Книги автора Stark Richard

When Donald E. Westlake assumes the mantle of Richard Stark the result is some of the fiercest, most electrifying crime fiction ever written. In FLASHFIRE the author of the legendary Parker series of noir crime novels, and the man behind such classic films as Point Blank and Payback, returns. This time Parker, ignited by betrayal, is heading for the swankest town in America. In a landlocked Midwestern city Parker calmly tosses a firebomb through a plate-glass window, while some newfound partners in crime take down a nearby bank. Making their getaway in the confusion, the bank robbers tell him two things: that this heist was only seed money for a much gaudier one, and that Parker has to loan them his share of the take. They should have given him his cut, or killed him. Because now Parker is rampaging through the American South, taking on a new identity as he goes, planning his own assault on his former partners’ next target, a spectacular jewelry heist in Palm Beach. But Parker didn’t count on one unfortunate detail. A very bad and very stupid man knows his true identity, and wants him dead. On the most heavily guarded island in the world it will all come together: the hit men, the diamonds, the plan, and the blonde real estate agent who’s wandered into the middle of it all. When the explosions start and the heat comes down, the best laid plans of thieves, killers, and schemers all go out the window — and Parker is on his own.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S HOW-TO-DO-IT BOOK Including: • How to solve your marital problems       —(poison) • How to dress properly when admitting to first degree murder       —(black tie) • How to take off a few pounds fast       —(a knife) • How to ruin a perfect friendship       —(a homemade bomb) And many, many other helpful hints from such specialists as: EVAN HUNTER, JOHN CORTEZ, RAY BRADBURY, RICHARD STARK, RICHARD MATHESON, HELEN NIELSON, DONALD WESTLAKE, RICHARD DEMING, JACK RITCHIE, JONATHAN CRAIG, C. B. GILFORD, JAY STREET, ROBERT ARTHUR, FLETCHER FLORA, CHARLES EINSTEIN

ACTOR-ADVENTURER-LOVER-THIEF...  Alan Grofield is one of the few swingers still swinging who could start the day with a federal crime, and end it working for Uncle Sam. And wind up deep in the frozen wastes of northern Canada fighting like hell for Old Glory and his own neck.

But that’s what happens when Grofield is elected patriot-for-a-day and thrown by the feds into the nitty-gritty of a Third World intrigue. An intrigue involving the Have-Not Nations in a lethal plot to “readjust” the international balance of power.

When irresistible Alan meets The Blackbird, a dangerous black beauty from the new African nation of Undurwa, the action for miles around runs from hot to hotter to hottest.

Bodies pile up. National leaders rise and fall. And Grofield racks up his wildest, most violent caper to date. A caper that handsomely shows off his expertise at breaking up big-time trouble. And promoting interracial affairs. Oh, yes.

When Donald E. Westlake is funny, he is very, very funny. And when Westlake is Richard Stark, he is very, very bad... Now the creator of the ultimate career criminal — a man known only as Parker — returns with a new experience in noir. This time, Parker gets caught red-handed. And for Parker, once is never enough.

In a drab, hulking warehouse in a hulking, drab city in the center of an empty state, Parker is caught moving pharmaceuticals into a waiting truck. Led into a joint called Stoneveldt — from which no one has ever escaped — Parker has to find a way out, before his whole violent past catches up with him. And getting out of Stoneveldt means taking on the only partners he can find, including one who is already planning his next job.

For Parker and his fellow jailbreakers, freedom is just another word for committing their next felony. They pull off the perfect jailbreak and then start the perfect heist. But things go south in a hurry — leaving three men dead and Parker and his fellow escape artists scratching, clawing, and running for their lives. Suddenly, the big, drab city in the big, empty Midwestern state has become a prison. A cast of cops, busybodies, snitches, and weak links have turned into jailers. And for Parker, the ultimate jailbreak is about to begin.

A taut, twisting, perfectly timed ballet of bad intentions, blind alleys, and bad luck, BREAKOUT is Richard Stark par excellence. Because when it comes to getting into places where he shouldn’t be, and out of places where he should be, Parker is the best bad man in town.

It is more than slightly disconcerting for a man lying in bed in his fifth-floor hotel room to observe a girl’s tanned legs suddenly dangling over the windowsill. Followed by the rest of her. It is further upsetting if the man is clothed only in a bandage covering a bullet wound — and has $60,000 in illegally acquired currency in a suitcase.

Not that Grofield is really a thief; he merely moonlights in the all-too-frequent intervals when his acting career is interrupted by unemployment.

For a while Grofield and the girl, whose name is Ellen Marie Fitzgerald, swap some fairly preposterous lies about what each of them is doing there in Mexico City. Then Grofield decides to do a switch on the purloined letter bit and puts the truth right out where it can be seen. Ellen’s lies continue, and they are lulus — a story of star-crossed love, two overprotective aunts from whom she is fleeing, and so on. The “aunts,” however, turn out to be very sinister and extremely professional hoods, and Ellen’s most incredible story turns out to be true.

Captured and closely guarded, the damsel and her reluctant protector manage by a masterpiece of inventiveness to escape the armed assassins. Then begins a wild chase down the one and only road to Acapulco, where Ellen must arrive, in a matter of hours in order to prevent a murder that would also destroy the murderer.

With one battalion of hired hoods following them and another headed their way, the going is rough. It has some pleasant intervals, though. Grofield is handsome and virile, and Ellen is pretty and sexy, and...

The story is great fun, as well as wildly suspenseful. The setting — Mexico City, San Miguel, Acapulco, the rugged and lovely countryside — is colorfully drawn, a brilliant background for a dark crime that must be averted.

We are happy to introduce this first hardbound crime story by Richard Stark. His other mysteries in paperback are well known to a wide public and have received an enthusiastic press.

CHEAP AT TWICE THE PRICE?

When the bandages came off, Parker looked in the mirror at a stranger. He nodded to the stranger and looked beyond at the reflection of Dr. Adler.

Parker had been in the sanitarium a little over four weeks now. He had come in with a face that the New York Syndicate wanted to put a bullet in, and now he was going back with a face that meant absolutely nothing to anyone.

It had cost Him $18,000 if it kept him alive long enough to do what he had to do, it would be worth it.

It all started when a small statuette — stolen from a fifteenth-century tomb during the French Revolution — turned up suddenly in America.

A man named Harrow, the very rich father of a very naughty daughter, offered Parker $50,000, in advance. to steal it. This presented no special problem since stealing was Parker’s business anyway, and besides, Bett Harrow, the daughter, had something of Parker’s that was very incriminating.

But the statuette was in the Washington residence of a man named Kapor, a minor official from one of the Communist nations, who not only had the stolen statuette but had also misappropriated $100,000 of his government’s funds.

It was all very confusing for a while. And then...