Firebreak

September 15, 2001
Stark (Backflash, LJ 9/1/98), a pseudonym for prolific crime-fiction writer Donald E. Westlake, offers another adventure in his long-running "Parker" series. This latest shows that Stark retains the gift for careful plotting and darkly humorous circumstances that can make his books a joy to read for patrons who don't mind the violence. Parker, once described by critic Stanley Bart as a thief who "gets annoyed and kills everybody," has mellowed a bit over time. Though the novel begins with Parker's calmly killing a man while being called to the phone, he keeps his rampages to a minimum as the book progresses. He stays focused on the jobs at hand, first helping to steal a treasure trove of art that a dot-com billionaire has secreted away and then finding out who sent the man in the garage to kill him. Parker is amoral and ruthless, but he's not cruel. He is surrounded by people who are also amoral but evil or stupid as well, which allows him to play the hero's role by being calm and thorough and by being a survivor. Recommended for public libraries. Patrick J. Wall, University City P.L., MO

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2001
Parker, master thief and unrelenting hard case, is between jobs when he gets a call from a couple of former associates who have a line on a dot.com millionaire's illegally obtained art collection. Parker is in, but before he can join his colleagues to case the millionaire's heavily secured hunting lodge in the Pacific Northwest, he needs to dispose of the body in his garage. (The dead man is an assassin hired by one of Parker's many enemies.) The art job requires a technogeek to crack the sophisticated security system, and Parker starts hearing warning bells when he learns that Larry Lloyd, still under electronic surveillance after serving time for computer fraud, has agreed to do the job. Matters get further complicated when a federal agent specializing in art theft also becomes suspicious of the millionaire. Like all of Stark's (aka Donald Westlake) Parker novels, this is a brutal yet compelling glimpse into the amoral world of crime and revenge. In Parker's world, crime may go unpunished, but no score goes unsettled.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)