I picked up a Pocket Book first of Richard Stark's THE
SEVENTH here because it was a good price and discovered it
was one I had missed reading. I was very disappointed in it.
In my opinion this was the one book where Westlake tampered
with the character of Parker in order to meet plot needs. The
normally pragmatic Parker hangs around after a heist goes
sour and continually makes stupid, risky decisions that have
little chance of a payoff. It is an idiot plot in that (to
paraphrase Damon Knight) in order to work, every character
has to behave like an idiot. There is little motivation given
for this. As for loyalty to rest of the gang in the robbery,
he puts them all in post-theft danger in a plan to find the
man with the loot that was doomed by dumb, obvious flaws and
they pay the consequences.
I am a fan of the series but it has its low points...none
lower than THE SEVENTH.
Richard Moore
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