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    Flashfire: A Parker Novel
    Flashfire: A Parker Novel
    Flashfire: A Parker Novel
    Ebook246 pages3 hours

    Flashfire: A Parker Novel

    By Richard Stark and Terry Teachout

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    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, a fortune in jewels and a collection of priceless paintings. In Flashfire, Parker’s in West Palm Beach, competing with a crew that has an unhealthy love of explosions. When things go sour, Parker finds himself shot and trapped—and forced to rely on a civilian to survive. Firebreak takes Parker to a palatial Montana "hunting lodge" where a dot-com millionaire hides a gallery of stolen old masters—which will fetch Parker a pretty penny if his team can just get it past the mansion’s tight security. The forests of Montana are an inhospitable place for a heister when well-laid plans fall apart, but no matter how untamed the wilderness, Parker’s guaranteed to be the most dangerous predator around.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateJul 15, 2011
    ISBN9780226770642
    Flashfire: A Parker Novel

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    Reviews for Flashfire

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) is more reliable than an atomic clock; all his books are enjoyable, all well-written, and all wrapped up in about 250 pages. If you like noir, prose leaner than a shin bone, and a protagonist so hard you could you could cut a diamond with him, look no further.The thief Parker has been screwed out of his share on a heist. Now he's headed south to even the score with a little extra interest thrown in.This is my third Parker novel and you might think I would be bored by now. After all, they follow a very similar pattern: 1) Parker pulls a heist, 2) Something unexpected goes wrong, and 3) Parker has to kick twelve kinds of ass. And yet - outside that formula, the Parker books are very unpredictable. Flashfire doesn't have any twists, per se, but real life is messy and it seems endlessly messy for the efficient, no-complications Parker. Despite the fact that Parker is not just an anti-hero, but an anti-character in many ways, Stark is so adroit with his general characterisation. He peppers Flashfire with a wonderful cast ranging from the old money of Palm Beach, to the one sheriff convinced that mild-mannered "Daniel Parmitt" is more than he seems. And the prose. Stark's prose is just a treat. Extremely tight and very punchy, it's nonetheless bursting with flavour. An example:"The guy chuckled, not as though he thought Parker had said something funny, but as though it was a skill he learned one time, chuckling, and he liked to practice from time to time."Terrific stuff! After a run of mediocre books, I know I can always turn to Stark to knock me out of my torpor with his terrifically executed novels. They are well-written, well-plotted, and never have even a gram of fat on them. Love it.
    • 4/5
      First one of this series for me. Dark humour, well crafted and enthralling
    • 5/5
      Typically sparse (dare I say 'stark'?) crime story more concerned with interactions and motive than with plot. Parker's clinical attitude to morality and violence is morbidly fascinating.
    • 4/5
      I think that Flashfire is the only book I've ever read by Richard Stark/Donald Westlake with such an obvious Deus Ex Machina. Still, the writing and story was way better than the majority of authors.
    • 5/5
      "This is crazy," he said. "You don't just shoot people.""Yes I do," Parker said.Another great "Parker" novel! This time, 3 other criminals screw Parker over by not giving him his fair share of a job they pull. Of course, Parker wants revenge! (hey, who in his world doesn't know this by now? DO NOT double cross Parker!!! Ever! Dang, read the first 18 books you fools!) And, of course, he goes about getting it! Random other things - A love interest? Claire? Leslie, a real estate agent with a nose for trouble. "He'd been shot eight times over the years..."Fun quotes, considering yesterday's election- "Donald Trump never fit in here," ... and "... I think a place must be just a little déclassé if Donald Trump has even heard of it."And, finally, "I'll always wonder," Farley said, "if I could have taken you.""Look on the bright side," Parker told him. "This way, you have an always.":-)
    • 5/5
      “Flashfire” is an amazing tour-de-force, even by the standards of Parker novels. It is one of the leanest, meanest, nastiest Parker novels ever to be published and, if you thought you knew what Parker was all about after reading the first eighteen Parker novels, you are in for a big surprise. This is a version of Parker that readers really haven’t seen since the first novel (“The Hunter”). Betrayed by a crew he was working with on a bank gig, Parker gets angry Parker-style and sets off on the cross-country one-man crime spree the likes of which is just mind-blowing. Forget all the careful planning and getaway routes and safe houses, this is a Parker who feels more like a junkyard dog, quick on the trigger, without remorse. Of course, there is a caper at the heart of this book. There always is. A fabulous jewelry robbery that Parker wanted no part of. It wasn’t good in his eyes. There weren’t good getaway routes. There wasn’t a good safe house to hole up in. There was too much security. Too many eyes. But, Parker was betrayed and he is going to deal with this crew that betrayed him.

      This book is as good as any Parker book. It is filled with action throughout and narrated in the tight style that Westlake is famous for. Sure, this was made into a movie with Jennifer Lopez playing the Miami Beach real estate agent, but read the book. There is a reason why people for four decades have gobbled up Parker book after Parker book and it’s gotta be because the writing is so damn good.

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