Donald Westlake wrote 21 Parker novels under the pseudonym of Richard  Stark, and this is the 10th that I’ve read.  Not a one has been disappointing.

Parker (we never do learn his first name) has just left Lincoln, Nebraska after undergoing plastic surgery to change his face.  A prior misadventure on a caper had resulted in the Outfit (aka the Mob) putting out a hit on him, and he badly needed to disappear.  Faking his death and changing his face seemed to fix the problem, but not so.  He is quickly enticed into a new ‘job’, holding up an armored car in New Jersey, and though the caper ultimately goes well (despite cross and doublecross) he is once again outed to the Mob.  That nicely sets the stage for the next Parker volume.

Westlake/Stark was a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and wrote more than 100 novels in his 75 years.  He died in 2008.  Parker is a rather unusual hero, unlike Jack Reacher, Myron Bolitar, Kinsey Milhone, or Inspector Jules Maigret all of whom are on the right side of the law.  Parker is definitively not.  He kills without remorse, steals to support his life style, and divides the world into three groups—-those who were in the game, those who were out of the game, and those who were out to get him.  He was loyal to the first group, ignored the second, and killed the third.  Pretty simple rules of life in a series that is very well written and goes down easy.