Customer Reviews

Dirty Money

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Detailed yet fast-moving crime tale delivers the goods, satisfyingly and often violently wrapping up the loose ends from the last two "Parker" books, "Nobody Runs Forever" (which ends in a great cliff hanger) and "Ask the Parrot".

The "Parker" novels only reveal characters' traits and personalities through their responses to plot developments (there are no breaks in the plot to show what characters do during a quiet night at home, for instance), and this novel is no exception. Having said that, we do get a few new chords in the song this time out, to keep things interesting. For one thing, we get to see a lot more of Parker's girlfriend (or possibly wife, for all we know) Claire, who actually helps out with the caper in progress. And there's also an entertaining female bounty hunter, Sandra Loscalzo, who's part of the gang this time. Sandra's amusing banter (which even makes the stoic Parker crack a small smile from time to time) adds another layer to the book, but not to the point of softening the hardboiled nature of the proceedings (thankfully).

I did like the fact that Parker is actually allowed an outright laugh line this time out, positioned as the last line in the book, no less. But don't worry; though very funny, it's an edgy, noir-ish bit of humor very much in tone with the dark flavor of this excellent crime series.

Note to fellow Amazon Kindle users: The book reads excellently on the Kindle, which is also offering the previously mentioned "Nobody Runs Forever" and "Ask the Parrot". So you're all set to enjoy the entire three-book epic. And by the time you're finished, maybe a few other "Parker" novels will make their way onto Kindle (right now, "Firebreak" is the only other one available). But, really, you don't need to read these books in order. Even among the closely-related entries (like the ones covered in this review), you can just pick up any "Parker" book and start reading. It's just more fun to experience things as the main character does. If fun is the right word for a series where a happy ending is the crooks evading the cops and getting away with the cash.

Master thief Parker cannot believe how much went wrong when he and his two partners robbed an armored car (see NOBODY RUNS FOREVER). Not only was the loot no good as it was "poisoned" by authorities, the cops caught one of his cronies Nick Dalesia when he tried to use the DIRTY MONEY. Nick escaped but killed a marshal. Parker fled Massachusetts leaving the two plus million behind hidden in a loft of an abandoned rural church as he heads to Long island to regroup knowing that the cop murder places Nick in a different zone from robbery. He assumes the third partner McWhitny will agree with his assessment.

Bounty-hunter Sandra Loscalzo knows that Parker is the means to her getting a cut of the loot. Though he knows she is on his tail and so are other less moral souls from both sides of the law, Parker decides the time to return to Massachusetts to collect the money is now. All he needs is a plan to elude law enforcement, miscreants, and Sandra starting with the Holy Redeemer Choir van.

This is a direct follow up to NOBODY RUNS FOREVER, but though DIRTY MONEY can stand alone it behooves fans to read the first book because references back to that tale become more meaningful. Long time readers will find a different Parker in this crime caper as he is much more subdued than usual; an apropos reaction to the robbery fiasco and murder. This is an entertaining crime caper with the antihero seeking more than just the stolen cache, he tries to regain his swagger as he lost some of his moxie when he fled Massachusetts empty handed.

Harriet Klausner

Parker (one name only) is a professional thief. He's been played in the movies by Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. He's always tough, always a real hardcase, and he doesn't give up on anything. In short, he's my kind of anti-hero.

I first made his acquaintance when I was a kid haunting the long book aisles of Conda's Swap Shop, a place where you could find books, hub caps, tools, and car parts. It was the kind of noir place with wooden floors and big sweeping fans. I always thought it was the kind of place where you'd find a man like Parker when he was trying to hide out. For fifteen cents, I picked up Parker novels. It was a steal at that price, and I read those books often.

The books carry the byline, Richard Stark. But that's just a pseudonym for Donald Westlake, who's known more for his comedic novels than the rough-and-tumble lifestyle of Parker. If you read books under Westlake's name, you may be surprised to see the difference in the writing styles. Somewhere deep inside, Westlake has the soul of a professional thief. I'm glad that he's starting letting Parker out to play again.

DIRTY MONEY picks up with Parker trying to get money from a past armored car robbery that he didn't quite get away with in NOBODY RUNS FOREVER. The last few Parker books have been tied tightly together but spaced two years apart. It's an interesting take, but I like seeing new faces in the Parker books.

The way a Parker novel normally works is this: The reader meets Parker and some of the people he's going to be using on the job, almost like a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE scenario. Then the job gets explained. Then the opposition shows up. Invariably, something goes haywire in the job. An unexpected threat shows up or - as happens most of the time - some of the thieves Parker has allied himself with turn out to be too greedy for their own good. Or at least, Parker's own good.

DIRTY MONEY is a tad slower-paced than most of the other Parker novels, but the author spends some time exposing the world of money laundering, one of the biggest white collar crimes currently going on. I found it interesting, but I missed the gunplay and the tension. I like the books most when Parker is up against the wall, trying to figure out how to keep himself from getting killed by "partners" or captured by the police or other bad guys.

The money from the armored car job has been marked. Parker knows it's not worth recovering. However, there's a money launderer willing to give him a cut on the cash and he'll move it overseas where the marked money won't get found out as easily.

From that point on, the book turns into a chess match between Parker, his partners, an FBI agent, and the local police. Maybe the action isn't quite up to par, but this is Parker. I still like watching him work, and Stark/Westlake's pared-down prose reads so easily I was done before I knew it. It's a great book for fans, but I'd recommend reading some of the earlier novels to readers that haven't met Parker before.

Richard Stark, who is Donald E. Westlake who is Tucker Coe who is Samuel Holt who may just be Ernest Heminway for all I know, has been writing superior crime novels since I was a kid... and I ain't that young. I think he is probably about 137 now. He writes like he's 22. Dirty Money is the third book in a trilogy we didn't even know WAS a trilogy! It rounds out the adventure started in Nobody Runs Forever and digressed about in Ask The Parrot.It is a frighteningly capable and exciting thriller. It has been edited by idiots, but that doesn't matter. It's been written by a giant. Buy it and read it. If you have to choose between the two, buy it.

The third part of a trilogy does not disappoint, but when did a Parker novel ever really disappoint?? A combination of clever and forceful, Dirty Money resolves the leftover issues of the prior two novels, ties it up neatly, and frees us for the next round of Parker efforts. Terrific.

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Dirty Money is the final Parker novel and finishes the story began in Nobody Lives Forever, and Ask The Parrot. Parker"s team (Parker, Dalesia, McWhitney) still has not recovered the money they hid in Nobody Lives Forever, and Nick Dalesia, the third professional working the Armored Car heist is still on the run from the law.

After the armored car robbery the police reaction was so swift that the robbers had to hide the money and escape. They chose to hide it within a huge pile of hymnals in an abandon church. After Nick spends some of the money and is captured they discover that every serial number on the stolen bills was recorded. It was the "poisoned" money that led to Nick's capture.

In this text, Parker and McWhitney develop a bold plan to recover the hidden money while still evading the police. Because the police are looking for two men alone, they team up with Sandra Loscalzo, a tough bounty hunter they met in Nobody Lives Forever. They buy an old van and repaint it with the sign "Holy Redeemer Choir" on the side. They travel to the church where they had stashed the money, with the front story of being a church group getting hymnals.

As usual in a Parker story, plans do not go well. Outside groups attempt to hijack them and collect the money. Then Nick Dalesia, who had escaped his captors and is still running with police on his tail, tries to grab his share. Then VIPs they contacted to learn how to dispose of "dirty money", insist upon interfering and stealing the loot.

Dirty Money is an action packed tale of suspense and intrigue. I recommend this book.

Compared to earlier novels in the Parker series like THE HUNTER, SLAYGROUND, THE SOUR LEMON SCORE, BUTCHER'S MOON and even the more recent COMEBACK or BREAKOUT, the last few Richard Stark novels have been of an obviously softer crime narrative. Parker isn't nearly as quick on the trigger and the stories themselves deal more grabbing the money and escaping the cops than grabbing the money, escaping the cops, and the ensuing bloodbath involving all kinds of backstabbing.

DIRTY MONEY is still an enjoyable read, especially for those who aren't quite as familiar with the series as others may be. The best element of the novel is the return of a lady PI working both sides of the fence. She's sharp, knowledgeable, very aware of potential troubles from Parker and his fellow gang members, and she's sassy enough to keep everybody in line. It's my hope that Mr. Westlake will eventually allow her the spotlight of a standalone novel or better yet a whole new series.

John Banville, a Booker Prize-winning author, praises Richard Stark as "[One] of the greatest writers of the twentieth century." I assume he would update that to include the new century too. Since DIRTY MONEY is the twenty-fourth Parker novel and the first, THE HUNTER, was published in 1967, Banville has much on which to base his assessment. On the basis of DIRTY MONEY alone, I don't know that I would go as far as Banville, but Stark's hard-edged, unsentimental, almost Hemingwayian prose fits his subject matter eminently.

These are unrepentantly violent and opportunistic robbers who, in the earlier NOBODY RUNS FOREVER, banded together to attack armored cars with ultra-illegal high-tech weapons. They spirited away plenty of loot from the immediate crime scene, but could not escape the dragnet with it. One of them was even apprehended by the cops. The others stashed the money and bided their time, hiding. DIRTY MONEY is the tale of their attempts to recover the take and then find a way to convert the hot bills into spendable moola. Parker has to deal with his partners in crime, as well as a female bounty hunter who's determined to cut herself in for a share of the dough. He also has to outwit and elude two police officers who happen along at a very inconvenient moment. And he must contact and negotiate with people who will launder his money and forge his new identity documents without burning him. The survivalist edge on which Parker and his cronies must balance is drawn credibly and convincingly. But, DIRTY MONEY, by its plot ambitions, ends up an open-ended and somewhat confusing novel. It isn't crystal clear, for example, how Parker paid the document forger; if he did it with marked money, his deal with the man would be null and void. But he didn't have enough clean cash to pay...so....

DIRTY MONEY whets an appetite to read other Parker books. It's written with the dry, terse cadence one would expect of a crime novel. It creates and releases suspense and tension well. And its stoic mastermind criminal, though deliberately recondite and a man of considered action rather than words, gets under the skin. Parker is good bait for readers. It was unsettling but titillating to be a voyeur in his bad-to-the-bone, live-by-your-wits world.

"Dirty Money" is a continuation of "Nobody Runs Forever" with "Ask The Parrot" occurring between them. While it can be read as a stand-alone, there is at least one crucial scene that makes sense only if you know what happened in "Ask The Parrot."

"Dirty Money" refers to the marked or "poisoned money" that Parker and his associates stole in an armored car robbery in "Nobody Runs Forever." As that book concluded, the heat was getting so intense after the robbery that Parker and company were forced to hide the 2.2 million dollars in the loft of a rural abandoned church and escape as best they could. Now, barely a week later, Parker feels compelled to grab his partner, McWhitney, and try to recover the money before the cops find it or his other associate, Nick (who is now a cop killer) gets to it first or uses its location as trade bait with the feds.

Add to this combustible mix Sandra Loscalzo, a bounty hunter, who has partially figured out Parker's dilemma and wants a cut of the dough, and several cops from the previously mentioned novels who are still nosing around. Even Parker's long time squeeze, Claire, is prominently featured in this installment.

The plot simply focuses on Parker's plan to surreptiously get the money out of the church in a community still teeming with cops, get it back home, and arrange for money laundering to trade dirty money for clean money--at a large discount. Along the way, he and his partners have to contend with confrontations with police, negotiations with a past adversary for money laundering, and bad guys out to steal their haul before they can launder it. Of course tension is ratcheted up by accidental run ins with police patrols, a desperate Nick, and a double cross or two.

I rated this book lower than I usually do for a Parker novel for several reasons. I thought the pacing and action was noticeably slower than usual in "Dirty Money." Although there was tension at times, I sensed that Parker was less malevolent, dare I say, more mellow in this installment than I have come to expect. It is a very quick read with Stark's (Donald E. Westlake) usual spare and efficient styling and I recommend it as very good entertainment.

Westlake writing under his most successful pseudonym Richard Stark, wraps up the robbery readers have been left hanging out for closure for since they got to the last page in his novel Nobody Runs Forever. Ask the Parrot took up with Parker on the run from that previous novel but took readers on a good, but sidetrack storyline. We haven't gotten back to wrap up the story from Nobody Runs Forever until story timeline wise two years later and one novel later here with Dirty Money. I strongly recommend you purchase and read before at the very least Nobody Runs Forever to truly enjoy this adventure and more importantly not ruin the full enjoyment of this or that one by knowing what happens. Parts of Ask the Parrot's storyline are also mentioned so it is best to get that one as well and finish reading it before starting on Dirty Money. All other novels in the post Comeback novel modern era Parker adventures can be read in any order as standalone reads.

In Dirty Money, Parker learns that Nick, one of his partners from the armoured car robbery has been captured and subsequently escaped, killed a cop and is on the run. Parker knows how hard it will be to survive with an intense man hunt and having to use cash to keep from being tracked down so knows Nick will be tempted to take the stash they had all hidden away. He also knows if Nick is captured, the money is his only playing card so decides to recruit one of his former partners from that robbery, bar owner McWhitney to retrieve the loot. With a freshly killed cop though the remote area is once again a hot zone of roadblocks and police activity so Parker is going to need the help of Claire his girlfriend who's the only person he can truly trust. He's also going to need all his intelligence and criminal knowledge to pull this off and come out alive, especially since there are others who also want a cut of the bounty.