The Jugger: A Parker Novel

This is the darkest of the series so far and thus, necessarily, the most satisfying. Parker blows into town for the funeral of a friend and then things spiral downwards like a thriller by the Coen Brothers. While I enjoyed the five preceding novels, they feel very lightweight by comparison.

I don't usually read book series other than Tom Clancy, but I do read and love Westlake's (Richard Stark pen names) Parker Series. This is #6 and suggest reading in order.As other reviews have noted, Westlake has admitted regrets about the Jugger...Parker appears to have gone soft. I don't agree.The Jugger is consistent with theme of Parker as a flawed human being and master criminal with many qualities. Parker is smart, clever, perceptive about people and human nature, amoral, and only violent when he needs to be. Anyone who is skilled in their craft or business will respect Parker's expert craft as a criminal.Parker lives in the moment like any good sales person. Not the past. Not the future. Though he respects only dependable people he has worked with in the past. Bozzo's and other undependable types get written off or killed. Mess with drugs, alcohol, or women during a job means you are a Bozzo and are undependable. Parker also plans financially. He pays income taxes to establish legitimacy, stashes cash everywhere like a squirrel, and only "works" enough to replenish his cash. The smart criminal.About the story: As with other Parker stories, nothing is as it seems, and all the pieces come together by the end of the story. One of Parker's dependable ex-crime partners is in trouble and unclear why. Parker travels to Nebraska not because he cares about his friend--he has no friends--but fear that something might leak about himself and his own criminal past. Parker leaves nothing to chance, so he quickly decides he must travel from his motel "home" in Miami to Nebraska.The rest of the story is Parker figuring out what happened and not allowing any loose ends that might lead back to him. Story includes dumb cops, crooked cop, diligent cop, old undependable criminal partner, nosey neighbors, corruptible/weak medical doctor, and petty small town corruption.Tip: You do need to adjust to the times--1960s. No mobile phones, no Internet, no video cameras, no Miami Vice-type weapons, and 1960's prices to match the times.Jugger is a Great Read. Another Great Parker story. And perfect "novelette" size for one long plane ride.

This is one of the weaker entries in the Parker series but still a fun read. It was tough to follow at times with numerous plot twists. The ending caught me by surprise and i can't wait to read the next one.

bit of a potboiler, this one, though it gets parker to the next phase of his life...Need to read it before moving on, unless you stop.

This is a standard review for the University of Chicago published Parker series by Richard Stark. Overall the quality of the stories is very high. They are tightly plotted with dialogue fitted to the voices of the different characters. The descriptions of places and objects are brief but clear and connected to the characters' perceptions.Now the negatives: These stories average about $9.99, and I expect that some editing must have been done to warrant so high a price for what are rather short novels. There are egregious editing errors in every book in the series, some with only a few, most noticeably the first four books in the series. The rest have over a dozen spelling and grammar errors that were no doubt due to the OCR scanning process on the original books/manuscripts. The software just can't identify certain words and doesn't always fix hyphenated words back to whole words. Having the choice all over again, I would look for the paper backs and read those. The books just aren't worth the $9.99 average price.****No real OCR errors in this one. Worth it.