [Stark also writes as Donald Westlake.?Ed.]
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.