Parker
Created by Richard Stark (pseud. Donald Westlake, 1933-2008)

Definitely not a private eye. Richard Stark's (actually Donald Westlake's) PARKER is a hardened professional thief who appeared in a string of almost twenty excellent, extremely hardboiled caper paperback originals in the sixties and seventies. Demand for Westlake to bring back Parker resulted in the very well-received (and appropriately titled) Comeback in 1997. And seven more novels follwed, the series continuing right up until Westlake's death in 2009.

Along with the Parker novels, Stark wrote four Alan Grofield books about Parker's sometime partner in crime. These usually pick up just after Grofield and Parker have finished a job; they're a bit lighter, a bit more Westlake than the other Starks. Perhaps because Grofield doesn't see himself as a professional thief. He sees himself as an actor, who criminal exploits allow him to turn down roles he's not too fussy about.

The Parker series is often sited as one of the absolute best hard-boiled series ever written, unapologetically brutal and unflinching. It's also been the inspiration for several movies, although various directors have had some very different spins on his character, changing his name, his nationality, his race and even his gender on occasion. Rumour has it that when Westlake was asked why Parker was never called Parker in the movies, he replied that he didn't want them to use the name, unless they were going to make a series from the books.

Under his real name, Westlake writes the relatively light-hearted Dortmunder series, about a brilliant, but hilariously unlucky master criminal. The first Dortmunder caper, The Hot Rock (1970), also featured an appearance by Parker's buddy, Alan Grofield. Under the Tucker Coe penname, Westlake has written a series about guilt-ridden private eye, Mitch Tobin.

Westlake's always been rather playful when it comes to his books. In Jimmy The Kid, one of the Dortmunder books, his gang uses a Parker novel as a guideline for a caper; needless to say, it doesn't go quite as planned. The chapters alternate between the Dortmunder story and the Parker novel, entitled Child Heist. And another Dortmunder book, Drowned Hopes shares a chapter with Joe Gores' 1992 DKA novel 32 Cadillacs, with the gang stealing one of the Cadillacs of the title. The Donald Westlake novel. And this isn't the first time Gores and Westlake have high-fived each other. About 20 years ago, Dead Skip (1972), the first DKA novel, shared a chapter with Plunder Squad (1972), a Parker novel by Richard Stark (aka Westlake). And The Blackbird (1969), an Alan Grofield novel by Stark, shares a chapter with Slayground (1971), another Parker novel. Of course, these shared chapters are not exactly the same, but describe the same situations from different points of view (thanks to Jiro Kimura of The Gumshoe Site for the heads up on this one).

WHAT HAPPENED?

UNDER OATH

NOVELS

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GRAPHIC NOVELS

RELATED LINKS

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to BSchin2188@aol.com for the tip.

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