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Parker #3
The Outfit
They wanted Parker dead—and a late-night visit from a hitman proved they meant business. Now Parker plans to get even—dead even. Armed with a new face and his usual iron will, Parker is declaring a coast-to-coast war.
In The Outfit , Parker goes toe-to-toe with the mob, hellbent on taking him down. The notorious lone wolf has some extra tricks up his sleeve, and the entire underworld will learn an unforgettable whatever Parker does, he does deadly.
In The Outfit , Parker goes toe-to-toe with the mob, hellbent on taking him down. The notorious lone wolf has some extra tricks up his sleeve, and the entire underworld will learn an unforgettable whatever Parker does, he does deadly.
213 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
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1,805 people want to read
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December 29, 2011
Drip…D°ù¾±±èâ€�Dripâ€�
Drip…D°ù¾±±è...Dripâ€�
…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 and ), 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.
±á±ð…i²õ…T±á·¡â€¦m²¹²Ô.
PLOT SUMMARY:
Note: If you haven’t read the first two parker novels, you should really start with and 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 ) 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:
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 is pure gold:
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.
Drip…D°ù¾±±è...Dripâ€�
…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 and ), 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.
±á±ð…i²õ…T±á·¡â€¦m²¹²Ô.
PLOT SUMMARY:
Note: If you haven’t read the first two parker novels, you should really start with and 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 ) 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,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.
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.
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 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.
September 9, 2022
When Parker and the Outfit had a dispute in the first book of the series, Parker warned them what he’d do if they didn’t leave him alone. But after surviving an attempt on his life, it’s time for Parker to make good on his threat.
As Parker told the bosses of the Outfit, all the professional thieves know each other, and all of them have worked out some kind of scenario for robbing one of their operations because they’re cash-rich and won’t bring any legal attention. Potential revenge by the Outfit is the only thing stopping anyone from acting on their plans. But if someone fired a starting gun and they all hit at the roughly the same time, the confusion would greatly increase the chances that they’d be able to get away with no payback.
Parker writes a series of letters asking his fellow thieves to go ahead and hit any syndicate operation they’ve had their eye on. Many jump at the chance, not out of any friendship or loyalty to Parker (Parker doesn’t have friends.) but because someone gave them an excuse. As the Outfit reels from the shock of multiple robberies and the loss of a small fortune, Parker is going to find the head man and settle his problem once and for all.
This is one of the few Parker books that wouldn’t use the plot of him planning a job, carrying it out and dealing with complications, and it gives Stark (a/k/a Westlake) a chance to spin several mini-stories in the middle of the book as he deftly describes some of the different robberies that Parker’s fellow thieves carry out against the Outfit.
This one really solidifies Parker’s no-nonsense nature. With no patience for polite chit-chat or other social niceties, Parker’s encounters with other people can be hilarious. When he recruits Handy McKay to join him on his attempt to get to the top Outfit man, Parker offers money and a chance at picking up more along the way. When McKay indicates that he doesn’t really care about the money, that he’s going along because of their relationship, Parker is baffled and uncomfortable about it. He doesn’t understand sentimentality and doesn’t like that McKay is showing it about him.
Another solid Parker outing that wraps up a lot of the overall plot arcs from the first couple of books but leaves one nice dangling thread for Parker to pick up in the next one.
As Parker told the bosses of the Outfit, all the professional thieves know each other, and all of them have worked out some kind of scenario for robbing one of their operations because they’re cash-rich and won’t bring any legal attention. Potential revenge by the Outfit is the only thing stopping anyone from acting on their plans. But if someone fired a starting gun and they all hit at the roughly the same time, the confusion would greatly increase the chances that they’d be able to get away with no payback.
Parker writes a series of letters asking his fellow thieves to go ahead and hit any syndicate operation they’ve had their eye on. Many jump at the chance, not out of any friendship or loyalty to Parker (Parker doesn’t have friends.) but because someone gave them an excuse. As the Outfit reels from the shock of multiple robberies and the loss of a small fortune, Parker is going to find the head man and settle his problem once and for all.
This is one of the few Parker books that wouldn’t use the plot of him planning a job, carrying it out and dealing with complications, and it gives Stark (a/k/a Westlake) a chance to spin several mini-stories in the middle of the book as he deftly describes some of the different robberies that Parker’s fellow thieves carry out against the Outfit.
This one really solidifies Parker’s no-nonsense nature. With no patience for polite chit-chat or other social niceties, Parker’s encounters with other people can be hilarious. When he recruits Handy McKay to join him on his attempt to get to the top Outfit man, Parker offers money and a chance at picking up more along the way. When McKay indicates that he doesn’t really care about the money, that he’s going along because of their relationship, Parker is baffled and uncomfortable about it. He doesn’t understand sentimentality and doesn’t like that McKay is showing it about him.
Another solid Parker outing that wraps up a lot of the overall plot arcs from the first couple of books but leaves one nice dangling thread for Parker to pick up in the next one.
June 25, 2020
This is the third novel in Richard Stark's (Donald Westlake's) great series featuring Parker, a completely amoral professional thief. Like all of the books in the series, this one is lean, mean, dark and gritty, and it opens when a professional hitman targets Parker. Not surprisingly, the hitman fails because he's not nearly as good as Parker, and Parker is enraged when he discovers that the would-be killer has been sent by someone connected with the Outfit--the group that controls organized crime in the United States.
Parker's rage, though, is not like most other people's. It's cold, rational and deadly, and you really don't want to be on the receiving end of what comes next. Normally, professional criminals like Parker give the Outfit a wide berth, and vice-versa. But Parker decides to teach them a lesson they'll never forget.
He knows that a lot of men in his profession have spotted weak points here and there in the Outfit's operations, but they don't act on that knowledge for fear of bringing the wrath of the Outfit down upon themselves. Parker's plan, though, is to turn a lot of these guys loose on the Outfit at once, effectively declaring war on them, while Parker himself goes after the head of the group. He aims to institute a change in the regime and to teach the Outfit that it's better to leave him alone than to antagonize him. It's an audacious plan, but if there's anyone who can pull it off, it's Parker.
Like all the other books in this long-running series, this is a great read, and Parker is in fine form. It was first published in 1963, and so the world has changed a great deal, particularly with respect to the technology that Parker and his adversaries are using. As a sign of the changing times, Parker and one of his confederates are driving down the streets of downtown Buffalo, New York early in December, bitching about the fact that the Christmas decorations are already up and Thanksgiving is barely over. One can only wonder what Parker would think of a world in which the Christmas decorations are already going up on Labor Day, and one can only wish that we had someone like Parker around to deal with the people who insist on doing such a thing.
Parker's rage, though, is not like most other people's. It's cold, rational and deadly, and you really don't want to be on the receiving end of what comes next. Normally, professional criminals like Parker give the Outfit a wide berth, and vice-versa. But Parker decides to teach them a lesson they'll never forget.
He knows that a lot of men in his profession have spotted weak points here and there in the Outfit's operations, but they don't act on that knowledge for fear of bringing the wrath of the Outfit down upon themselves. Parker's plan, though, is to turn a lot of these guys loose on the Outfit at once, effectively declaring war on them, while Parker himself goes after the head of the group. He aims to institute a change in the regime and to teach the Outfit that it's better to leave him alone than to antagonize him. It's an audacious plan, but if there's anyone who can pull it off, it's Parker.
Like all the other books in this long-running series, this is a great read, and Parker is in fine form. It was first published in 1963, and so the world has changed a great deal, particularly with respect to the technology that Parker and his adversaries are using. As a sign of the changing times, Parker and one of his confederates are driving down the streets of downtown Buffalo, New York early in December, bitching about the fact that the Christmas decorations are already up and Thanksgiving is barely over. One can only wonder what Parker would think of a world in which the Christmas decorations are already going up on Labor Day, and one can only wish that we had someone like Parker around to deal with the people who insist on doing such a thing.
November 3, 2018
You'll need to read the previous two books in order to fully enjoy this one ...
Parker is one of a kind character, he isn't exactly evil and he's not good too , he steels for a living, very professionally, he's very smart and he has a sharp and strategic mind that allows him to plan his heists efficiently , he doesn't waste words or brags , anything he does has a reason behind it, he is like a machine, he doesn't get involved emotionally except when he does , i think the expression " don't poke the bear " was invented for men like him , so when the outfit's boss ordered a hit on ourhero's head: shit got real , it was very satisfying witnessing Parker waging war single-handedly against them and teaching them in the process the errors of their way and the difference between a professional criminal and a bully with a gun .....
It was an awesome read .
Parker is one of a kind character, he isn't exactly evil and he's not good too , he steels for a living, very professionally, he's very smart and he has a sharp and strategic mind that allows him to plan his heists efficiently , he doesn't waste words or brags , anything he does has a reason behind it, he is like a machine, he doesn't get involved emotionally except when he does , i think the expression " don't poke the bear " was invented for men like him , so when the outfit's boss ordered a hit on our
It was an awesome read .
January 12, 2024
"[Parker] felt compact and timeless, almost bodiless, without impatience or tension or boredom or nervousness of ANY kind. It was while working, while a job was being set up and run through, that he felt the most alive and most calm . . . except this time." -- our pilfering protagonist, on page 189
It has been over a decade since I last read a book in the long-running Parker series (and the handful that I did peruse were some of the latter-day entries, when the character was resurrected at the start of the 21st century after a nearly twenty-five year sabbatical), so devouring an early The Outfit was oddly like the proverbial breath of fresh air . . . which is interesting since this 1963-set and -published crime drama is very much of its time period. After narrowly sidestepping an intended murder attempt - during a dalliance with a savvy lady of the night in a Miami hotel room, no less - the coolly professional thief Parker decides to stick it to the syndicate (a.k.a. the large organized crime faction gunning for him) by assembling his felonious acquaintances to pull robberies and burglaries at the various controlled businesses - such as strip clubs, seedy bars, and especially back room gambling operations - up and down the East Coast. Said audacious plan succeeds - it was a lot of fun with the plausible sharp detailing and execution of the assorted capers - and Parker soon causes the beleaguered big boss Bronson to start questioning his career choice. Author 'Stark' - the nom de plume of Donald E. Westlake, that ultra-prolific writer of crime fiction - has fashioned an amusing and suspenseful little novel that has me desiring to read other early books from this series.
It has been over a decade since I last read a book in the long-running Parker series (and the handful that I did peruse were some of the latter-day entries, when the character was resurrected at the start of the 21st century after a nearly twenty-five year sabbatical), so devouring an early The Outfit was oddly like the proverbial breath of fresh air . . . which is interesting since this 1963-set and -published crime drama is very much of its time period. After narrowly sidestepping an intended murder attempt - during a dalliance with a savvy lady of the night in a Miami hotel room, no less - the coolly professional thief Parker decides to stick it to the syndicate (a.k.a. the large organized crime faction gunning for him) by assembling his felonious acquaintances to pull robberies and burglaries at the various controlled businesses - such as strip clubs, seedy bars, and especially back room gambling operations - up and down the East Coast. Said audacious plan succeeds - it was a lot of fun with the plausible sharp detailing and execution of the assorted capers - and Parker soon causes the beleaguered big boss Bronson to start questioning his career choice. Author 'Stark' - the nom de plume of Donald E. Westlake, that ultra-prolific writer of crime fiction - has fashioned an amusing and suspenseful little novel that has me desiring to read other early books from this series.
November 30, 2024
Another great entry in the Parker series! I could read these all the time and never get bored. I love "Richard Stark's" writing and Parker's adventures are always a fun read.
Note to myself: I unexpectedly read this one at the perfect time: the day after Thanksgiving. Later on in the novel, it's mentioned numerous times how November is ending and it's starting to get colder as December approaches.
Note to myself: I unexpectedly read this one at the perfect time: the day after Thanksgiving. Later on in the novel, it's mentioned numerous times how November is ending and it's starting to get colder as December approaches.
Read
November 12, 2020
“When the woman screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed. He heard the plop of a silencer behind him as he rolled, and the bullet punched the pillow where his head had been.� Vintage Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark opening lines � violence prompting Parker into action.
Lots of action, a ton of action, since The Outfit, Parker #3, picks up where Parker # 1 (The Hunter) and Parker #2 (The Man with the Getaway Face) leaves off. Although you can read The Outfit without having read the previous two Parker novels, I’d strongly suggest you read them in sequence.
The quick and dirty: The Hunter: Parker demands the organized syndicate calling themselves the Outfit give him $75,000 that’s rightfully his. They initially refuse. Parker shoots a few key Outfit guys and then threatens to call other heisters like himself to hit their organization hard nationwide. The Outfit finally agrees to give Parker the money. They try setting a trap but Parker escapes with the $75,000.
The Man with the Getaway Face: Parker knows he’ll be hunted down and gets a plastic surgeon to change his face. But then the Outfit finds out Parker has a new face. Parker realizes another new face isn’t going to work, knows he’ll have to square off directly against the Outfit the next time the Outfit comes after him.
For the past fifteen years, Parker has been leading two lives: Parker on (teaming up with other heisters to do a job) and Parker off (between heists, living at a resort hotel in places like Miami or Vegas). The novel's opening I quoted back there, where a hitman sent by the Outfit tries to kill Parker, takes place in a Miami resort hotel room.
Parker immediately turns on to full action mode. After dispatching the hitman and the local goon who fingered him, Parker sits down to write his first batch of letters to his fellow heisters across the country, telling them if they ever were thinking of pulling a job against the Outfit, now's the time. Parker then gets himself a car and heads north, final destination: New York City, headquarters for top Outfit bosses.
Again, massive amounts of action but The Outfit is also a study in American character and American society. To share a sense of what I mean here, I'll segue to five themes/highlights:
PARKER, MAN OF ACTION
Donald E. Westlake as Richard Stark doesn't miss an opportunity to delve into different facets of wolfish Parker. "Parker sat at the writing desk fumbling with pen and paper, frowning. He wasn't used to writing letters."
Forever the expert in a complex craft (heisting), Parker almost never fumbles. But Parker fumbles when doing something so contrary to his hunter nature (writing). When it comes to language, Parker hates small talk and wasted words; when on a job, Parker only speaks when necessary and with as few words as possible - and all those words related to one, clear goal: pulling off the heist without getting nabbed.
You bet Parker frowned at the prospect of using the written word as a matter of necessity - as readers, we can almost feel Parker's pain as he retools his words via three separate drafts until he gets it down the way he wants it. But then he goes a step further, he calls an operator on the telephone and asks her the spelling for "grievance." He then goes back and rewrites his letter yet another time.
So incredibly telling - even when it comes to writing a letter with all that dreaded language, Parker, ever the pro, wants to do it right.
PARKER, MAN OF FREEDOM
According to one leading critic, Parker is a wolf in human form. Wolves hunt in packs (Parker works with other men during a heist) but Parker is, above all, a lone wolf, a loner who refuses to give in to anything that would tie him down. And he doesn't even like to see his fellow heisters giving in, as when he reflects on one of his key partners, Handy McKay:
"It was a bad sign when a man like Handy McKay started owning things and started thinking he could afford friendships. Possessions tie a man down and friendships blind him. Parker owned nothing, the men he knew were just that, the men he knew, not his friends, and they owned nothing "
Parker's inner wolf detects the vast majority of humans have exchanged their freedom for notions of comfort and security that quickly snare them and turn them into servile dipsticks.
THE OUTFIT, SOFT AND STUPID
Frequent are the comparisons between the ragtag heisters and the highly organized Outfit - the difference between sharp, crafty, smooth professionals (heisters) and dimwitted, flustered clods (Outfit men). When an accountant-type reports to kingpin Bronson how the heisters pulled off their robberies against the Outfit, Bronson fumes but must admit his syndicate has lost its fighting edge and flops along, staffed by dozens of nincompoop nine-to-fivers.
My favorite bit on those Outfit boneheads: The four personal bodyguards assigned to Bronson would never give a thought to actually guarding Bronson's house at night; rather, they all sit around the dining room table and play Monopoly.
CRAP AND MORE CRAP
Driving through Syracuse, passing all the used car dealers, junkyards, bars, appliance stores, cheesy houses, Parker says: “I hate this city.� Handy McKay points out all cities are like this city. It's early 1960s and the America landscape is rapidly turning itself into ticky-tacky town, eye pollution galore, an unending lineup of people selling their crap to other people.
TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY
I'll let Mr. Westlake/Richard Stark have the last words. Here's a quick sketch on a heister names Salsa:
"Salsa was a tall, smooth-muscled man of thirty-seven, an illegal immigrant, whose youth had been thrown away on a passionate concern for a brand of politics currently in strong disfavor in the United States. In his middle twenties, he had suddenly awakened to the Truth of Self-interest, which he now realized was a far more important and valid Truth than any Political Truth ever invented. He further realized this was the hidden Truth upon which most of the leaders he had blindly followed based their actions."
American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933-2008
November 26, 2020
The third in Stark’s Parker series (and you really should read the first three in order, at least—this is the culmination of an arc). When The Outfit tries to kill Parker, whom we find at eh opening of the book in bed with a woman, he decides he needs to “settle things,� which for you and me might mean having a heart-to-heart talk with someone. But Parker is not like most of us; in the process of getting even, he writes letters to fifty people he knows around the country, such as this one:
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.
So for Parker “settling things� means setting up a nation-wide series of more than twenty hits on various Outfit concerns, with a final plan to kill Branson, the Big Boss of the organization.
Parker, a loner, connects with old pal Handy, who had wanted to retire and open a restaurant in Maine. But if Parker gets what he wants, can Handy really retire?!! Running that restaurant is safe, relatively placid, but he knows that working with Parker has its attractions! As Handy says of Parker, he never feels as alive as when he is on a job, doing it intensely, doing it right.
I like most in this book, the set of anecdotes or short stories of various revenge heists happening around the country imbedded in this novel of a war on the mob. In each story of a hit, too, are embedded memorable and entertaining details--A monopoly game, a dime as part of a take in one robbery, and so on—in the process.
I had read the comics adaptation of The Outfit by Darwyn Cook, which I also liked, though it is much condensed, of course:
/review/show...
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.
So for Parker “settling things� means setting up a nation-wide series of more than twenty hits on various Outfit concerns, with a final plan to kill Branson, the Big Boss of the organization.
Parker, a loner, connects with old pal Handy, who had wanted to retire and open a restaurant in Maine. But if Parker gets what he wants, can Handy really retire?!! Running that restaurant is safe, relatively placid, but he knows that working with Parker has its attractions! As Handy says of Parker, he never feels as alive as when he is on a job, doing it intensely, doing it right.
I like most in this book, the set of anecdotes or short stories of various revenge heists happening around the country imbedded in this novel of a war on the mob. In each story of a hit, too, are embedded memorable and entertaining details--A monopoly game, a dime as part of a take in one robbery, and so on—in the process.
I had read the comics adaptation of The Outfit by Darwyn Cook, which I also liked, though it is much condensed, of course:
/review/show...
August 9, 2011
After a hit man tries to kill Parker while he's in bed with a ladyfriend, Parker decides it's time to settle his score with The Outfit once and for all. While his various criminal acquaintances begin hitting Outfit-owned targets, Parker makes plans to take out the head of the Outfit. But will even taking out the top guy get the Outfit off his back?
As usual, Stark delivers the goods in fast-paced, stripped down style. Parker and Handy do what they do best. The plotting and action, as always, were top notch. While I enjoyed Parker's tale, by far the most enjoyable parts of this piece were all of the various robberies that occurred during the course of the story.
As usual, Stark delivers the goods in fast-paced, stripped down style. Parker and Handy do what they do best. The plotting and action, as always, were top notch. While I enjoyed Parker's tale, by far the most enjoyable parts of this piece were all of the various robberies that occurred during the course of the story.
May 11, 2015
I love that I've discovered the Parker series. I'd been searching for a good series of popcorn books that I can read quickly without a whole lot of brainpower when I'm in that mood, or when I'm working and have little time to read. The Parker books have filled that void for me. They're quick, in-and-out little adventures that I can pop like mean little gummi bears whenever I want!
This episode seems to concludes the beef between master criminal Parker and the organized crime syndicate, the Outfit, a beef that began in the first novel, The Hunter. In The Hunter, Parker warned the bastards that he could rally together his network of professionals and make the Outfit's life a living hell. But they didn't listen. So Parker is making good on his promise.
This was probably the most exciting of the three Parker books I've read so far, as Parker sets off a powder keg of crime, with him and his associates dedicated to pulling off a crippling number of Outfit robberies all over the country. It's always a pleasure reading how author Richard Stark meticulously crafts these robberies and makes each one feel fresh. As usual, there's not much to these books, but they're short little adventures guaranteed to keep you entertained!
*The 80th and final book I read in 2014! Just in time!*
This episode seems to concludes the beef between master criminal Parker and the organized crime syndicate, the Outfit, a beef that began in the first novel, The Hunter. In The Hunter, Parker warned the bastards that he could rally together his network of professionals and make the Outfit's life a living hell. But they didn't listen. So Parker is making good on his promise.
This was probably the most exciting of the three Parker books I've read so far, as Parker sets off a powder keg of crime, with him and his associates dedicated to pulling off a crippling number of Outfit robberies all over the country. It's always a pleasure reading how author Richard Stark meticulously crafts these robberies and makes each one feel fresh. As usual, there's not much to these books, but they're short little adventures guaranteed to keep you entertained!
*The 80th and final book I read in 2014! Just in time!*
March 28, 2014
When The Outfit sets its sights on Parker it doesn't count on the fact that men like Parker, the "independent contractors" of the underworld are, in their own way, legion. The powers that be as well as the cogs and drones who comprise the myriad operations under the purview of The Outfit are soft targets, heretofore left alone out of a sort of professional courtesy. But, guess what kids? The gloves are coming off of Parker's freakishly powerful mitts.
The fact that Parker's first task is to launch a bit of a letter-writing campaign makes me nostalgic for an era through which I never lived. I swooned for yesteryear upon reading that Parker bothered to call an operator to make sure he didn't misspell the word "grievance" before unleashing his hand-written word unto his co-workers from heists-gone-by.
What made this Parker volume particularly delightful was the series of vignettes as individual players make their moves on operations they've been waiting to hit for a rainy day. Stark/Westlake gives each a slightly different style; following a dime from the pocket of a corner-store gambler to the bottom of a freshly-looted safe, giving the ins and outs of the worst day of a horse track lay-off man's career. We even get to meet up with a few characters from the first two forays into Parker-land.
Richard Stark (alter ego extraordinaire) has fed me another piece of glorious criminal candy.
The fact that Parker's first task is to launch a bit of a letter-writing campaign makes me nostalgic for an era through which I never lived. I swooned for yesteryear upon reading that Parker bothered to call an operator to make sure he didn't misspell the word "grievance" before unleashing his hand-written word unto his co-workers from heists-gone-by.
What made this Parker volume particularly delightful was the series of vignettes as individual players make their moves on operations they've been waiting to hit for a rainy day. Stark/Westlake gives each a slightly different style; following a dime from the pocket of a corner-store gambler to the bottom of a freshly-looted safe, giving the ins and outs of the worst day of a horse track lay-off man's career. We even get to meet up with a few characters from the first two forays into Parker-land.
Richard Stark (alter ego extraordinaire) has fed me another piece of glorious criminal candy.
February 18, 2021
I realized the Robert Duvall movie The Outfit was partly based on this book. The movie stole the brilliant chapter about the woman with the orange hair who puts out for Parker and then yells rape to the twin brothers who keeps her, when Parker rejects her. It was funnier than in the movie.
In this book, Parker really hits The Outfit (a criminal conglomerate) hard before they can get to him. He writes letters to independent conmen to have a go at The Outfit, and they do. Stark describes four separate heists on The Outfit that take up much of the book. By the fourth one, I began to miss Parker. There was one too many. The heist with the $75,000 jacket exchanged at airports could be a separate movie, though.
The stuff about Parker's sex life was very interesting. He abstains completely from sex, almost like a monk, while a heist is being planned and executed. Then he really lets go of himself once the job is done. He is into quality and brains. His internal monologue when this housekeeping woman at a motel hits on him, after the heist is done:
"Then he caught on. And seriously considered it for a second or two, because the job was over and he was feeling the way he always felt right after a job. 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. Tonight, maybe he'd go down into Scranton, though he'd never found much worth while in Scranton. If not, he could wait till tomorrow night. Bett Harrow could take care of things. He could save it till then. The first one after a job ought to be a good one, like Bett, not a pig from Scranton."
Good old parker. He will not get invited to the feminist convention. That's for sure.
Handy from The Man with the Getaway Face is Parker's right hand man here.
In this book, Parker really hits The Outfit (a criminal conglomerate) hard before they can get to him. He writes letters to independent conmen to have a go at The Outfit, and they do. Stark describes four separate heists on The Outfit that take up much of the book. By the fourth one, I began to miss Parker. There was one too many. The heist with the $75,000 jacket exchanged at airports could be a separate movie, though.
The stuff about Parker's sex life was very interesting. He abstains completely from sex, almost like a monk, while a heist is being planned and executed. Then he really lets go of himself once the job is done. He is into quality and brains. His internal monologue when this housekeeping woman at a motel hits on him, after the heist is done:
"Then he caught on. And seriously considered it for a second or two, because the job was over and he was feeling the way he always felt right after a job. 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. Tonight, maybe he'd go down into Scranton, though he'd never found much worth while in Scranton. If not, he could wait till tomorrow night. Bett Harrow could take care of things. He could save it till then. The first one after a job ought to be a good one, like Bett, not a pig from Scranton."
Good old parker. He will not get invited to the feminist convention. That's for sure.
Handy from The Man with the Getaway Face is Parker's right hand man here.
December 12, 2024
Clean and mean might be the best way to describe Stark's Parker series. Parker, the professional thief, works a few 'jobs' a year, which serve to bankroll his live of leisure in resort towns like Vegas or Miami. In the last installment, Parker ran afoul with 'the Outfit', an organized crime syndicate with operations across the USA. The Outfit starts with a bang as a hit man tries to take out Parker in his Miami hotel room; Parker squeezed enough information from him to know the Outfit sent him. What does he have to do to be rid of the Outfit? No twisty plots for this noir thriller; The Outfit comprises a revenge novel pure and simple. Parker needs to come up with a plan to get the Outfit off his back and boy does he!
What I like best in this series revolves around the characters, especially Parker, and the criminal setting. Parker, himself rather enigmatic to be sure, we still do not know much about, only that he has lived a successful life of crime for a few decades after WWII. Stark introduces several of Parker's criminal acquaintances-- friends and close relationships have become more of a hinderance, especially after being double-crossed by his wife. How to be a professional thief and get away with it seems to be the major lesson here, and some probings into the life style that this entails. Pithy, blunt dialogue and gritty characters make this series a treat. Also, Stark (at least so far) has managed to not fall into a formulaic trap-- each novel, while linked, contains a new aspect. We have moved from planning heists, getting even for a double cross, to this, getting the Outfit off his back. While rather light, still a fun little time waster. 3.5 gritty stars, rounding up!!
What I like best in this series revolves around the characters, especially Parker, and the criminal setting. Parker, himself rather enigmatic to be sure, we still do not know much about, only that he has lived a successful life of crime for a few decades after WWII. Stark introduces several of Parker's criminal acquaintances-- friends and close relationships have become more of a hinderance, especially after being double-crossed by his wife. How to be a professional thief and get away with it seems to be the major lesson here, and some probings into the life style that this entails. Pithy, blunt dialogue and gritty characters make this series a treat. Also, Stark (at least so far) has managed to not fall into a formulaic trap-- each novel, while linked, contains a new aspect. We have moved from planning heists, getting even for a double cross, to this, getting the Outfit off his back. While rather light, still a fun little time waster. 3.5 gritty stars, rounding up!!
January 24, 2011
I feel like an asshole giving this book five stars while only giving four stars to a much superior book like The Melancholy of Resistance. And then to rub in my shame goodreads goes and makes a new section on our profile pages where our favorite books are shown, and this is one of them, sitting right there in between Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest. Horrors!
I hate the new favorites area on the profiles. Wasn't it enough to have a section in your profile you could list favorite books if you were so inclined. I wasn't. And now I have to have them picking which books are my favorites or instead I need to go create a favorites shelf and then put books on it and I since I didn't want to list my favorite books to begin with I have no desire to do this. Instead I found I could just make a favorites shelf and put nothing on it, a solution that leads to me feeling admonished by goodreads when I see them telling me to add something to the shelf and slightly annoyed at having a shelf now with nothing on it. But I'm a very razor thin bit happier with my empty shelf than feeling forced to either display favorites that they pick or wasting my precious time that could be better spent writing about not wanting to waste my time and picking books to show off there.
Partly the five star rating on this book is a reaction to David's three star review for a later Parker novel that I haven't read yet. But I also gave it five stars because it was a lot of fun to read. But the rating for this book is different than my ratings for other types of books. I have lower expectations for certain things in a crime novel, but I also have high expectations to be amused than I do than when reading some existentially bleak novel. This is like the original Dawn of the Dead to me, it's really awesome and great but I know it's not 'great', but for the genre that it is in it is really good and it satisfies a base urge to be entertained. And it does this really well, which I would imagine should be rather easy to do, but when I think of most other 'popular action based' books I've read I realize that it's not actually the norm for the books to be very good at all, and for them to fail at be anymore engaging than the fourth or fifth movie in a Superhero movie franchise. But to return to Dawn of the Dead, I would give the original five stars. I love the fucking movie, and I would rate it higher on a penta-star system than some Bergman movies, but that's because they are being judged differently. Hour of the Wolf is a superior movie than Romero's mall-based zombie flick, but I'd give it four stars, but they aren't really being rated against each other in any way, the only similarity is that they are both originally a celluloid based media but they would be watched for very different reasons.
I was going to write some stuff about the book, but now I'm not. It's a fun read that has a bunch of little heists in it. Heists are fun to read about and watch in movies. If you agree with me on that point then you will probably really enjoy this book too.
I hate the new favorites area on the profiles. Wasn't it enough to have a section in your profile you could list favorite books if you were so inclined. I wasn't. And now I have to have them picking which books are my favorites or instead I need to go create a favorites shelf and then put books on it and I since I didn't want to list my favorite books to begin with I have no desire to do this. Instead I found I could just make a favorites shelf and put nothing on it, a solution that leads to me feeling admonished by goodreads when I see them telling me to add something to the shelf and slightly annoyed at having a shelf now with nothing on it. But I'm a very razor thin bit happier with my empty shelf than feeling forced to either display favorites that they pick or wasting my precious time that could be better spent writing about not wanting to waste my time and picking books to show off there.
Partly the five star rating on this book is a reaction to David's three star review for a later Parker novel that I haven't read yet. But I also gave it five stars because it was a lot of fun to read. But the rating for this book is different than my ratings for other types of books. I have lower expectations for certain things in a crime novel, but I also have high expectations to be amused than I do than when reading some existentially bleak novel. This is like the original Dawn of the Dead to me, it's really awesome and great but I know it's not 'great', but for the genre that it is in it is really good and it satisfies a base urge to be entertained. And it does this really well, which I would imagine should be rather easy to do, but when I think of most other 'popular action based' books I've read I realize that it's not actually the norm for the books to be very good at all, and for them to fail at be anymore engaging than the fourth or fifth movie in a Superhero movie franchise. But to return to Dawn of the Dead, I would give the original five stars. I love the fucking movie, and I would rate it higher on a penta-star system than some Bergman movies, but that's because they are being judged differently. Hour of the Wolf is a superior movie than Romero's mall-based zombie flick, but I'd give it four stars, but they aren't really being rated against each other in any way, the only similarity is that they are both originally a celluloid based media but they would be watched for very different reasons.
I was going to write some stuff about the book, but now I'm not. It's a fun read that has a bunch of little heists in it. Heists are fun to read about and watch in movies. If you agree with me on that point then you will probably really enjoy this book too.
January 14, 2011
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
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
April 27, 2017
Reading the first three Parker novels one after the other, it’s fascinating to observe what different beasts they are. The first is a terse, tense revenge thriller; the next is a book creating the true Parker formula, where our uber-professional thief gets a job and works on it, taking out every irritation as it comes; whilst the third is an odd combination of the two. In a way the ‘job is planned and carried out� formula is here: the job being to get to Bronson � the head of the outfit, who we first heard of in ‘The Hunter�. However it isn’t just about monetary gain, but then it’s not quite revenge either. Parker wants a life without difficulties from The Outfit, and he is going to make difficulties for The Outfit until he’s assured that. So once again we get a Parker who isn’t quite the impersonal, swag focused ultra-professional thief of the later books, although he is here actually ultra-professional and focused on a specific task � it’s just that the end of the job isn’t simply about money. It’s an interesting amalgamation of the first two novels and Stark/Westlake blends them together marvellously.
The most interesting part of the book though, is a sustained and brilliant exercise in world building. Parker sends out letters to his associates across the country telling them that if they have any jobs against The Outfit, which hitherto they’d left alone, then they should hit them now. The middle section of this book is then devoted to these various other crimes that Parker has put in action. We see these robberies take place in beautiful Stark detail, but because these robbers are hitting places which are themselves criminal enterprises, we get details of that scam too. The result is in effect a crook’s almanac. With dozens of criminal activities laid on top of each other so you can almost pick the one you like the most. I really don’t know how Westlake/Stark did it: whether he researched, or studied the newspapers, or just imagined it all � but was blessed with such a fantastic imagination that it made each and every one of these schemes and stick-ups as plausible and feasible as possible.
What we have here is something incredible � a beautifully constructed, tautly written thriller which is almost an encyclopaedia for criminals, but one which still focuses on its anti-hero’s single minded quest. This is a juicy steak for carnivore crime fiction fans everywhere.
The most interesting part of the book though, is a sustained and brilliant exercise in world building. Parker sends out letters to his associates across the country telling them that if they have any jobs against The Outfit, which hitherto they’d left alone, then they should hit them now. The middle section of this book is then devoted to these various other crimes that Parker has put in action. We see these robberies take place in beautiful Stark detail, but because these robbers are hitting places which are themselves criminal enterprises, we get details of that scam too. The result is in effect a crook’s almanac. With dozens of criminal activities laid on top of each other so you can almost pick the one you like the most. I really don’t know how Westlake/Stark did it: whether he researched, or studied the newspapers, or just imagined it all � but was blessed with such a fantastic imagination that it made each and every one of these schemes and stick-ups as plausible and feasible as possible.
What we have here is something incredible � a beautifully constructed, tautly written thriller which is almost an encyclopaedia for criminals, but one which still focuses on its anti-hero’s single minded quest. This is a juicy steak for carnivore crime fiction fans everywhere.
November 15, 2019
Nov 2019 Review: Great story, even on a reread & after watching movies that are based on it. Short, to the point, & quite believable. The only grand guild of thieves is at the mercy of the small fry. There were some great characters, too. The audio books are well narrated & short, so I've just got to read another. On to !
Dec 2012 Review: My edition was a download from the library produced by Audio Go, read by John Chancer. It's about 300 minutes long & fantastic, again. Occasionally the job setups dragged a bit, came across as pedantic, but they were interesting for all that. As usual, Parker's acquaintances cause him issues, but this time they helped out, too. Great idea & very well done.
A thread from the beginning leads me in to the next book, too. On to read the next, . I just have to know...
Dec 2012 Review: My edition was a download from the library produced by Audio Go, read by John Chancer. It's about 300 minutes long & fantastic, again. Occasionally the job setups dragged a bit, came across as pedantic, but they were interesting for all that. As usual, Parker's acquaintances cause him issues, but this time they helped out, too. Great idea & very well done.
A thread from the beginning leads me in to the next book, too. On to read the next, . I just have to know...
December 29, 2018
This was the first novel I've read by Richard Stark and it was, I think, an early novel Donald Westlake wrote using the nom de plume "Richard Stark." There are 24 books in this series. I will admit upon my initial reading I felt a little disappointed in the quality of the writing. Later, the writing and the story got much better and I suspected that Westlake had taken a while to find his voice as Richard Stark. Just as we change our personas when we speak a foreign language, perhaps some writers also change theirs when they use a pseudonym?
I discovered Parker/Stark on some web site devoted to noir fiction. I haven't read much noir but it is (and was) a good respite from the 752-page book by Sir Max Hasting's on Vietnam which had taken me three weeks to finish. I read at a glacial pace and large tomes that some on here consume like whales gobbling plankton may take me months to plow through. Thus THE OUTFIT was a welcome change.
Parker is a professional criminal who usually works with other professional criminals to perpetrate heists and high-dollar thievery ranging from armed robbery to safe cracking. He is also a voluptuary, writ large, and prefers to work sporadically and spend most of his time living in ritzy hotels with a succession of beautiful women. He is smart, handsome and athletic and is not averse to using extreme violence when necessary. Like many professional criminals, especially of the old school, Parker has underworld contacts all over America and possibly all over the world. He knows where to obtain a "clean" car, or a new identity, safe hotels to hide out, places he can obtain a gun sans serial numbers, passports, etc. Like the late real-life bank robber Willie Sutton, he is a member of the criminal aristocracy, such as it is, and Stark does a great job of showing how Parker uses his connections and brilliant ruthlessness to further his aims and thrive in a profession requiring brinkmanship of the highest order.
The basic story in this book is simple. Parker is part of that cadre of outlaws having no ties to organized crime. He is done wrong by the mob, here called the "outfit" and goes about exacting revenge with the aid of his vast freelance criminal network. Normally this network leaves the outfit alone in a sort of honor among thieves which is reciprocated by the organization guys. When an outfit wiseguy has the effrontery to put a "hit" on Parker, this unspoken honor code takes an extended holiday.
Parker cagily employs his network of scofflaws to hit the outfit where it hurts--in the pocketbook. Stark deftly builds tension as Parker puts himself in a variety of dangerous situations and usually comes out unscathed by dint of luck and meticulous planning. I won't give away the ending except to say that Parker comes to a violent rapprochement with the outfit and is last seen on his way back to Florida to the gorgeous lady he left behind. Parker defies a lot of stereotypes, as he prefers beautiful and highly intelligent women and eschews vapid ladies whose vacuity diminishes their beauty, in his opinion.
This will not be the last Parker book I read. He makes for a great divertissement for my feeble mind after slogging away for weeks reading a work that requires a level of thought beyond my limited scope.
I discovered Parker/Stark on some web site devoted to noir fiction. I haven't read much noir but it is (and was) a good respite from the 752-page book by Sir Max Hasting's on Vietnam which had taken me three weeks to finish. I read at a glacial pace and large tomes that some on here consume like whales gobbling plankton may take me months to plow through. Thus THE OUTFIT was a welcome change.
Parker is a professional criminal who usually works with other professional criminals to perpetrate heists and high-dollar thievery ranging from armed robbery to safe cracking. He is also a voluptuary, writ large, and prefers to work sporadically and spend most of his time living in ritzy hotels with a succession of beautiful women. He is smart, handsome and athletic and is not averse to using extreme violence when necessary. Like many professional criminals, especially of the old school, Parker has underworld contacts all over America and possibly all over the world. He knows where to obtain a "clean" car, or a new identity, safe hotels to hide out, places he can obtain a gun sans serial numbers, passports, etc. Like the late real-life bank robber Willie Sutton, he is a member of the criminal aristocracy, such as it is, and Stark does a great job of showing how Parker uses his connections and brilliant ruthlessness to further his aims and thrive in a profession requiring brinkmanship of the highest order.
The basic story in this book is simple. Parker is part of that cadre of outlaws having no ties to organized crime. He is done wrong by the mob, here called the "outfit" and goes about exacting revenge with the aid of his vast freelance criminal network. Normally this network leaves the outfit alone in a sort of honor among thieves which is reciprocated by the organization guys. When an outfit wiseguy has the effrontery to put a "hit" on Parker, this unspoken honor code takes an extended holiday.
Parker cagily employs his network of scofflaws to hit the outfit where it hurts--in the pocketbook. Stark deftly builds tension as Parker puts himself in a variety of dangerous situations and usually comes out unscathed by dint of luck and meticulous planning. I won't give away the ending except to say that Parker comes to a violent rapprochement with the outfit and is last seen on his way back to Florida to the gorgeous lady he left behind. Parker defies a lot of stereotypes, as he prefers beautiful and highly intelligent women and eschews vapid ladies whose vacuity diminishes their beauty, in his opinion.
This will not be the last Parker book I read. He makes for a great divertissement for my feeble mind after slogging away for weeks reading a work that requires a level of thought beyond my limited scope.
February 16, 2023
1963
Parker takes some control of the Syndicate, the Outfit, a successful connected system of crime. They still owe him money from when they thought he was dead, and he wants different people in charge. He does it by writing letters to all the free cons he knows, professional independent thieves. He tells them to go ahead and rob all the Syndicate's organized crime clubs and outposts.
Flipping back and forth between time, place, and characters as these books do, there are some entertaining scenes of stealing.
Parker takes some control of the Syndicate, the Outfit, a successful connected system of crime. They still owe him money from when they thought he was dead, and he wants different people in charge. He does it by writing letters to all the free cons he knows, professional independent thieves. He tells them to go ahead and rob all the Syndicate's organized crime clubs and outposts.
Flipping back and forth between time, place, and characters as these books do, there are some entertaining scenes of stealing.
October 21, 2015
This was a sort of relief to me. I mean this is far from great literature and it's a little disturbing that I like this/these books. Parker is a pretty cold duck (though he seems to be mellowing or something). It's an action read and a straight up thriller. Don't look for the philosophical take Parker has on life. Mostly he's good if he steals enough to live well.
Of course the fact that the Outfit has a problem with Parker and wants him dead is putting a cramp in his plans...so he has to kill the people in charge and make a deal with the people who'll take over.
As noted the book was a relief. I've run on several mediocre reads that at best left me cold and at worst bored me to then point of distraction... The action here makes sure you don't get bored.
So, straight forward action thriller, done well. Enjoy. If you're looking for some mental junk food charged with adrenalin this may be it. Enjoy.
Of course the fact that the Outfit has a problem with Parker and wants him dead is putting a cramp in his plans...so he has to kill the people in charge and make a deal with the people who'll take over.
As noted the book was a relief. I've run on several mediocre reads that at best left me cold and at worst bored me to then point of distraction... The action here makes sure you don't get bored.
So, straight forward action thriller, done well. Enjoy. If you're looking for some mental junk food charged with adrenalin this may be it. Enjoy.
December 17, 2017
When Parker and the Outfit had a dispute in the first book of the series, Parker warned them what price they would pay if they did not leave him alone. Book #3 opens with someone trying to kill him in bed with his current fling, and Parker had had enough, wresting the names of the people who arranged the hit. He writes or visits many of the people he has worked robberies with, and encourages them to rob the underprotected businesses of the Outfit to make them pay. He also decides to remove the key puppetmaster. I thought there was too much focus on rip-offs and not enough on Parker.
January 17, 2021
They STILL ain't learned- you don't mess with Mr. Parker!!!
My favorite of the series thus far. Parker decides the best defense is a good offense and rallies his fellow thieves to give the Outfit a whole lotta financial headaches. A million of 'em to be exact.
Good stuff!
My favorite of the series thus far. Parker decides the best defense is a good offense and rallies his fellow thieves to give the Outfit a whole lotta financial headaches. A million of 'em to be exact.
Good stuff!
November 14, 2016
A friend suggested a book to me called The Outfit back in January which I went out and purchased. Well, actually, I bought the wrong one by Richard Stark which is a fictional novel as opposed to the one my friend meant which was by Gus Russo and is a non-fictional history of the Mob. I will go and grab the Russo book, but in the meantime, the Stark one was pretty fun. Apparently, Stark passed away in 2008 after writing about 24 books featuring the main character Parker. He is sort of like a Raylan gone bad who is highly intelligent and a dangerous killer. The book was about his revenge on the Outfit where he tries to free himself of the bonds they put on him. I liked the flow as well as the descriptions of the characters and mob operations. The Outfit is a very entertaining and relatively light read and has been adapted by Darwyn Cooke into a great comic book as well.
October 29, 2019
I've lost count of how many times I've listened to this and other Parker books. He's always with me. It's been MONTHS, and I'm still obsessed.
June 1, 2017
The best compliment I can give the "Parker" novels by Donald E. Westlake is to admit that they've completely hijacked my usual schedule of reading and reviewing contemporary novels for the CCLaP website; originally planned to be a fun airplane diversion when I flew from Chicago to New Orleans and back about three weeks ago, I ended up reading the first book in the series, 1962's The Hunter, from start to finish in just half a day, and have since been greedily devouring the rest at a rate of a book or two every week, blowing off all my other reading commitments no matter how much I realize I shouldn't. (Sorry, all you authors who are patiently waiting for your book to be reviewed at CCLaP.)
That's high praise indeed from someone who usually doesn't like crime novels that much, with the key being that the main character is just so utterly fascinating, who like Ayn Rand's Howard Roark is less a real human being and more an example of the "theoretically perfect" version of the philosophy the author is trying to espouse (Stoicism here in the case of Westlake, versus Objectivism in the case of Rand). A professional thief who only pulls off one heist a year (netting him in today's terms somewhere between a quarter-million and a half-million dollars each time), so that he can spend the other 51 weeks lounging poolside at resort hotels and having rough sex with trust-fund blue-bloods with a taste for danger, Parker doesn't give even the tiniest little fuck about anything or anyone that falls outside of this monomaniacal routine, never negotiates nor compromises when it comes to his take or who he'll work with, doesn't have even the slightest hesitation about torturing or killing people who get in his way (yet avoids doing it anyway, simply because physical abuse is the "lazy" way to get what one wants, and being lazy is the first step towards getting caught), and possesses a psychotic distaste for such banal activities like "talking" and "having friends" or "acknowledging the inherent worth of the human race." (A true misanthrope, these pre-PC novels are not for the linguistically faint at heart, filled on every page with dismissive contempt for women, homosexuals, and people of color; although in Parker's "defense," such as it is, he also displays such contempt for most of the straight white males he meets too.)
There are 24 novels in the Parker series (which Westlake published under the pen-name "Richard Stark"), most from the '60s and early '70s, the series then activated again in the late '90s and up until Westlake's death in 2008; but the first three form a trilogy of sorts, in that they all concern one overarching storyline that spans from one book to the next, and so make a tidy reading experience for those who are curious about the series but don't want to make a 24-book commitment. (Most of the others are franchise-style standalone stories that each follow a similar blueprint -- Parker decides on his heist for that year, Parker obsessively plans out his heist for that year, then everything goes to hell when Parker actually tries pulling off his heist for that year.) The first, The Hunter, will seem familiar to many because it's been made into a movie so many times (including 1967's Point Blank with Lee Marvin, 1999's Payback with Mel Gibson, and 2013's Parker with Jason Statham); in it, we pick up a year after a heist that went bad because of a duplicitous partner, who needed both his share and Parker's in order to pay back the Mafia for an old job gone bad, the novel itself consisting of Parker basically crisscrossing the country and getting his revenge on every person who had been involved, eventually . The second book, then, 1963's The Man With the Getaway Face, sees Parker get plastic surgery in order to ; so then in the third novel, The Outfit from later that same year, Parker decides to get the Mafia off his tail once and for all, enlisting his buddies-in-crime to
Like Parker himself, these novels are quick and lean, part of what makes them so obsessively readable; Westlake had a real talent for stripping narratives down to just their bare essentials, then cleverly invented a character for whom this fast-paced minimalism works perfectly, a true human monster but one you can't help but root for anyway, if for no other reason than because he has zero tolerance for the chatty bullshit and regards for acquaintances' feelings that you as a non-psychotic are forced to deal with in your own schmucky non-bank-robbing life. (Stupid schmucky non-bank-robbing life!) Unfortunately my obsessive focus on these books must come to an end soon -- I simply have to get back to the novels I'm "supposed" to be reading, plus I can already tell by the fifth book that this series gets a lot more formulaic as it continues, which I bet will dampen my enthusiasm on its own -- but I couldn't let the opportunity pass by to mention how unexpectedly thrilled I was by at least the first few books in the lineup, picked up on a whim completely randomly but that have turned out to be some of my favorite reading experiences of the entire last year. They come strongly recommended whenever you have some downtime soon, especially to those like me who aren't natural fans of this genre to begin with.
That's high praise indeed from someone who usually doesn't like crime novels that much, with the key being that the main character is just so utterly fascinating, who like Ayn Rand's Howard Roark is less a real human being and more an example of the "theoretically perfect" version of the philosophy the author is trying to espouse (Stoicism here in the case of Westlake, versus Objectivism in the case of Rand). A professional thief who only pulls off one heist a year (netting him in today's terms somewhere between a quarter-million and a half-million dollars each time), so that he can spend the other 51 weeks lounging poolside at resort hotels and having rough sex with trust-fund blue-bloods with a taste for danger, Parker doesn't give even the tiniest little fuck about anything or anyone that falls outside of this monomaniacal routine, never negotiates nor compromises when it comes to his take or who he'll work with, doesn't have even the slightest hesitation about torturing or killing people who get in his way (yet avoids doing it anyway, simply because physical abuse is the "lazy" way to get what one wants, and being lazy is the first step towards getting caught), and possesses a psychotic distaste for such banal activities like "talking" and "having friends" or "acknowledging the inherent worth of the human race." (A true misanthrope, these pre-PC novels are not for the linguistically faint at heart, filled on every page with dismissive contempt for women, homosexuals, and people of color; although in Parker's "defense," such as it is, he also displays such contempt for most of the straight white males he meets too.)
There are 24 novels in the Parker series (which Westlake published under the pen-name "Richard Stark"), most from the '60s and early '70s, the series then activated again in the late '90s and up until Westlake's death in 2008; but the first three form a trilogy of sorts, in that they all concern one overarching storyline that spans from one book to the next, and so make a tidy reading experience for those who are curious about the series but don't want to make a 24-book commitment. (Most of the others are franchise-style standalone stories that each follow a similar blueprint -- Parker decides on his heist for that year, Parker obsessively plans out his heist for that year, then everything goes to hell when Parker actually tries pulling off his heist for that year.) The first, The Hunter, will seem familiar to many because it's been made into a movie so many times (including 1967's Point Blank with Lee Marvin, 1999's Payback with Mel Gibson, and 2013's Parker with Jason Statham); in it, we pick up a year after a heist that went bad because of a duplicitous partner, who needed both his share and Parker's in order to pay back the Mafia for an old job gone bad, the novel itself consisting of Parker basically crisscrossing the country and getting his revenge on every person who had been involved, eventually . The second book, then, 1963's The Man With the Getaway Face, sees Parker get plastic surgery in order to ; so then in the third novel, The Outfit from later that same year, Parker decides to get the Mafia off his tail once and for all, enlisting his buddies-in-crime to
Like Parker himself, these novels are quick and lean, part of what makes them so obsessively readable; Westlake had a real talent for stripping narratives down to just their bare essentials, then cleverly invented a character for whom this fast-paced minimalism works perfectly, a true human monster but one you can't help but root for anyway, if for no other reason than because he has zero tolerance for the chatty bullshit and regards for acquaintances' feelings that you as a non-psychotic are forced to deal with in your own schmucky non-bank-robbing life. (Stupid schmucky non-bank-robbing life!) Unfortunately my obsessive focus on these books must come to an end soon -- I simply have to get back to the novels I'm "supposed" to be reading, plus I can already tell by the fifth book that this series gets a lot more formulaic as it continues, which I bet will dampen my enthusiasm on its own -- but I couldn't let the opportunity pass by to mention how unexpectedly thrilled I was by at least the first few books in the lineup, picked up on a whim completely randomly but that have turned out to be some of my favorite reading experiences of the entire last year. They come strongly recommended whenever you have some downtime soon, especially to those like me who aren't natural fans of this genre to begin with.
April 6, 2022
Circling back to the dangling plot threads of the first book and again using a choppy, non-linear storyline; Westlake/Stark deftly closes the loop on one arc while setting up the next.
January 14, 2024
The third Parker book. Stark/Westlake is really starting to hit his stride with them.
April 11, 2009
The weakest in the series that I've read so far. But that's not to say it isn't worth a look. On the down side, The Outfit is simply unbelievable, with its notion that Parker only has to sit down and write some letters to his fellow professional robbers to take down a nationwide criminal organization. Westlake (Stark) is trying to say something about corporate America -- and corporate criminals, than runs along the lines of Who can tell the difference anymore? (That was probably a cliche even in 1963, when the novel was written.) On the criminal side of things, the Outfit, in Parker's rogue wolf eyes, has gotten soft. Maybe too soft, since they never seem more than insurance salemen or accountants with guns. And with that in mind, they never seem much of a threat to the real deal: Parker. But Parker novels are not meant to be statements, and are usually believable (to some extent) due to the nitty gritty details of the criminal life that populate each outing. The "Outfit" as an entity exists as little more than an abstraction, with some cardboard men. Westlake was too good a writer to have not intended this contrast. That said, it still didn't work great for me.
Still, there are plenty of those nitty gritty details present, depite how the overarching conflict between Parker and the Outfit cuts against them. The good news in this entry is that there are plenty of great stories within the story (my favorite being a memorable car buying trip in Georgia). Also, a bit of history on Parker's beginnings as a soldier in WW 2, which would make him to be in his eighties now -- and still kicking butt. No doubt at some point Westlake had to start getting vague about the particulars of Parker's past in order to make him the timeless thug we love today. The Outfit is one of those novels where the parts are better than the whole.
Still, there are plenty of those nitty gritty details present, depite how the overarching conflict between Parker and the Outfit cuts against them. The good news in this entry is that there are plenty of great stories within the story (my favorite being a memorable car buying trip in Georgia). Also, a bit of history on Parker's beginnings as a soldier in WW 2, which would make him to be in his eighties now -- and still kicking butt. No doubt at some point Westlake had to start getting vague about the particulars of Parker's past in order to make him the timeless thug we love today. The Outfit is one of those novels where the parts are better than the whole.
July 11, 2014
The closing episode of Parkers' Clash with the outfit that started in The Hunter.
The story starts with an attempt on Parkers' life while enjoying a physical tryst with a lady. When Parker obviously survives he wants answers and he gets them. Parker realizes that the Outfit will keep targeting him unless he takes steps to make it financial unappealing to keep tracking him down while at the same time taking out the responsible person.
This book is about Parkers' campaign against the Outfit in which quite a few heists are undertaken against that Outfit. Most of them do not involve Parker but are very well described and fun to read. They show the power and involvement of the Outfit as well as the weaknesses. It becomes in essence a battle of two professional groups, one being organized and the other not. The the latter party still has its interests in some monetary endeavors concerning the Outfit and see their chances or motivation through Parkers' attempts to motivate them to strike at the Outfit. Being not organized makes them far better at striking against the outfit. And yet both parties will do anything for money whereas the soloists have far less to lose and Stark shows that even folks working for certain organisations do not necessarily makes them criminals. Any organisation will adapt to the society it works in and Parker does not have any societal restrictions.
A great book that leaves you wanting more Parker novels, as most of his tales have yet to be read by me. I do indeed prefer the early ones to the later ones I have read.
The story starts with an attempt on Parkers' life while enjoying a physical tryst with a lady. When Parker obviously survives he wants answers and he gets them. Parker realizes that the Outfit will keep targeting him unless he takes steps to make it financial unappealing to keep tracking him down while at the same time taking out the responsible person.
This book is about Parkers' campaign against the Outfit in which quite a few heists are undertaken against that Outfit. Most of them do not involve Parker but are very well described and fun to read. They show the power and involvement of the Outfit as well as the weaknesses. It becomes in essence a battle of two professional groups, one being organized and the other not. The the latter party still has its interests in some monetary endeavors concerning the Outfit and see their chances or motivation through Parkers' attempts to motivate them to strike at the Outfit. Being not organized makes them far better at striking against the outfit. And yet both parties will do anything for money whereas the soloists have far less to lose and Stark shows that even folks working for certain organisations do not necessarily makes them criminals. Any organisation will adapt to the society it works in and Parker does not have any societal restrictions.
A great book that leaves you wanting more Parker novels, as most of his tales have yet to be read by me. I do indeed prefer the early ones to the later ones I have read.
October 25, 2013
Parker had gotten a face lift to disguise himself from the Outfit. Word was out now, though they didn't know what he looked like. When someone fingers him and a hit man is sent, he decides it's tme to do something about it.
He heads north from Florida, visiting people along the way he'd worked with in the past. He also wrote letters to others to far off the route. He asked all if they had plans to hit outfit(they all idly thought about such jobs). As a professional courtesy, they left such hits alone.
But the outfit, Bronson in particular, was starting to get annoying. They needed to be taught a lesson about other pros and what they could do. Before it was over, a million had been taken.
Then Parker went after Bronson.
He heads north from Florida, visiting people along the way he'd worked with in the past. He also wrote letters to others to far off the route. He asked all if they had plans to hit outfit(they all idly thought about such jobs). As a professional courtesy, they left such hits alone.
But the outfit, Bronson in particular, was starting to get annoying. They needed to be taught a lesson about other pros and what they could do. Before it was over, a million had been taken.
Then Parker went after Bronson.
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