Drip…Drip…Drip…Drip…Drip...Drip……that is the sound of icy cold, 80 proof, liquid badasseliciousness seeping from every pore of Richard Stark’s mantastic anti-hero, Parker. Over the past several seasons, thanks in large part to Kemper and Dan), I have become a big fan of crime fiction. During my reading excursions, I have come across some very engaging characters with high quotients of rough and tumble nastiness.Parker is in a mold-breaking class by himself. He’s unlike anyone else I've stumbled upon within the noiry, hardboiled pages of the criminal thriller. I see Parker less as a man and more of a force of nature. A violent and devastating storm, especially when some criminal douchewacker sucks on the stupid pipe and decides to wrong him (which, Odin help them, they always do). When this happens, when his hackles redden and his dander rises, Parker will crystallize his focus into the relentless pursuit of putting paid to payback and the man is well nigh unstoppable. He…is…THE…man. PLOT SUMMARY:Note: If you haven’t read the first two parker novels, you should really start with The Hunter and The Man With the Getaway Face as events from those two stories form the foundation for much of this story.In this third installment of the series, a seriously misguided member of the Outfit (i.e., the mob, organized crime, the Commission, etc.) sends a hitman to cap Parker. He fails…of course. However, before Parker allows the killer to expire from Parker’s ungentle ministrations, he “convinces” the scumbag to offer up the names of the "soon to be deceased" people who put the hit on him. Parker Action item #1: Bring world of hurt to criminal idiots who crossed him, including the head of the Outfit, Arthur Branson. Check.However, it gets even better. You see, Parker had previously promised the Outfit (in The Hunter) that if they ever crossed him again, he would get some of his “like minded associates” to punch them in the wallet. Parker is a man of his word so he sits down and writes 50 letters to 50 different people, each along the lines of the following: Frank,The Outfit thinks it has a grievance on me. It doesn’t. But it keeps sending its punks around to make trouble. I told their headman, I’d give them money trouble if they didn’t quit, and they didn’t quit. You told me one time about a lay you worked for that gambling place outside of Boston, and you’d do me a favor if you knocked it off in the next couple of weeks. I’m writing some of the other boys too so you can be sure they’ll be too busy to go looking for you special. I don’t want a cut and I can’t come in on the job because I’ll be busy making trouble myself. You can always get in touch with me care of Joe Sheer out in Omaha. Maybe we’ll work together again some day. What an awesome setup for a story. The rest of the novel is like a series of Oceans 11-like mini-capers as some experienced craftsman bring their unique talents to knocking over some of the Outfit's most lucrative operations. All the while Parker engages in his one man beat down against the Outfit leading to a final confrontation with its head, Arthur Branson.Anyone want to guess who comes out on top?THOUGHTS:I love these novels to the point of being a bit clingy. They are my benchmark for crime fiction. Stark’s writing style, his delivery, his pacing and his plotting are damn near perfect for this genre. As for Parker, he's a masterpiece and Stark's description of his physical appearance in The Hunter is pure gold: big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders...His hands…looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless. Basically, he’s the kind of guy that scares cancer and can make a dead man piss himself. As for his character profile, it’s pretty simple and yet so very unique. He isn’t good, he isn’t evil. He has no friends, but he’s also not lonely. He has companionship when he wants it or when he’s doing a job, otherwise solitude is just dandy with him. He moves through society unseen making scores to cover his expenses. He has no aspirations for power or wealth, except to the extent the latter allows him some periodic downtime to relax and enjoy some comforts.Finally, he is also very smart. He doesn’t quote sonnets or study the mathematics of string theory, but he's clever, shrewd and has gift for strategic planning and tactics. He is also very serious and doesn't break cover. Stark once described him as always playing it straight in the novel. As Stark put it, “Never once have I caught him winking at the reader.” That is good stuff and this novel is great fun. 4.0 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
in the hunter, parker warned the Outfit that if he were to instruct all his contacts to hit Outfit run businesses across the nation, they could put some serious hurting on the organization. it never comes to that. in this book it does. and it's glorious. not only do we track parker's moves against high-ranking members of the Outfit, but individual chapters are devoted to heists and jobs by various transient criminals directed at the Outfit. good stuff. i've always loved stories which feature an interconnected underworld of criminals. bad guys, robbers, vampires, aliens, etc, who live amongst us and do what we do... up to a point. the sun goes down and they knock around empty train depots, greasy spoons, dive bars, pool-halls, city streets, etc. and do bad things. there's some great nerdy little metaphors for society wrapped up in all of this but also, in general, it reinforces the belief that ordinary day-by-day life has an underside, that there are aliens in the midst, that everything is not exactly as it should be. this comforts me. and this is parker's world, a world which rejects the mainstream and also rejects the mainstream criminal organization (the Outfit) -- parker lives his life by his own rules: most of the year spent at various resort hotels and spas and the other months in crappy anonymous motel rooms assembling a team and pulling off a heist. intersperse some dames and some booze and that's parker. it's sinister and scary and romantic and cool and i'm always a sucker for it. but what this book is really about is going soft. it's about how, when those on the margins become too big powerful or prestigious, they're absorbed into the mainstream and go limp. and parker capitalizes on this: he understands that the Outfit might be thousands-strong with millions of dollars and unlimited political connections, but he also realizes that they're mired down in bureaucracy and red tape and have turned slow and soft. and if he hits 'em hard and fast enough, they have no means of recourse: he can slip into the night and there ain't a damn thing they can do about it. a b-story featuring parker's favorite crime buddy, handy mckay, shows how, after years of heists, he's piled up enough money so that he can realize his dream: to get outta the business and open a diner. and this worries parker: once a guy doesn't feel that urgency he, like the Outfit, gets soft and lazy and slow. not good. and parker. parker ain't soft. anything but. check this out: as any good parkerphile knows, parker is celibate during the planning and doing phases of the 'job', but once it's done, he requires sex. lots of it. in the final pages of this book, as he's writing letters to his buddies that the Outift has given in to his demands and operations should cease, a plump whore from downstairs enters his room offering up a freebie. we like this woman and kinda want parker to do the deed. here's what we get: "It would be a nice break from the letter-writing to toss this one once, a soft quickie on the clean sheets. But the blank cowlike face stopped him because he knew there was a blank bovine mind behind it. The first one after a job ought to be a good one, like Bett, not a pig from Scranton."and i've gotta see this movie (robert duvall as the parker character! with robert ryan and joe don baker!): next up: the mourner
What do You think about The Outfit (1998)?
That was unexpected. While The Outfit is a Parker novel, and does in fact feature Parker, nearly a third of the book features heists performed by a variety of Parker's acquaintances. (As he threatened in The Hunter.) This serves two purposes, it prevents the readers from overloading on Parker himself, (and perhaps softens him a bit - the Parker of the first novel is somewhat of a sociopath, this smaller dose of Parker doesn't lend to psychoanalysis,) and it provides for quick hit heist chapters interspersed with the man plot to move things along.The Parker related chapters read like Stark, and the heists read a bit more like Westlake. Which works for this book very well. (And I suppose it is possible I don't know what "Stark's" voice truly is - I'm basing it primarily off of The Hunter.
—Wes
The Outfit (mafia) sends a hitman to kill Parker. Parker makes the Outfit sorry it ever tangled with him.I’m enjoying these stories and find myself wanting to read one right after the other. Like potato chips, you can’t eat just one. These are about bad guys. They rob. They kill. They don’t go to jail. They’re smart. It’s fun to be in this world for a change. A few times I’m delighted or surprised with something. I liked the plot in this one.The narrator John Chancer was ok.This is book 3 in the 24 book series. It’s about 2/3 or less than a typical novel length. It’s better to read the first three books in order because they have a flow. In book 1 Parker clashes with the Outfit. In book 2 Parker gets facial plastic surgery so the Outfit can’t find him. In book 3 the Outfit knows about Parker’s surgery, so Parker takes action.THE SERIES:If you are new to the series, I suggest reading the first three and then choose among the rest. A few should be read in order since characters continue in a sequel fashion. Those are listed below (with my star ratings). The rest can be read as stand alones.The first three books in order:tttttttt4 stars. The Hunter (Point Blank movie with Lee Marvin 1967) (Payback movie with Mel Gibson)3 ½ stars. The Man with the Getaway Face (The Steel Hit)4 stars. The Outfit.Read these two in order:5 stars. Slayground (Bk #14)5 stars. Butcher’s Moon (Bk #16)Read these four in order:4 ½ stars. The Sour Lemon Score (Bk #12)2 ½ stars. Firebreak (Bk #20)(not read) Nobody Runs Forever (Bk #22)2 ½ stars. Dirty Money (Bk #24)Others that I gave 4 or more stars to:The Jugger (Bk #6), The Seventh (Bk#7), The Handle (Bk #8), Deadly Edge (Bk#13), Flashfire (Bk#19)DATA:Narrative mode: 3rd person. Unabridged audiobook length: 5 hrs and 7 mins. Swearing language: Christ used once or twice. Sexual content: none. Setting: 1963 various U.S. locations. Book copyright: 1963. Genre: noir crime fiction.
—Jane Stewart
THE OUTFIT is a tougher nut to crack than the first two Parker novels. Richard Stark has always been deceitfully detail-oriented and the quirk about THE OUTFIT is that you need to have picked up details in THE HUNTER and THE MAN WITH THE GETAWAY FACE to fully grasp the satisfying beauty of the third installment in all its glory.Stark stays true to his über-methodical approach to storytelling and it plays both for and against THE OUTFIT. If you understand who Parker is, you can feel his imprint on the events he doesn't take part into. In the way things unfold and in the way seemingly total stranger behave because of him. That's what makes THE OUTFIT special. Otherwise it feels like the middle of another novel.
—Benoit Lelievre
