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Richard Stark
1) Dirty Money
--John Banville, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea
Master criminal Parker takes another turn for the worse as he tries to recover loot from a heist gone terribly wrong. In Nobody Runs Forever, Parker and two cohorts stole the assets of a bank in transit, but the police...
There have been many film adaptations of Richard Stark's novels over the years, but none of them actually featured a protagonist named Parker—and none of them fully captured Parker's chilling tenacity and laconic anticharm. Here for the first time is the real Parker, played by Jason Statham. Adapted by Black Swan screenwriter John J. McLaughlin, and directed by Taylor Hackford, Parker is sure to both satisfy Stark fans
...When it comes to heists, Parker believes in some cardinal rules. On this job, he breaks two of them: never bring a dame along—especially not one you like—and never, ever, work with amateurs. Nevertheless, with the help of a creep named Billy, and the lure of a classy widow, he agrees to set up a heist of a coin convention. But Billy's a rookie with no idea how to pull off a score, and the lady soon becomes a major distraction. The
...Bank robberies should run like clockwork, right? If your name's Parker, you expect nothing less. Until, that is, one of your partners gets too greedy for his own good. The four-way split following a job leaves too small a take for George Uhl, who begins to pick off his fellow hoisters, one by one. The first mistake? He doesn't begin things by putting a bullet in Parker. That means he won't get the chance to make a second. One of the darkest novels
...5) The Score
It was an impossible crime: knock off an entire North Dakota town called Copper Canyon—clean out the plant payroll, both banks, and all the stores in one night. Parker called it "science fiction," but with the right men (a score of them), he could figure it out to the last detail. It could work. If the men behaved like pros—cool and smart, if they didn't get impatient, start chasing skirts, or decide to take the opportunity to settle
...6) Slayground
The hunter becomes prey, as a heist goes sour and Parker finds himself trapped in a shuttered amusement park, besieged by a bevy of local mobsters. There are no exits from Fun Island. Outnumbered and outgunned, Parker can't afford a single miscalculation. He's low on bullets—but, as anyone who's crossed his path knows, that definitely doesn't mean he's defenseless.
7) Flashfire
Between Parker's 1961 debut and his return in the late 1990s, the whole world of crime changed. Now fake IDs and credit cards had to be purchased from specialists; increasingly sophisticated policing made escape and evasion tougher; and, worst of all, money had gone digital—the days of cash-stuffed payroll trucks were long gone.
But cash isn't everything: Flashfire and Firebreak find Parker going after, respectively,
On a sunny October afternoon a man is running up a hill. He's not dressed for...
10) Breakout
Between Parker's 1961 debut and his return in the late 1990's, the world of crime changed considerably. Now fake IDs and credit cards had to be purchased from specialists; increasingly sophisticated policing made escape and evasion tougher; and, worst of all, money had gone digital—the days of cash-stuffed payroll trucks were long gone. Firebreak takes Parker to a palatial Montana "hunting lodge" where a dot-com millionaire hides a gallery
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