Customer Reviews

The Mourner: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels)

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It's great to see publishers such as University of Chicago Press republishing old classics such as Westlake's originally published in 1963 Parker novel The Mourner. They've actually republished quite a number of his novels from the start of his under Richard Stark pen name Parker novels, all have a similar gun silhouette and a couple of images in front, with of a different colour background for each book which incidentally all look quite good together on a shelf. I wasn't even alive back when this originally came out so am quite grateful to be able to read these now without having to pay a small fortune for them.

You certainly don't need to have read the three previous Parker adventures to enjoy this as a standalone read but this one (in chapter 4) does give away key happenings in those first three books so it's probably a good idea to put this one aside and pick up the other three first. In order they are The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face (aka The Steel Hit) and The Outfit. If you've just finished this, the next one to look for is The Score (aka Killtown).

In The Mourner, Parker needs to steal a 15th century small white statue of mourner (hence the title of the book) which a Russian diplomat named Kapor has in his collection. Unfortunately for Parker, this diplomat has funded his collection by syphoning off money that should have gone back to the Soviet Union, so KGB policeman August Menlo, has been sent to discreetly dispose of Kapor and bring back the money. However first he's got to find just where Kapor hid it, so when Parker's colleague in this caper Handy McKay shows an interest in one of Kapor's female servants, Menlo has him abducted. Parker has no idea why Handy was taken but he doesn't take kindly to someone else muscling in on his action.

This is easily the best novel in the series up to this point since The Hunter. August Menlo is an excellently written character who you'll thoroughly enjoy following his journey through the pages.

It's a shame Donald E Westlake passed away in December 2008 so the Parker adventures ended with Dirty Money published that year. It's a great series and it's great that these old adventures that were published before many of our times can be obtained again so easily through republication. Incidentally Westlake's first ever novel (not a Parker adventure) has also been republished under the title The Cutie.

One of the things you realize reading these in their University of Chicago "approved classic" editions is that the guy who wrote them was a working stiff trying to find what would sell; so while the character of Parker is fairly constant, the situations hop genres. This one clearly starts out in a mix of Dashiell Hammett and 60s spy movie territory, with a Peter Lorre-esque collector on the trail of a Maltese Falcon-like historical dingus also sought by KGB agents and other grotesque characters, the kind of caper that was typical back then in movies like Topkapi or The Pink Panther. At first that seems a little cheap, but in the end it's interesting to see how Parker functions in that environment-- and the answer is, ten times more unsentimentally than even Sam Spade, since he's not going to fall in love with any dame, or worry about sending one up the river, either. Still, too much of this seems out of place in Parker's world, too movieish for a guy who inhabits a lowlife world of untraceable cars and stagnant small towns, and the convenient use of a genuine piece of standard issue spy equipment to finish off one major character seems cheap and wrong. The next book, The Score, will return Parker to a world he belongs in.

This series started at a wrong time, it went entirely against the spirit of the 60s, says John Banville in his introduction to vol 4 of the Parker series. You can say that again. Parker cares nothing about politics or wars or love, but he will rob you and kill you if you are in the way.

He cares nothing about art or history, but here he gets involved in art theft. Business is business. Parker works for money. If there is a history behind an art object, what does he care. The statuette in question, the mourning monk, hails from Dijon. Various historical events moved it to Canada, then Atlanta, then Boston, now Washington D.C. in the embassy of a fictional iron curtain country --- another intricacy that Parkers cares nothing about. Parker's patience is heavily tested by this tale. He likes his briefs to be brief.

The fact that the University of Chicago Press reprints the Parker series, and that they get highbrow Banville to write an introduction, proves at least, if nothing else, that the author Westlake/Stark has found influential supporters. It doesn't prove the high value of the writing. For that you need to see for yourself.
I have myself nearly quit the habit of reading crime series, but there are always exceptions.

The story begins with Parker waking to discover two assailants breaking into his room. As he encounters them he realizes that his friend Handy McKay is in trouble, because only Handy knew where he was sleeping.

The Mourner is a tale of multiple intrigues and heart stopping action. Parker is commissioned by Ralph Harrow, his girlfriend's father, to steal a statuette called a Mourner. In the 15th century a rich potentate commissioned, for his tomb, several statutes each mourning in a different manner. Ralph Harrow discovered one of the Mourners, and requested that Parker steal it for him. Parker agreed to perform the heist of the priceless statue for $50,000.

In "The Mourner" we learn that Parker is not perfect. Parker is the antihero made famous by Richard Stark's series of crime stories where the criminal is the main character. In this novel Parker struggles to accomplish his mission.

{{Spoiler Alert}} During this caper, Parker gets outwitted, shot, and the priceless statue taken from his hands. My first reaction to his trouble was that, since he had been brought into this by his girlfriend, Bett Harrow, maybe she arranged for the double-cross (that subplot occurred in the first novel). Then I remembered that Parker always comes back.

With the super fast action and the many plot twists, The Mourner is my favorite Parker novel. I enjoyed this story and recommend it to all those who like crime mystery.

This time around, instead of the Big Caper, we get a revenge yarn . Parker is caught in the usual doublecross while lifting a statue from the home of an Eastern European diplomat. When he and Handy McKay are left for dead, it's up to Parker to recover the loot and exact revenge. Although this would be an excellent book from any other writer, it's a bit of a letdown from Stark/Westlake.

I really enjoyed "The Mourner". One thing that I found interesting is that the objects to be stolen actually do exist; a little while after I read this book I happened to read an article about the statues elsewhere. We also get the sense (that isn't present in later books) that the object of Parker's desire has more value that mere money, but that to many, there is an emotional aspect to the score that only Parker is divorced from.

J.Ja

totally original, great story! heisters trying to steal a rare statue and then getting heisted themselves! amazing plot, well drawn characters (handy mckay is awesome!). they get wrapped up with the outfit and a government agent from some slavic country and the government agents who are after him! parker and handy almost die, the slavic agent runs and crazy things happen to him. as always parker ties everything up and gets everything he wants and even takes good care of handy! it's really funny because it says he thinks about just letting handy die when he finds he's been captured, "...the easiest thing would be dump handy...", but he saves him for selfish reasons. he gets him out and then later handy gets hurt again but then at the end he takes care of handy and even visits him in the hospital! big 'ol softy after all, eh parker? good stuff!

also, very refreshing if you've ever read a book in which the author disgustingly over describes everything; two pages to describe a room, three to describe someones feelings, a chapter to describe a single conversation about some unnessecary story, examples are anne rice (interview with the vampire, queen of the damned, etc.) and robert ludlum (the bourne identity, ultimatum, etc.). good writers, but five hundred pages of fluff make you want a more readable two hundred page story that you may even have the patience to re-read eventually. this is that kind of writing, constantly gripping, no boredom, and no non-sense. not to say that the parker novels are devoid of description but that you don't get bored wondering if the author was just trying to make his book bigger by cramming in more information about what a character was thinking, wearing, feeling, seeing, what he had for dinner the night before, what color hair his mother had, where he went to high school, rather than just what is pertinent to the immediate story. in the jacket of one of the books is a quote by someone that talks about how parker is the non hero. not the anti-hero (criminal with a good heart or something) and certainly not the hero, i thought this was very accurate, parker is just a bad guy. he is out to make money and anyone who gets in his way is so much chaff to be discarded.

After a slight lull in action in the last two novels, "the Man with the Getaway Face" and "the Outfit", Richard Stark sets Parker in full throttle mode with this fourth novel in this excellent series, and sets things on the same intensity level as with his first novel, the Hunter.

Picking up the threads from the first chapters of the Outfit, Parker is blackmained into strealing a statue, called the Mourner, from an Eastern European diplomat. Who is blackmailing him? That would be Brett harrow, the woman who stole a gun Parker used to kill an Outfit Hitman (and which still has his finger prints all over it).
This caper brings Parker into contact with the Outfit again as well as the unsavory Auguste Menlo; a Cold War era Communist official with the secret police who also has plans to steal from the same diplomat. Parker and Menlo must work together both knowing they each intend to double cross each other and when the inevitable happens, Parker must find his adversary and dispatch him in the ussual calculated manner.

It is great to see the Parker books back in print, but I must again point out the poor cover graphics on these current printing from the University of Chicago Press.

The design has such a no frills quality about it and the collage images do not even accurately represent the events or objects found in the book. It would be great to see these books receive a more creative and energetic set of covers such as what we've seen from the Hard Case Crime books, or the recent James Bond reprints, but if you want to read these novels you'll have to settle for these early 90's style works.

Great fun and a fast read regardless, pick this one up and enjoy.

We owe a lot to the University of Chicago Press for reprinting the Parker novels.

As a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release, I read just about everything Richard Stark writes. His Parker is as tough as any contemporary protagonist comes, and THE MOURNER is among Stark's best books. It is exactly what you would expect from Stark and Parker. Read it today or even sooner!