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Butcher's moon

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What's common with most Parker novels (and let me say that this is the ONLY common thing about them), is the length, around 200 pages a pop. But for the 20th and final Parker adventure--until the aptly titled COMEBACK was published in 1995--Richard Stark has treated us with a fat 300 page epic called BUTCHER'S MOON. And what a treat it is! Parker, our favorite anti-hero, has once again teamed up with fellow professional thief, Grofield, to recover the stashed loot from a previous score. The loot is long gone, of course, and soon getting it back takes a back seat to getting revenge. Parker calls in all of his old friends--and I mean ALL of 'em, even retired thief Handy McKay jumps at the chance to join the party--because what Parker has planned is nothing short of a war, The Thieves vs. The Hoods, and when it's over an entire town will be cleaned out, a mob outfit will lay in ruins and Parker & Company will be stepping over the bodies.

It took me 13 years to find this book and I can honestly say it was worth the wait. Those who have encountered Parker before do not need encouragement to read this, but for the first timer this book will open your mind to a totally different kind of hero, one you find yourself rooting for even though you find no common principles between you. Fairness, the ability to see an argument from another's view, willingness to compromise, to Parker these are foreign phrases. In this book a Mafia boss tries to make Parker understand that what he wants is simply not possible, indeed more than one person tries to make Parker see sense. But Parker is as unstoppable and inevitable as the juggernaut, if you attempt to interfere, at best, you can hope he'll ignore you, at worst, you'll make him mad. This book showed for the first time that Parker can get emotionally involved, which he had always resisted as it may have affected his judgement. The "new" side to Parker merely cemented his reputation as the toughest antihero in crime fiction. If you read this book you will read the rest of the series. In a lifetime of reading books this is the only series I continue to come back to. After writing this Stark could not "find the voice" for nearly twenty years. Thankfully this is not the last Parker, but if it had been I'm sure the author would have been justifiably proud to have ended on this high note.

I admit it: I love the Parker novels-- all of them (though the very new "Nobody Runs Forever" is distressingly focusless and my least favorite of the thirty-book series). "Butcher's Moon" is one of the best, though. It has everything we've come to expect from Richard Stark and his creation: terse, propulsive narration, utterly amoral behavior by our protagonist, unpredictable plotting, and brutal action.

The book is hard to find-- I have a copy in a box that I trip over every five years and read again, but I've never seen it in used bookstores in the last 20 years. When it pops up for sale, grab it. And in the meantime, read any and all of the other Starks/Parkers (and all the other Westlakes as well).

Even for the excellent Parker series, this one is super great! The Parker character is cool and professional as always. This novel connects back to the heist in the novel Slayground, although you don't need to read it to appreciate this one. The spare, raw writing of this series was never better. It kept me up all night.

In 1962 Donald E. Westlake, writing as Richard Stark, introduced the character of Parker, a professional thief who is as remorseless as he is efficient. This first novel was The Hunter (filmed as Point Blank with Lee Marvin) and it probably marks the beginning of the modern American crime novel. Prior to The Hunter crime novels were largely about detectives and detection, and stories about criminals usually ended with the crooks caught or killed. Stark changed all that. Parker always lives to steal another day, and he usually leaves a high body count in his wake. And Parker's no Robin Hood; he steals for himself, and if his accomplices are caught or killed that's their bad luck. Parker isn't just hardboiled, he's frozen in carbonite.

One of the chief pleasures of the Parker novels is the plotting. The stories begin at a dead run and then rarely pause for a breath. Parker and his confederates always plan their heists to the last detail, but then something usually goes awry, and Parker ends up avoiding pursuers or doing some pursuing himself. Sometimes he's doing both at the same time. Despite the breathlessness of the plotting, Stark takes care to add some depth and shading to even minor characters, and he can also add humour here and there;. in Butcher's Moon, in the middle of a casino heist, two of the thieves and the casino operator suddenly have a ridiculously passionate discussion about health food and fitness.

It's easy to see the influence Stark had on Elmore Leonard, who began his crime writing career just as Stark was winding down the Parker series. Leonard's plots are also about criminal plots that go off the rails, his heroes are often Parker-like, and Leonard's novels always feature humorous, parenthetical moments. And Leonard in turn has influenced a host of other writers and filmmakers (step forward Mr Tarantino). The character of Parker has also been reborn in Lee Child's Jack Reacher thrillers. The Reacher character is definitely on the right side of the law, but his ruthlessness, his skill, his matter-of-fact approach to danger is pure Parker.

In Butcher's Moon Parker and his frequent partner, Alan Grofield, travel to a small city in Ohio to reclaim a stash of money they'd hidden there years before. The money is missing and the finger of blame points towards the head of the local crime syndicate. Parker wants his money and applies pressure to the crime boss, but that ends with Grofield being wounded and captured. Parker then assembles a gang of thieves he's worked with in previous novels and they begin an all-out assault on the syndicate's men and businesses. Things get very exciting and very bloody.

Butcher's Moon, written in 1974, marks the end of "old" Parker. In 1999 Stark resumed writing Parker novels and these very definitely gave us a "new" Parker. New Parker is even better than old Parker. Old Parker novels occasionally suffer from stilted tough-guy dialogue, and the depiction of women can be summed up by the fact that they're usually referred to as "broads" or "dames." Also, the plots of some of the old Parkers sometimes bordered on the farfetched, straying out of the crime genre and into action/adventure. Butcher's Moon suffers a bit from this last problem, but in other respects it's a bridge to new Parker. The dialogue is free of cliche and there's no blatant sexism.

New Parker began with the aptly-titled Comeback, and in all respects Stark's writing is better. The plots are and more unpredictable and believable, the dialogue is leaner and devoid of cliches, and Parker is made more human, but no less implacable and lethal, by the addition of a steady girlfriend. The best of the new Parkers is Breakout, which features both a prison escape and a heist. I suspect Stark brought back Parker because he felt a bit miffed that Leonard, Child and others were getting rich in a genre that was largely his creation.

Read more of my reviews at JettisonCocoon dot com.

Butcher's Moon, the sixteenth in the series, may be the best Parker novel. It is twice the size of a typical Parker adventure, but the extra size is worth the time.

Parker, our famous anti-hero, usually plans and executes complicated robberies. He has become a legend among the criminal element due to his unique ability to concoct plans to commit crimes that most people would not consider possible.

Butchers's Moon, begins with an unsuccessful robbery that Parker did not plan. The crew trips an alarm in jewelry outlet and barely escapes capture. This is Parker's fourth failure in a row. Parker is getting low on funds, so he decides to retrieve the suitcase of money he left in an amusement park in an earlier venture (Slayground). Retrieving the money seems to be a good idea until he gets there. Someone already found and took the money.

Butcher's Moon is the most suspenseful and exciting novel in the Parker series. It is full of intrigue and action as Parker decides that Adolf Lozini (a local crime boss) has his money, and the crime boss denies the claim. Parker warns Lozini that he will regret not paying him, and the fun begins.

I highly recommend Butcher's Moon to Parker fans, all who enjoy suspenseful action, and everyone who likes crime stories.

Richard Stark, aka Donald Westlake,all of the titles excellent but this one gives a backstory re the antihero Parker, a truly scary hero. Highly rerecommended. JCClifford

Parker is Back to Kick Your Ass

SunPost Weekly March 31, 2011 | John Hood

http://bit.ly/gdPw6B

Seems like only yesterday I was heralding another stack of Richard Stark re-racks and basking in the black and blue of it all. Alas that was last August, which is far too many yesterdays to let lapse before we do it all over again. No, don't worry. This won't be a repeat. Not really. It will though be another call for you to hit your local book joint and pocket a fistful of very vivid violence -- or else.

Those of you who were around during the Summer of 2010 will remember that I'd come clean on some very dirty deeds. The piece -- A Six Pack of Kickass praised to high hell the latest Richard Stark reprints re-issued by the good folks at the University of Chicago Press. Back then I'd explained that Stark was the most notable alias used by the late, great Donald Westlake, who copped the moniker by adding a suitably stoic adjective to the name Richard Widmark. Why did the grandmaster do that? Well, because the character he created to star under that guise was perhaps one of the most bleak and badass men ever to commit a crime, in fiction or otherwise. And that's saying something.

The dark star I'm referring to is of course Parker, who made his first appearance in The Hunter (1962) and didn't stop his spree until Stark did in 2008, with Dirty Money. The first dozen years of Parker's run resulted in 16 (count `em) incredibly compelling crime stories, all of which Chicago has now put back into print. The last blast of that initial onslaught was entitled Butcher's Moon (1974). And it is that very title which leads off the new three-pack.

As Lawrence Block so suitably notes in his Foreward, "for over twenty years [Butcher's Moon] looked to be the last book in the series, and while that would have been regrettable, at least Parker's saga would have ended on a high note. Because in addition to being... the strongest book in a strong series, [it] brings Parker's story to completion, if not to an end."

Now don't get Block wrong; you don't need to read the previous 15 novels to get a rise from Butcher's Moon (though naturally I recommend you do). Rather had you read the entries leading up to this crescendo, its combination of re-appearances and revisitation would add a whole new chime to the crime. Or in this case, the many, many crimes, all of which are perpetrated against criminals who haven't the sense to pay Parker what he believes he's owed.

Taking a line from Block "that is all I'm going to say about Butcher's Moon." Because to even chance spoiling the soiling Parker gives to his cutthroat adversaries would be a bigger crime than even he and his "string" commit.

Same goes for both Comeback (1997) and Backflash (1998), rounds two and three in this fight. I will though tell you that after 23 years fans of hard core unadulterated pulp unanimously rejoiced when Parker hit the racks again back at the end of the `90s. And there's little question that those keen-eyed fans of wild side reading will do likewise this time. Yes, even if you read Parker way back when, nothing is lost in the re-read. If anything, the revisit will reignite a wily smile, only this time it'll be larger for the knowledge that you were in on this from get. Those few of you who've yet to get with the most violent man in the annals of crime fiction, well, I've got but one question: What are you waiting for?

This edition of the book completes my set of Parker novels. For years it was the only one I hadn't read. Along with PLUNDER SQUAD(read from my local library), they were the only ones I didn't won copies of. I owned original editions of all the older ones, but the prices on the secondary markets for these were out there(several hundred dollars).

This was the last Parker novel for almost twenty years and I think he hadn't meant to bring him back. Richard Stark(Donald Westlake) brings quite a few characters back from previous novels to retrieve money hit while he was getting away from criminals and cops in a previous book(SLAYGROUND). it was a suitable wrap-up for what I think was the series.

One of the best ones in the series.

Butcher's Moon ended the original series of 16 Parker novels on an all time high. Apart from the novel's brilliant storyline, Butchers Moon is also excellent value for money being twice as thick as the average length of its predecessors. There's no filler material in here padding out the story either, from page one to the last it's non stop high quality writing. It's actually surprisingly that this story wasn't turned into two novels, it easily could have been and those that have read it know just where that would have worked. That never happened though, the whole tale is one sensational can't stop reading once you've started Parker adventure. Even though this is one of the greatest Parker adventures, you should read the previous 15 novels first as not only are a heap of characters from those returning in a Seinfeld finale type written in to the plot reunion but significant parts of those novels are given away in this one. You can of course read this one as a standalone novel and enjoy it immensely if you've never picked up a previous Parker novel, it's just that when you've finished you'll realise just how great a series this is and immediately want to read the others. Having read this first a lot of the surprises will be gone for you. If you can't be bothered reading the whole series in order though you definitely have to read the 14th book in the series Slayground to understand what money Parker left in the Fun Island Amusement Park, and just why he's so p'd off with town mob boss Lozini and holds him responsible for the money wether he took it or not. The basic plot of this is book is Parker along with Grofield (whose been in a few previous Parker novels and had a few novels of his own as well) want Parker's money back, and they are prepared to cause all sorts of trouble for the local criminal underworld to get it.

I started my Parker experience with Comeback (the novel published 1998 relaunching the series 24 years after this book ended it in 1974), and the era of adventures that followed through the rest of the books following that one in this great series. These older original adventures written decades before I was born were a lot harder to come by when I started tracking them down, so praise must go to The University of Chicago Press for reprinting these classics and making them affordable. Chicago Press version of Butcher's Moon also has a nice introduction by Lawrence Block on how he met Donald E Westlake (Richard Stark is a pen name) and his inside knowledge from his lifetime of being friends with the late author who died in 2008.

If you haven't already done so after completing the great Parker series, read the author's other brilliant Dortmunder series and standalone storyline novels under his own name.