Richard Stark

You probably haven't ever noticed them. But they've noticed you. They notice everything. That's their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers' work habits, the positions of the security guards. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack. They're thieves. Heisters, to be precise. They're pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. If you're planning a job, you want him in. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is the heister's heister, the robber's robber, the heavy's heavy. You don't want to cross him, and you don't want to get in his way, because he'll stop at nothing to get what he's after. Parker, the ruthless antihero of Richard Stark's eponymous mystery novels, is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose style - and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency - Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of this series to print for a new generation of readers to discover - and become addicted to. Parker goes under the knife in "The Man with the Getaway Face", changing his face to escape the mob and a contract on his life. Along the way he scores his biggest heist yet: an armored car in New Jersey, stuffed with cash.

When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man. He makes it in time to pick up the call - and is immediately dispatched to Montana on a new job. This time he's in for a mighty haul, but he has to work with a new, unknown accomplice - the only man who can crack a formidable security system. With broken promises and bodies piling up behind them, one question remains: Is there enough room in this heist for both men to come out alive?

Even Parker makes mistakes. Locked up in a prison from which no one has ever escaped, it's only a matter of time before the law uncovers his real name - and his extensive criminal past. To get out, Parker must take on the only accomplices he can find - yet his fellow convicts demand a price: help with another job. Their plan has too many weak links. And Parker isn't a man who likes complications. But with a big potential payoff and no other options, Parker is willing to chance it, just this once.

Melander likes to do things flashy. When Parker finds himself working with Melander on a bank heist in a mid-sized midwestern city, his job is throwing a Molotov cocktail into a gas station. The resulting explosion sends the cops and fire trucks to the east side of town, while Melander and his gang plunder the bank on the west side. But Parker doesn't care for Melander's plan for a new heist, one that will clean out Palm Beach of a lot of very expensive jewelry. What Parker really dislikes is Melander's intention to use the proceeds from the bank job to capitalize the Palm Beach job...including Parker's cut. Melander is very polite about Parker's disinterest, and very sincere about paying him his share...with interest...after the jewelry job goes down. But that's not the way Parker works. Now he's tailing the gang down South, with a plan for getting his own back...and the entire swag of gems besides.

Parker, a professional thief, is on the run after a country town bank robbery goes wrong. There are road blocks everywhere and search parties with bloodhounds are in the woods. As they close in on Parker he is confronted by a local with a shotgun. But this citizen is not out to arrest him; he wants Parker to help him with his own nefarious plans. So Parker enters into a queasy partnership with an embittered recluse, whose only companion is a speechless parrot, and finds himself joining the posse looking for him! Ask The Parrot is a masterpiece of lean writing and tight plotting, the latest in Richard Stark's Parker series which has won him a universal following.

The heist went down while the people prayed. An angel walked with sagging shoulders - he was Parker's inside man, dressed in wings and robes and destined to be a problem. An hour later, Parker, Liss, and Mackey were out in the shimmering heat of a stadium parking lot with four duffel bags full of cash. Then the double cross began. Now the half-million-dollar robbery of a Christian crusade is drawing a crowd of cops, crooks, and the evangelist's own unrelenting security man, a tough ex-Marine who trusts nobody and nothing. What began at a gathering of the faithful has moved into the realm of night. Here every move has a countermove, every man is on his own, and every lie leads to the deadliest moments of truth