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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.