Right before Bill made his Stark month announcement, I had
just finished reading a half dozen Parker books. If it
weren't election season in the U.S., we probably could have
and should've had one day in the month officially declared
Richard Stark Day by the U.S. Congress. I almost never read a
set of books in quick succession, and I am still trying to
figure out what makes the Parkers so great. I admire
Westlake's ability to invent new variations within the
boundaries he has carved for himself (though I suppose that
is true of any good writer of genre fiction). There's
something about that Parker too. In earlier discussions,
there was much talk of Parker's professionalism. It's not
just professionalism. It's competence (since there are
incompetent professionals). Stuff that goes wrong is outside
Parker's control and he quickly acts to bring it back into
control (in Backflash he explains that he does not like to
gamble because it puts you in a situation you cannot
control). Even when things go sour--as they always do--they
go sour in anticipated ways--which doesn't mean the books
lack suspense, but that we as readers feel competent too in
seeing the chaos coming. Doug
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