Customer Reviews

Plunder Squad

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

 

 

Unlike the linear "Slayground," the previous volume in the Parker series, Plunder Squad's all over the map. The first half of the book almost reads like a few short stories, linked by Parker's on-going search for someone who tried to kill him. We follow along as Parker goes from one botched job to the next, all the while waiting for any information that will bring him closer to his target.

Once that thread's taken care of, the second half of the book kicks in, and here Parker almost becomes a secondary character. We meet and follow his associates in an art heist, one which starts off fairly well but goes downhill fast. The mob gets involved, and Parker has to figure out a way to get out with both some money and his life.

A quick, enjoyable read, but more of a dark comedy than a crime caper. Doesn't have nearly as much action as "Slayground," but then again it has a more dynamic narrative.

Of the original Parker novels by Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westlake), this is one of the best ("The Hunter", "The Score", and "The Sour Lemon Score" being 3 others that round out the top 4). It is the next-to-the-last book in the series' original run and is a joy to read from beginning to end. It starts off as usual with a heist gone bad and then moves along at a quick pace, aided by a series of vignettes that ultimately brings Parker back in touch with a man he left alive who betrayed him on a previous job, George Uhl (from "The Sour Lemon Score"). The reader doesn't get much time with Uhl in this book, but what makes it so hard to put down is the relentless pursuit of Parker for a) a clean job to make some money, and b) killing Uhl like he should have done in the first place.

As mentioned by other reviewers, this book does not follow the typical linear path of most of the Parker novels. The first half of the book is like being on a wild amusement park ride, while the second half plays out with more of a true ensemble cast rather than Parker as the typical chief protagonist.

There are wonderful little "Starkonian" bits sprinkled throughout this book. As is already mentioned, a scene appearing in this novel also appears in a Joe Gores DKA book "Dead Skip". An excellent supporting cast surrounds the main character, too: some great use is made of a girlfriend of one of Parker's potential partners in a couple of short scenes. And the ending is a typical, but well-written Parker ending.

If you like crime thrillers and hard-boiled novels, this one is a must-read.

It's been years since I read Plunder Squad, but I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the Parker/Grofield books in this series by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake). I recall this being one of the better ones, and I think it was the last to appear in the original series from the '60s and '70s.

An interesting dialog takes place in Plunder Squad, when a private detective named Daniel Kearney shows up at Parker's meeting place for planning the heist. Kearney is looking for one of the other characters, so Parker lets them talk to each other. Kearney is the main character from the DKA series by author Joe Gores, who included this scene in one of his books. In Plunder Squad, the dialog takes place from Parker's viewpoint. In the Joe Gores book (Sorry, I forgot which one it was. I read them decades ago.), the dialog takes place from Kearney's viewpoint. In the Gores book, Kearney even refers to the men as the "Plunder Squad" as he's leaving.

It's the little touches like this that make any of the Richard Stark books interesting to read. You should also look for the books featuring Alan Grofield as the main character. The early Parker books were all reprinted in the mid-1980s, but the Grofield books weren't included in the reprint.

It took decades, but Stark took up the series again in the late 1990s. It was worth the wait.

In Plunder Squad Parker is set up to get the biggest payday yet. Our antihero plans to steal 21 valuable paintings worth more than a half million dollars. Considering the large number of guards and the superior electronic alarm system, can Parker do it?

Plunder Squad tells the story of three attempted thefts and one tale of an effort to eliminate an enemy. The story begins with Parker dodging a bullet from an enemy, and ends with him trying to survive a different attack. Parker, known for usually having something go wrong, comments "I'm running a string of bad luck."

Parker has rules that guide whether he will participate in a crime. The first theft attempt violates his rule against including unstable team members. The second idea violates his rule against including a woman who might become involved in a love triangle. The third scheme Parker accepts only after he fixes problems he sees in the set up. Is Parker getting Desperate?

Richard Stark fills the pages of this novel with continual action, re-occurring danger, steady suspense and frequent plot twists. The story is so intriguing that I couldn't put it down. Parker's plan for robbing the art collection is dangerous, and complex but believable. The execution of the art theft is impressive and flawless.

I recommend this story for mystery lovers.

A Half Dozen More Heist Books from Richard Stark

SunPost Weekly August 5, 2010 | John Hood

[...]

Gotta luv the folks at University of Chicago Press. Not only have they decided to bring back Richard Stark¡¯s belovedly badass Parker novels, but they¡¯ve been doing so in sequence, with a niftily packed series that smacks back to the ¡¯60s beginning and ¡ª Zeus-willing ¡ª won¡¯t let up till its 21st century end.

The beginning, for those few who don¡¯t know, was The Hunter (1962), which was reissued two years ago alongside the next eight in the long and lauded run. It was no happy accident that the initial nine reprints coincided with the author¡¯s death. (Stark, nee Donald E. Westlake, died on New Year¡¯s Eve 2008). What was a happy accident though, as John McNally so helpfully pointed out in a Summer ¡¯09 Virginia Quarterly Review piece on Parker called ¡°A Stark World¡±, is the series itself, which simply began as a way for Westlake to publish more books.

As Westlake told Charles L. P. Silet in a 1996 interview:

¡°[T]here¡¯s always been a belief in publishing that [a publisher] can¡¯t publish more than one book a year from any one author. So I thought it would be interesting to have a pen name¡­ to aim for a paperback original this time. So I did this book with the assumption that the bad guy has to get caught at the end . . . I sent [The Hunter] to Bucklin Moon at Pocket Books, who said, ¡®I like this book and I like this character. Is there any way you could change the book so that he would escape at the end and then you could give me three books a year about him.¡¯ And I said, ¡®I think so.¡¯¡±

Within two years Westlake, writing as Stark, would have three Parker novels in the pulp paperback racks. And by the time he was finished there¡¯d be a total of twenty three. And while 23 books in 46 years might not sound like a whole helluva lot, remember Westlake was writing Parker as a sideline, and in addition to his Dortmunder series of capers (14 novels, beginning with 1970¡äs The Hot Rock), he left behind over 100 novels.

But we¡¯re here to talk about Parker, the stoic, merciless, heist man. And it is Parker to whom pulpdom owes its love of bad guy heroes.

Or anti-heroes. Okay, so Jim Thompson did that bad-guy-as-hero thing before Westlake (or Stark) or anyone else. But as McNally also points out, though Thompson¡±took darkness to new depths, [he] used humor to offset the bleakness surrounding his characters¡¯ lives.¡±

Not so Parker. In fact if there¡¯s one instance where the man even smiles, I don¡¯t remember it. And laugh? Forget about it. Though some of the hurdles he and his ¡°string¡± have to heave over during the course of their various heists would be incredibly comic if they weren¡¯t so damn absurd.

Then again when the heists are as daring as those Parker and his crew undertake, absurdity is pretty much a given.

Take The Seventh (1966) and its robbing of a college football game¡¯s game day take. Or take The Handle (¡¯66) and its knocking off of an entire island casino. Or take The Score (¡¯64), where he and his endeavor to rob an entire town. Each begins as a brilliant plan. And each descends into a whirlwind of violence and vengeance. And through them all, Parker remains, resolute and ever ready to do whatever is required, without a hint of hesitation.

The six-pack of kickass that most recently racked consists of The Green Eagle Score (¡¯67), The Black Ice Score (¡¯68) and The Sour Lemon Score (¡¯69), as well as Deadly Edge (¡¯71), Slayground (¡¯71) and Plunder Squad (¡¯72). As you might suspect from their titles, the first three are pretty much straightforwardly crooked heist stories (the targets are, respectively, an Air Force base, an African nation¡¯s treasures, and a bank). But not one heist goes off the way they were intended, and Parker is left to pick up ¡ª and often eliminate ¡ª the pieces.

Deadly Edge, too, is a heist story, and the rock concert Parker and company knock off gives it a decidedly different beat. In Plunder Squad Parker goes head-to-head with a former accomplice who soured things in The Sour Lemon Score and it¡¯s got the giddy undercurrent of payback written right through it. Slayground, in contrast, finds Parker caught in an amusement park after knocking off an armored car, and the mobsters and cops who want what he¡¯s got never get know what hits them, even as it ¡ª and him ¡ª stares them down in the face.

Any one of the above is a worthy romp through a remarkably different America, when crime was crime and criminals took some pride in its commission. And any one of the above will leave you itchy for more. Best though would be to begin at the beginning with The Hunter, so you can see just how circumstances created the man Parker would come to be. But whether you decide to hop on at the beginning, in the middle or at the end, you¡¯re gonnawanna hold on. Because the Parker series doesn¡¯t come with seat belts or safety nets, and it¡¯s very easy to be thrown from this kinda wild ride.

BTW: If you dig this series ¡ª and you will, trust me ¡ª Hard Case Crime also has a buncha Stark/Westlake titles to choose from, including Lemons Never Lie (with Parker¡¯s occasional sidekick, Alan Grofield) and The Cutie (Westlake¡¯s debut, which was originally published as The Mercenaries).

I love Parker novels and won't give any of them a bad rating. That said, this one isn't my favorite. It's too disjointed and inconsistent in its tone. The spear-carrier characters aren't as well rendered as they usually are in this series. I'll still take it over just about any other crime procedural, but it's not the best.

1972's Plunder Squad was the second last Parker adventure Donald E Westlake (Richard Stark) wrote (the last was Butcher's Moon) before he originally retired Parker in 1974. Of course he brought him back 23 years later with 1997's novel Comeback and the novels that followed before Westlake passed away in 2008).

Plunder Squad isn't the best novel of the series but it's still good. It does provide a lot of links with characters to previous Parker novels, especially the conflicts with George Uhl (from The Sour Lemon Score) so it's not a bad idea to read those novels first. Plunder Squad can be read as a standalone novel but it will lessen the surprises in the previous novels.

In Plunder Squad, Parker needs a score to avoid eating into his buried emergency stashes around the country. However when he narrowly avoids a bullet to the back of the head while waiting for the final member during the planning stages of the caper. George Uhl has ruined another opportunity so Parker's got to lower his normal just walk away when something looks a little wrong policy.

Ultimately Parker's got to bite the bullet so to speak and join in on a caper to intercept a truck load of expensive paintings on route between exhibitions, even though the buyer isn't up to Parker's normal professional standards.

One of Stark / Westlake's best. This hard to find Parker novel is worth the trouble of tracking down. A great book. One of the best of the Parker novels.