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Richard Stark

The Hunter: A Parker Novel (Parker Novels) Paperback – September 1, 2008

by Richard Stark (Author)

762 ratings

Book 1 of 24: Parker Novels

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She shot him just above the belt and left him for dead. Then they torched the house, with Parker in it, and took the money he had helped them steal. It all went down just the way they'd planned, except for one thing: Parker didn't die.

In The Hunter, the first volume in the Parker series, our ruthless antihero roars into New York City, seeking revenge on the woman who betrayed him and on the man who took his money, stealing and scamming his way to redemption. The volume that kickstarted Parker's forty-plus-year career of larceny—and inspired the 1967 motion picture Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin—The Hunter is back, ready to thrill a new generation of noir fans.

Print length

198 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of Chicago Press
Publication date

September 1, 2008
Dimensions

5.31 x 0.5 x 8.03 inches
ISBN-10

0226770990
ISBN-13

978-0226770994
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* It’s been 50 years since the first, furious appearance of Parker as he walked across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan—after trudging all the way across the country, hell-bent on revenge. Written pseudonymously by Donald E. Westlake, a pro’s pro well known for his later, lighter fare, this series about a tough, pent-up professional thief, a “bastard” who slaps women and makes them like it, is, on the one hand, unreconstructed, unrepentant, hard-boiled tough-guy pulp. On the other hand, it’s terrific. It may be a period piece to some, but it’s also been hugely influential, impressing writers from Elmore Leonard to John Banville, and Max Allan Collins to Dan Simmons. Hollywood has taken note, too: filmed versions include Point Blank (1967) and Payback (1999). And Darwyn Cooke’s magnificent graphic-novel adaptations (beginning with Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter, 2009) have brought the series to a whole new audience. But whether you find Parker’s approach to relationships infuriating or amusing, the author’s way with words is always powerful. As Parker relentlessly slaps, punches, glowers, and kills his way to the mobster who betrayed him and stole his woman, the prose hits as hard as two huge, bare-knuckled fists. And the structure throws a left hook, too. Halfway through the book, with Parker closing the room on his prey, Stark detours back to the beginning of the story. Still, when revenge has finally been served, it’s not enough. Not satisfied with killing one mobster, Parker declares war on the entire Mob, setting the stage for two dozen novels over the next four decades. (Westlake died in 2008, at the age of 75.) University of Chicago Press, an unlikely publisher, has done crime-fiction fans a great service by returning the first 20 Parker novels to print. The covers should be better, but it’s the pages inside that count. --Keir Graff

Review

“Parker represents the antihero with dubious morals. Stark’s clever plot structure, moving back and forth in time, is totally engrossing.”--Library Journal
― Library Journal Published On: 2008-10-05

“Writing a couple of years ago . . . John Banville reckoned the Parker novels to be 'among the most poised and polished fictions of their time and, in fact, any time.' That's high praise from an impeccable source, and Banville is right to single out the technical excellence of these books. The Parkers read with the speed of pulp while unfolding with an almost Nabokovian wit and flair. . . . Original editions of these books, and even later reprints, change hands for scores or hundreds of dollars on the Net, and it’s excellent to have them readily available again—not so much masterpieces of the genre, just masterpieces, period. . . . . The Hunter glitters with seemingly effortless intricacy, being aimed at one episode—a stunner, the kind of moment in fiction that really does have you leaping from your chair and exclaiming in surprise and glee.”

-- Richard Rayner ― Los Angeles Times Published On: 2008-09-14

“Fiercely distracting . . . . Westlake is an expert plotter; and while Parker is a blunt instrument of a human being depicted in rudimentary short grunts of sentences, his take on other characters reveals a writer of great humor and human understanding.” -- John Hodgman ― "Parade"

“Parker is refreshingly amoral, a thief who always gets away with the swag.”

-- Stephen King ― Entertainment Weekly Published On: 2008-09-12

“Parker . . . lumbers through the pages of Richard Stark’s noir novels scattering dead bodies like peanut shells. . . . In a complex world [he] makes things simple.”

-- William Grimes ― New York Times Published On: 2008-08-28

“Whatever Stark writes, I read. He’s a stylist, a pro, and I thoroughly enjoy his attitude.”
-- Elmore Leonard

“Richard Stark’s Parker novels . . . are among the most poised and polished fictions of their time and, in fact, of any time.”
-- John Banville ― Bookforum

“Parker is a true treasure. . . . The master thief is back, along with Richard Stark.”
-- Marilyn Stasio ― New York Times Book Review

“Westlake knows precisely how to grab a reader, draw him or her into the story, and then slowly tighten his grip until escape is impossible.”
― Washington Post Book World

“Elmore Leonard wouldn’t write what he does if Stark hadn’t been there before. And Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t write what he does without Leonard. . . . Old master that he is, Stark does all of them one better.”
― Los Angeles Times

“Donald Westlake’s Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you’ve been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust—these are the books you’ll want on that desert island.”
-- Lawrence Block

“If you’re looking for crime novels with a lot of punch, try the very, very tough novels featuring Parker. . . . The Hunter, The Outfit, The Mourner, and The Man with the Getaway Face are all beautifully paced, tautly composed, and originally published in the early 1960s."

― Christian Science Monitor

“Richard Stark writes a harsh and frightening story of criminal warfare and vengeance with economy, understatement and a deadly amoral objectivity—a remarkable addition to the list of the shockers that the French call romans noirs.”
-- Anthony Boucher ― New York Times Book Review

"Parker is a brilliant invention. . . . What chiefly distinguishes Westlake, under whatever name, is his passion for process and mechanics. . . . Parker appears to have eliminated everything from his program but machine logic, but this is merely protective coloration. He is a romantic vestige, a free-market anarchist whose independent status is becoming a thing of the past." -- Luc Sante ― New York Review of Books

"I wouldn't care to speculate about what it is in Westlake's psyche that makes him so good at writing about Parker, much less what it is that makes me like the Parker novels so much. Suffice it to say that Stark/Westlake is the cleanest of all noir novelists, a styleless stylist who gets to the point with stupendous economy, hustling you down the path of plot so briskly that you have to read his books a second time to appreciate the elegance and sober wit with which they are written." -- Terry Teachout ― Commentary

"If you're a fan of noir novels and haven't yet read Richard Stark, you may want to give these books a try. Who knows? Parker may just be the son of a bitch you've been searching for." -- John McNally ― Virginia Quarterly Review

"The University of Chicago Press has recently undertaken a campaign to get Parker back in print in affordable and handsome editions, and I dove in. And now I get it." -- Josef Braun ― Vue Weekly

"Whether early or late, the Parker novels are all superlative literary entertainments." -- Terry Teachout ― Weekly Standard

“The UC Press mission, to reprint the 1960s Parker novels of Richard Stark (the late Donald Westlake), is wholly admirable. The books have been out of print for decades, and the fast-paced, hard-boiled thrillers featuring the thief Parker are brilliant.”
-- H. J. Kirchoff ― Globe and Mail

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; Revised ed. edition (September 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 198 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226770990
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226770994
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.5 x 8.03 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #110,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,025 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #2,105 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #17,142 in American Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
762 ratings

About the author

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Richard Stark

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Donald Edwin Westlake (July 12, 1933 – December 31, 2008) was an American writer, with over a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction or other genres. He was a three-time Edgar Award winner, one of only three writers (the others are Joe Gores and William L. DeAndrea) to win Edgars in three different categories (1968, Best Novel, God Save the Mark; 1990, Best Short Story, "Too Many Crooks"; 1991, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, The Grifters). In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America named Westlake a Grand Master, the highest honor bestowed by the society.

Richard Stark: Westlake's best-known continuing pseudonym was that of Richard Stark. Stark debuted in 1959, with a story in Mystery Digest. Four other Stark short stories followed through 1961, including "The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution", later the title story in Westlake's first short-story collection. Then, from 1962 to 1974, sixteen novels about the relentless and remorseless professional thief Parker and his accomplices (including larcenous actor Alan Grofield) appeared and were credited to Richard Stark. "Stark" was then inactive until 1997, when Westlake once again began writing and publishing Parker novels under Stark's name. The University of Chicago began republishing the Richard Stark novels in 2008. When Stephen King wrote the novel The Dark Half in 1989, he named the central villain George Stark as an homage to Westlake.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Jean-Marie David [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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5 star		55%
4 star		27%
3 star		11%
2 star		4%
1 star		3%

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S E Lindberg

Entertaining and Educational (for writers)

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2022

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Author Howard Andrew Jones suggested I read Donald E. Westlake (aka Richard Stark)'s Parker series to (1) to add variety to my steady dose of Sword & Sorcery [this is a dark, noir crime thriller .... not fantasy adventure] and (2) experience reading economical writing and optimal information flow (ie "reveals").

This was a blast. Granted, some of the misogynistic 1960 perspectives did not age (nor should it actually...in this case it reinforces the protagonist Parker's culture). I can see why this expanded in 1 24 book series. Parker is our protagonist, but he's tough criminal. His exploits are James Bond-like, in that he is a lone rogue constantly thinking on the fly; otherwise, his intentions are entirely self-serving.

As HAJ indicated, this was not only fun to read, but it is a fine example of an entertaining book that also demonstrates highly-efficient prose; each sentence delivers only what it has to, and Stark/Westlake perfected when to add detail (ie Brand names or key adjectives). Also perfected, chapter-to-chapter information reveals; the reader only receives what they need, but five chapters in you'll realize that each section unravels key context from all the prior ones.

Splendid. I'm not sure if I want to read all 24! However, I heard the first three comprise a story arc, so I plan to read the next two.

One person found this helpful

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Gary Severance

First Novel in a Very Good Mystery/Criminal Series

Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2015

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With The Hunter, I started reading the Parker series by Robert Stark (nom de plume of Mystery and Science Fiction writer Donald E. Westlake). The 24 novel series began in 1962 and ended with Westlake's death in 2008. The very good crime series is being revived by Amazon Kindle. The new Kindle Apps are nicely integrated with dictionary, translation, and Wikipedia.

I remember reading Westlake’s stories in Ellery Queen’s Magazine years ago and liking his simple and direct writing. His characters defined themselves by action and real time introspection. The epitome of this living and thinking in the present time is Parker, the main character of the first novel in the series, The Hunter. He is a large man with a personality founded on solitude and emotional reticence and a mostly single-minded approach to getting what he wants.

Parker is committed to a life of often violent criminal activity, felonious robberies, rewarded by months of leisure between crimes at luxury hotels. In The Hunter, Parker is married to the one person in the world he cannot live without. He knows the marriage leaves him vulnerable in the criminal world, but he cannot help himself. Parker and Lynn get involved in a heist and their plans and actions among thieves are good on the surface but treacherous behind the scenes.

Westlake’s writing is so good that the reader roots for the success of Parker but realizes from the beginning of the novel that something has gone very wrong with the “job.” I kept looking for more information about the history and motivation of Parker, hard to do when the character is constantly focused on the present criminal activity. He makes decisions and frequently acts out violently but without displays of angry emotions. After his acts, he shows no remorse, attending only to the present challenge.

The biggest challenge for Parker in The Hunter is dealing with “the syndicate,” a crime organization that becomes interested in his activities. He does not want anything to do with the criminals in the far-flung group based in New York. But, Parker realizes that you can’t always get what you want in a life based on illegal gains and functional mayhem. He has revenge on his mind for a double cross by a syndicate member.

I have already read the next 3 novels in the Parker Kindle series. Each book is short (The Hunter is 208 pages) and fast reading. The payoff for the reader is an understanding of an increasingly complex character with few if any socially redeeming qualities. He does show situational compassion to losers now and again.

12 people found this helpful

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hank the crank

Call it "noir" or call it "hardboiled"; Parker stories are not for sissies!

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2016

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Richard Stark was an alter ego if you will for the late Donald Westlake. Where DW always wrote with at least a dash of good humor and fun, his Richard Stark novels are no laughing matter! Stark wrote the "Parker" series of hardboiled crime novels. The Hunter is book one of about two dozen books which chronicle the adventures of Parker as he wreaks mayhem on society and especially anyone foolish enough to double cross him. This first story was the basis for several films, some good, some not so good. The novel is excellent! Stark's spare and no-nonsense prose gets the blood churning and the pages turning. This is really good writing and the world is worse for the loss of Donald Westlake/Richard Stark.
The good news is that this is the first book and there are plenty more to keep you up way too late once you're hooked on them.

7 people found this helpful

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Mike LaHendro

Great read.

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2022

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The book was well paced and easy to read. The author was able to develop the story by starting in the middle of the saga and then filling in the details as one read. It was an interesting way to tell the story and kept the reader intrigued. I was able to read the book in an afternoon.

One person found this helpful

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George D. Kenney

Astonishingly excellent

Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2021

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I was unfamiliar with these novels. Got this one because of the movie version, Point Blank, with Lee Marvin. Wow! You can see how influential they were in noir fiction — a miracle, really, that the University of Chicago Press has republished the series.

2 people found this helpful

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Dana Rdrgz

Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2022

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As an avid fan of the movie, I felt sad that I did not read this book sooner and ordered it on a Sunday that the movie was playing on tv. Television chops up the movie to make it fit in the time slot and even though I did watch the movie, I found myself complaining of the cut parts. Well, let me tell you! This book is relatively short for how long the movie runs and man; the book is never like the movie but yet I was pleasantly surprised at the differences and absolutely recommend it! This book is roughly 150 pages and worth getting lost on a Sunday afternoon for!

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J Foreman

Ever so grim

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2013

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I came to the Parker novels via Westlake's Dortmunder series, the more cheery, incompetent alter-ego of Parker. Although some of the sardonic lines that Parker comes out with parallel the witty wordplay in the Dortmunder series, as a whole things are a lot more grim. It's a bit like the difference between the film Get Carter (violent, filled with death and painful consequences) and the film people *think* Get Carter is (a knockabout jolly from the 1960s with Michael Caine that provides you with cool posters to decorate your walls).

It's not that it's not good - it's well written, and unlike the Dortmunder novels there are few enough characters that you can pick it up very easily - but it's grim. You have people accidentally choking to death, suicides, stranglings and innocents being deprived of all their savings. This isn't the sort of book you'd read for a cheery respite from a stressful day.

On the other hand, my 6-week year old daughter appeared to enjoy The Hunter just as much as any of the Dortmunder books that she's had read to her so far. And it does have a plot that's a lot more entertaining than most of the books that are aimed at a pre-schooler.

4 people found this helpful

Davetherighter

tough noir entertainment

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 1, 2013

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The story zips along at a good pace, occasional skipping backwards and forwards in the time-frame to add interest. The book can be criticised for its misogynist tendencies, but this, sadly, is true to the period - early sixties, Mad Men and all that. Readers who like, say, Elmore Leonard or Jim Thompson, are probably going to like this. It's a good place to get started on Richard Stark/Donald E Westlake. The Hunter is also of interest for providing the story for the great John Boorman film Point Blank. And the Kindle transcription is good.

One person found this helpful

Tom C

Excellent writing simply brutal protagonist Lee Martin to a tee (Point Blank) Will be following Parker from now on

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2019

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on. Jack Reached fans will love Parker he's brutal and cold. Yes survived From your house prices and flu vaccine

One person found this helpful

Simon Northwood

Exciting, quick, brilliant.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 29, 2014

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Coming from the Darwyn Cooke adaptations, I first read this book in comic form a few years ago.
Now reading the original text it loses none of the atmosphere or brilliance.
Each chapter powers along, insisting you read "just one more" part. The simplistic writing style is perfect for a crime/action book, keeping the plot focussed and engaged. Desperate to check out the next in this series.

One person found this helpful

D. Beecher

Warning these novels may be addictive.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2016

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This is the first in the series of totally addictive books. I'm onto book 19 of the series and there hasn't been a dud yet. This, has a rather implausible back story, but if you can disregard that you will get to meet one of the best anti-hero's ever written.

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