 First edition | |
| Author | Richard Stark |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Harry Bennett |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller |
| Publisher | Perma Books |
Publication date | 1962 |
| Pages | 155 |
The Hunter (1962) is a crime thriller novel by American writer Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark. [1] It is the first of the novels featuring career criminal Parker. [2]
Parker —penniless, shabbily dressed—walks across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan. He's single mindedly bent on payback. A quick series of cons and identity theft allows him to acquire a false name, a change of clothes, and a small amount of money. He first tracks down his wife Lynn, unsure if he'll kill her for betraying him during a caper gone sour. She tells him that Mal, one of the caper's participants, now pays her rent. She says that he moved out after becoming frustrated with his inability to rouse her passion the same way Parker did. After telling Parker all she knows, Lynn kills herself with an overdose of sleeping pills.
Staying in Lynn's apartment, Parker meets the courier who brings her rent and extracts the name of his boss, a taxicab dispatcher named Arthur Stegmann. Parker tracks down Stegmann who says Mal deposits the money for Lynn in a bank account and he claims he has no direct contact with or know where to find him. However, after Parker leaves, Stegmann contacts Mal through an intermediary.
A flashback tells us Parker is a professional criminal, specializing in armed robbery. The pattern of his life is to commit a lucrative heist, live well in luxury hotels for a period of months with his wife Lynn, then commit another heist when necessary. This pattern is disrupted when he is convinced, against his better judgment, to join a "crew" in California, planning to heist a shipment of cash intended for an illegal arms deal. The heist goes perfectly, but one of the crew, Mal Resnick, double-crosses Parker and the others. Because he is too afraid to face Parker directly, he convinces Lynn to shoot Parker in bed rather than be killed herself. After killing the other robbers, Mal escapes with the heist proceeds and Lynn, both believing Parker to be dead.
Parker survives the shooting and is imprisoned for vagrancy. Later he escapes prison and finds his way to her apartment in New York City.
Mal is a regional manager for "The Outfit," a nationwide organized crime syndicate; he was "fired" from this position after a blunder in Chicago that cost The Outfit $80,000, and was told to earn it back if he wanted his job back. With the proceeds from the arms heist, Mal bought his way back in, but panics when he hears from Stegmann that Parker is alive, and seeking revenge.
Mal approaches Frederick Carter, The Outfit's manager for the New York area, who declines to assist Mal with his problem and orders him to take care of it himself. Mal takes refuge in a penthouse suite and tells his associates to spread the word of his whereabouts, planning to lay a trap for Parker. However, Parker has already tracked him down, and corners him in his suite before Mal's trap is ready.
Having Mal at his mercy, Parker is unsatisfied, finding it too easy to take his revenge. He decides that what he really wants back is the pattern of his old life, and for that he wants his share of the heist proceeds, that Mal stole from him. He interrogates Mal for every detail of The Outfit's hierarchy in the city, then strangles him.
Parker approaches Carter in his office, knocks out his bodyguard, and demands repayment of his share: $45,000. Carter refuses, not believing that Parker would risk The Outfit's wrath over such a trifling sum. After receiving a final "no" from Carter's immediate superior, Bronson, Parker shoots Carter, then informs Bronson that next he'll be targeting Justin Fairfax, the other regional manager.
Parker invades Fairfax's home and knocks out his bodyguards with little effort. To Fairfax, he delivers a different threat: that Parker has a network of freelance professional thieves all over the country, that these thieves have been "casing" The Outfit's operations for years, and are only waiting for an excuse to rob them. If Parker is not paid, then he will give the nod to these thieves, and The Outfit will suffer far greater losses than $45,000. Bronson agrees to pay Parker his money, but warns that he'll never live to enjoy it.
Shortly before going to the money drop, Parker returns to Stegmann's taxi lot, and kills him for informing Mal.
The money drop is set at a subway station in Brooklyn. Parker outmaneuvers a group of Outfit thugs sent to kill him, and gets his money—only to be questioned at his hotel by police detectives, who have come to the mistaken conclusion that he's involved in drug smuggling, and are going to take him in. He escapes them, but loses the suitcase full of money in the process. Undaunted, he plans and executes a robbery of an Outfit operation with some fellow heisters, telling the employees there to tell Bronson that Parker is collecting interest on the loan.
He plans to have a change of appearance performed by a plastic surgeon and spend the next few months living well in Florida.
The novel was written as a stand-alone crime novel, but when Westlake turned it in, his editor told him that if he would rewrite the ending so that Parker escaped, he would be willing to publish up to three books a year about Parker. [3] Though Westlake was not able to keep up that level of productivity, he did go on to write 23 more Parker novels over the next 46 years.
The Hunter was re-issued by the University of Chicago Press in August 2008.
It was the basis for two feature films:
Other appearances of the 'Parker' character include:
The book was adapted as a graphic novel by artist Darwyn Cooke in 2009 as Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter .
The caper story is a subgenre of crime fiction. The typical caper story involves one or more crimes perpetrated by the main characters in full view of the reader. The actions of police or detectives attempting to prevent or solve the crimes may also be chronicled, but are not the main focus of the story.
The Grifters is a 1990 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Stephen Frears, produced by Martin Scorsese, and starring John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, and Annette Bening. The screenplay was written by Donald E. Westlake, based on Jim Thompson's 1963 novel of the same name. The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and was declared one of the Top 10 films of 1990 by The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
Parker is a fictional character created by American novelist Donald E. Westlake. A professional robber specializing in large-scale, high-profit crimes, Parker is the main protagonist of 24 of the 28 novels Westlake wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark.
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with more than a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres. Westlake is perhaps best-remembered for creating two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series: the relentless, hardboiled Parker, and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series.
Point Blank is a 1967 American crime film directed by John Boorman, starring Lee Marvin, co-starring Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn and Carroll O'Connor, and adapted from the 1963 crime noir pulp novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake, writing as Richard Stark. Boorman directed the film at Marvin's request and Marvin played a central role in the film's development. The film was not a box-office success in 1967, but has since gone on to become a cult classic, eliciting praise from such critics as film historian David Thomson.
Payback is a 1999 American neo-noir action thriller film written and directed by Brian Helgeland in his directorial debut, and starring Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, and David Paymer. It is based on the novel The Hunter by Donald E. Westlake using the pseudonym Richard Stark, which had earlier been adapted into the 1967 film noir classic Point Blank, directed by John Boorman and starring Lee Marvin.
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Seven Thieves is a 1960 American film noir heist crime drama film shot in CinemaScope. It stars Edward G. Robinson, Rod Steiger, Joan Collins and Eli Wallach.
Welcome to Collinwood is a 2002 American caper comedy film written and directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and starring William H. Macy, Isaiah Washington, Sam Rockwell, Michael Jeter, Luis Guzmán, Patricia Clarkson, Andrew Davoli, George Clooney, Jennifer Esposito, and Gabrielle Union. It is a remake of the Oscar-nominated 1958 Italian film Big Deal on Madonna Street by Mario Monicelli.
Bank Shot is a 1974 heist film directed by Gower Champion and written by Wendell Mayes. It was loosely based upon Donald E. Westlake's 1972 novel of the same name, which was the second book of his "Dortmunder" series. The film stars George C. Scott, Joanna Cassidy, Sorrell Booke, and G. Wood.
The Split is a 1968 American neo-noir crime drama film directed by Gordon Flemyng and written by Robert Sabaroff based upon the Parker novel The Seventh by Richard Stark.
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Ally Carter is the pen name of Sarah Leigh Fogleman, an American author of young adult fiction and adult-fiction novels.
The Outfit is a 1973 American neo-noir crime film directed by John Flynn. It stars Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker and Robert Ryan.
Alan Grofield is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake. He is the main protagonist of four of the 28 novels Westlake has written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, and a supporting character in an additional four. Grofield's first appearance was in the novel The Score, which was published in 1964.
The Man with the Getaway Face (1963) is a crime thriller novel, written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark and published by Pocket Books. It was also published under the title The Steel Hit. It is the second of the Parker novels.
The Town is a 2010 American crime thriller film co-written, directed by, and starring Ben Affleck, adapted from Chuck Hogan's 2004 novel Prince of Thieves. It also stars Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Titus Welliver, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Slaine, and follows a group of Boston bank robbers who set out to get one final score by robbing Fenway Park.
Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter is a 2009 graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke, an adaptation of the first Parker novel The Hunter written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark.
Adieu l'ami is a 1968 French-Italian heist crime film directed by Jean Herman and produced by Serge Silberman, with a screenplay by Sebastien Japrisot. The film was a great success in Europe and made Charles Bronson a star there after a career as a supporting actor in Hollywood.
Parker is a 2013 American action thriller film directed by Taylor Hackford and written by John J. McLaughlin. Starring Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez, the film is adapted from Flashfire, the 19th Parker novel, written by Donald Westlake under the pen name Richard Stark.