Dirty Money

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Amazon reminds me how long it can take for books to percolate up to the top of the to-be-read pile: "You purchased this item on November 1, 2010."

And it gets worse: Dirty Money (© 2008) is the continuation of a tale beginning two books previous: Nobody Runs Forever (© 2004, I read it in 2005) and Ask the Parrot (© 2006, I read it in 2010). It's hard to appreciate plot continuity over a span that long.

Nevertheless…

Stark's perennial antihero, FNU Parker has (finally) made a semi-clean getaway from the armored car heist in the first book. And he's got some clean cash from the racetrack heist in the second book. But the $2.2 million from the armored car, stashed in an abandoned Massachusetts church, poses a problem, as does one of his former partners, a cop-killer on the lam. Also: a female bounty hunter with a deceased partner. Also: lotsa cops, a pleasantly ditzy innkeeper, a third-rate true-crime writer, a colorful money launderer, …

Through it all, Parker is slightly more honorable than his fellow criminals, unflappable in the face of betrayal, close calls with the law, and botched plans. And very, very violent.

This looks like the last Parker novel, as "Richard Stark" (aka Donald Westlake) passed away shortly after finishing it, and there are apparently no plans to pick up the series under a different writer.


Last Modified 2024-01-26 10:34 AM EDT