While Parker is off robbing the proceeds of a rock concert his girlfriend Claire has found them a quiet home near a lake. Parker may be a profesional thief and a stone cold killer when necessary, but even he has to bow to this simple truth: If the woman in your life decides that the time has come to buy a house then you might as well pick up your pen and get ready to sign the mortgage paperwork.Before Claire can even get Parker to organize the garage or mow the lawn for the first time he gets a

Crime fiction with a violent edge, anyone? Deadly Edge fits the bill.And to think, this Parker novel, #13 of 24 in the series, starts off with a heist both successful and clean (no bloodshed) at a rock concert that's the final show in the old Civic Auditorium in an unnamed city, a success thanks to mastermind Parker and three capable professionals Parker has working with him. The novel's Part One is devoted entirely to the heist, beginning with Parker, Keegan and Briley up on the roof, taking tu...

“That was the edge that Parker had. He knew that survival was more important than heroics.”This is one of the top books in the Parker series, and experts say it is in the top 4-5. It might be my favorite so far. Halfway through the 24 books, a change occurs in the Parker books, and it happens here. Well, each book has explored different formal concerns, but in this one, things get darker, harder. Deadlier. The books all include standard heist features; there’s the planning, the execution, double...

Parker and three other crooks steal the take from an arena rock concert. Soon afterwords, persons unknown begin killing the people involved in the caper. Can Parker stop them before he, or Claire, becomes another victim?Deadly Edge was one of the best Parkers yet. While the heist was well written, as always, it was the cat and mouse game with Parker and his cronies that sold the story. Without spoiling too much, the penultimate confrontation in the dark near the end was intense! The villains wer...

Sadistic hippies whacked out on LSD versus Parker? Yes, please!Do you know those episode of "Dragnet" with Blue Boy, the acid fried freak? Parker's up against two of him, but a Blue Boy who wouldn't mind nailing a person to the wall and torturing them to death with a lit cigarette. Fucking Hippies!!! On paper, or by reading what the novel was about, I thought this would be one of my favorites, and in theory it is, but somewhere along the way I admitted to myself that this book wasn't bad, but it...

A post-robbery kill or be killed situation engulfs our favorite antihero, and there's gonna be hell to pay for anyone not named.......Parker!!! 3 1/2 Suspense Soaked Stars.

Downloaded from my local library. It starts off with a 10 minute intro by Charles Ardai. I quit listening when Ardai started talking about Slayground & Plunder Squad, books 14 & 15 in this series. THIS IS BOOK 13!!! I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT BOOKS LATER IN THE SERIES!!!Sorry, but I seriously want to tattoo the above on the narrow little chests of all publishers. Ardai is well known in the industry & I'm sure he did a bang up job, but I don't like spoilers. In a series like this, I won't even r...

I love this series. Parker is perfect in this darker story. He leads the robbery of a rock concert's proceeds here......the clockwork description made me feel I was a part of the crime. The aftermath brings the big challenge for Parker since someone is hunting the successful team after they split. Fantastic read.

Really slow start, with the first fifty pages or so describing the heist with so much detail it is downright boring: chopping through the various roofing materials of a concert arena and corralling the guards and collectors to steal the proceeds from the very last performance. Then, two killers come out of nowhere and start picking off the heist gang, with an expectation that the take should be much larger, causing them to torture. One has all the brains while the other is strung out on LSD. Eve...

This is another of Richard Stark's (Donald Westlake's) Parker series that has been out of print and unavailable for a good number of years. Happily, the University of Chicago Press has recently published a new edition of the book with an introduction by Charles Ardai, the man behind the Hard Case Crime series.The basic framework of the novel will be familiar to most fans of the series. Parker and a crew of men execute a carefully planned heist, in this case at a rock concert. Then, almost immedi...

“Up here, the music was just a throbbing under the feet, a distant pulse.”

Parker and the Deadly DuoReview of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (February, 2013) of the Random House hardcover (1971)Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific crime author Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008), who wrote over 100 books. The Stark pseudonym was used primarily for the Parker novels, an antihero criminal who is usually betrayed or ensnared in some manner and who spends each book getting revenge or escaping the circumstances.Deadly Edge finds Parker and hi...

Quote; Parker stood and watched, his hands dangling loose at his sides. When in motion, he looked tough and determined and fast, but when waiting, when at rest, he looked inert and lifeless. Parker and his crew knock off a rock concert and make off with proceeds from ticket sales. All goes well until Parker's cohorts start turning up, tortured and murdered. Parker, fearing Claire may become a victim of the unknown maniacs killing his side-kicks, tries to discover who these apparent homicidal ma

I am trying to review each Parker novel by Richard Stark as a separate entity, but alas, to me it is one big huge novel. Like Proust! One pretty much knows that each and every one of the Parker novels is a page-turner. I read a lot of his novels on the bus and almost consistently I miss my stop, due that my every sense is tied into the narrative.This one is slightly unusual, because the first part of the book is the heist of a rock n' roll show. Its 40 or so pages (which is a mega-section in Par...

It seems entirely appropriate that my first book of the year is an installment of possibly my favorite novel series of all time: the Parker series by Donald Westlake (writing under the pen name Richard Stark), featuring the taciturn and brutally efficient professional heist man of the title. This is Westlake’s 13th Parker book, and it’s lucky for all of us. He wrote it in 1971, having taken a break from the character for several years; he’d felt that the stories were becoming stale and wasn’t ta...

The 13th Parker novel is a heist novel turned murder mystery and the two killers remind me of George & Lenny from Of Mice and Men... If they had hung out with Charlie Manson.

This thirteenth novel in Richard Stark’s Parker series was published in 1971. The previous novels have spanned the decade of the sixties, but Stark and his protagonist show little interest in changing political times or shifts in social norms. Parker and the career criminals he works with never cross paths with anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, civil rights protestors, or a girl in a miniskirt. In Deadly Edge, Stark introduces for the first time two representatives of the hippie generation, but M...

Yet another new favorite in the series. There was more fighting, especially at the climax.A turning point in the series, like most say. For the characters, I can imagine! .... a little dinner scene turns wild: 1 guy throws a plate of food in the others face and his partner jumps on top of him, stabbing him with a knife and fork but also EATS the food off his face...!

Notes:Currently on Audible PlusThere's an intro at the start of the book. I liked most of it but I wish it didn't give away parts of what's going to happen in the later books. Not real spoilers but I've been having fun going into the books without reading the blurbs & seeing if my guess (based on the title) is a part of what happens.

Early crime noir on the robbery of a music hall and the double crossing and murder that ensues.

4 ½ stars. Good suspense. Exciting. The beginning was a little slow, but the last half was excellent.Parker is not a caring type of guy. But I liked the subtle way he acted for Claire’s benefit. Her home was important to her. Parker went out of his way to make sure murders would be found far enough away, so they would not taint her town.I chuckled at Claire’s thought process when buying a rifle. She bought based on things other than purpose.This story was a little different from earlier Parker s...

Deadly Edge perhaps deserves more than three stars, but I'm trying to make distinctions with the Parker canon--or, to put it another way, a three-star Parker novel is still a damn good novel. "Part One" of the book, which runs uninterrupted for nearly 50 pages, details Parker and his partners stealing the all-cash take from a rock concert. No one does this sort of thing better than Starklake, and Deadly Edge would be worth reading just for this set piece. The 150 pages that follow are not nearly...

I have been reading the novels chronologically and this is one of the best entries in the Parker series. It begins a little slow with a dry description of the initial robbery but builds to a terrific pace that makes it difficult to put the book down when you need to do something else!! Parker is true to his character in the actions he takes and Claire was a good addition into the life of a man who would have a problem with a more typical personality. It's interesting that Parker cares enough for...

Bound: A Six Pack of KickassA Half Dozen More Heist Books from Richard StarkSunPost Weekly August 5, 2010 | John Hood http://bit.ly/doqxmv Gotta luv the folks at University of Chicago Press. Not only have they decided to bring back Richard Stark’s belovedly badass Parker novels, but they’ve been doing so in sequence, with a niftily packed series that smacks back to the ’60s beginning and — Zeus-willing — won’t let up till its 21st century end. The beginning, for those few who don’t know, was The...

Finished in one setting took 5 hours. It was a great book

Riveting

Previous Parker books all had the same structure: 4 parts, each broken up into short (sometimes very short) chapters. This one is different in the sense that Part 1 is one big chapter of 47 pages. I wonder if this is a new format the author is adopting or if he's just trying it out this one time. No matter: the writing is still great. Also of note (and a first for the series): some (limited) nautical action. Yes: Parker (briefly) used boats and even disposed of a corpse by sinking it in a lake.

When Parker goes to a rock concert...he robs the damn place. Deadly Edge begins with Parker robbing a rock concert. After the caper troubles ensue. This entry in the series is wonderfully entertaining for two reasons. The first is the villains. These desperadoes are a trippy, hippy, psychotic odd couple who are on the hunt for Parker ... or is it Parker who is hunting them? With the caliber of danger and madness upped a notch, the rules of the game change as the violent episodes are almost over

Deadly Edge was not one of the best Parkers to me because the heist was mundane,the villains was not as interesting as in Sour Lemon Score,Slayground two books written around the same time. The writing was not as polished as usual either. What made it still a very good book in the series was how Stark clearly compared Parker's actions,thoughts to Claire's regular person emotions and also to the villains who was twisted men but still lacked the edge Parker has in that he will do anything for surv...

This is still a 4 star read even though (for me) it delves into a story hook I'm not found of.Parker leaves the '60s behind and robs a Rock Concert here as the '70s are upon us. Parker's life is changing as he's been with Clair for several books now and Clair has begun to "domesticate" him a bit. She is buying a house...Sadly Parker is (again) the lone survivor of a crew someone has been hunting down and killing, very messily. Another complication. Clair won't leave her house.As noted a good rea...