Noir fiction for the modern reader.

SLAYGROUND by Richard Stark/Donald E Westlake

Review by Mike Dennis, 2010

You’ve seen books with maps in the front, haven’t you? You know, like a guide through the locales of the story you’re about to read. Do you ever actually consult them while you’re reading the book? Well, Richard Stark should’ve included one at the beginning of Slayground. A big, two-pager, in fact. Or maybe even a foldout. That’s how confused I was reading this offbeat 1969 entry in the Parker series.

(Now that I think about it, it’s possible one may have been included in the first edition. I don’t know. The one I read, though, a 2010 University of Chicago Press edition, did not contain a map.)

At first, the novel appears to be standard-issue Parker. In the opening, he and his crew are knocking over an armored car, they escape with the loot, and you’re positive he’s going home to relax with Claire, only to be offered another job, which will then take up the rest of the book in its planning and execution.

But no. It turns out the getaway driver in the armored car heist is second-rate, and he spins the car out of control on an icy street, rolling it over several times. Parker is shaken up, but crawls out of the car with the money satchel. Sirens are audible in the distance, and his options are limited. He winds up climbing over the fence of a shuttered amusement park, where he plans to stay until things around the armored car scene quiet down.

Problem is, someone sees him enter the park from across the street. Four men, to be exact, two of them cops. Turns out the other two are gangsters, who quickly put it all together. They summon more hoods to the scene and so begins a book-long claustrophobic siege of the amusement park.

Now, this is where I need the map. Parker, knowing they will be coming for him and the money, goes over every inch of ground in this huge park, which is crammed with rides, buildings, snack bars, and so on. Stark does what he can to orient the reader with narrative explaining where everything is, but there are simply way too many places in this park to keep it all straight. I don’t know about you, but when I can’t place myself in the exact locale of a story, it tends to lose me.

Slayground didn’t lose me to the point of putting it down, however. I mean, who can put down a Parker novel, right? Stark’s writing is so powerful, and he does manage to keep the story moving, so I stuck with it. But I have to say that every time Parker went from one place to another, I had no real idea where he was in relation to anything else. I just knew he was wandering around somewhere in this giant amusement park.

And I didn’t find that amusing.

BACKFLASH by Richard Stark (Donald E Westlake)

(Yes, the cover really does cut off the publisher’s name at the bottom)

Review by Mike Dennis, 2010

“We live and learn.” That’s what Parker says to an adversary immediately before shooting him point blank in the eye.

They don’t come much tougher than Parker, and he’s his usual hardass self in the muscular 1998 novel, Backflash, by Richard Stark.

After walking away from a heist with $140,000, he plans to take it easy for awhile, laying up with Claire, his longtime lover, in someone else’s summer cottage amid the woods of upstate New York. But of course, he can’t stay out of action for long, or there would be no series.

He’s approached by Hilliard Cathman, former state government employee turned consultant, to do a job. It seems a new gambling boat will soon be unveiled, slated to cruise along the Hudson River. Cathman has the blueprints of the boat, as well as security details, schedules, locations of the safes, and all the things a man would need to hijack a cash-bloated gambling ship. The only thing missing is the team to do it.

Problem is, Parker isn’t sure he wants to take this job. It seems the only way to rob the ship is to do so while it’s cruising. That means getting back to shore with the money, and that means too much exposure in the middle of the river. He’s also suspicious of Cathman himself. Why would this guy, an obscure lifelong bureaucrat, suddenly want to organize a major armed robbery?

Of course, Parker eventually agrees to the job, but not before he figures out an extremely devious solution to the money/exposure problem. He rounds up his usual assortment of criminal types and they set about plotting the robbery in a very matter-of-fact, professional manner. But he’s still plenty uneasy about Cathman.

Stark’s pacing in these Parker novels is always letter perfect, with the plot only slowing down long enough for the character to catch his breath or to contemplate his next move. These moments are usually tinged with suspense, as in a tense scene on the ship immediately before the robbery.

The entire novel takes place in Albany and other smaller towns along the Hudson, and Stark gives the reader an excellent sense of place. Although these locales aren’t that far away from New York City, they still feel like the middle of nowhere, worlds away, which is exactly how Parker wants it. Less of a problem with witnesses that way.

Backflash is an excellent entry in the long-running Parker series. Beneath all the planning and execution of the heist, there’s a convincing unapologetic defense of the code of criminal justice as meted out by criminals.