Bill D, glad you've discovered Parker. The future of the new
trade paperback reprints is uncertain right now, but there
are some British Allison & Busby trade pbs still
available, as far as I know. The Green Eagle Score,
Slayground and Deadly Edge, and possibly 1 or 2 others. The
prices for them are even more expensive than the Warner ones,
however, around $15.00 or so, but at least they're in print.
And as I posted recently, a new book, Flashfire, will be out
in November.
Mike, I agree with you that Parker has changed, but how could
he have remained the same over such a long period of time? I
think Westlake's done a particularly great job of keeping
Parker's core intact while putting him through some
interesting emotional (for lack of a better word) situations,
such as in The Black Ice Score, when Claire is kidnapped.
Westlake walks a very thin line between having Parker rescue
her without displaying a twinge of emotional involvement. The
tension he establishes makes for a terrific story. The very
last sentence of that book is the one spontaneous, unguarded
moment of Parker's life, and even then it's not much and
decently ambiguous. Or how about Butcher's Moon, when
Grofield gets in trouble and Parker is again faced with the
alien concept of putting himself out for someone else. I
don't mind it when an author stretches his character around
some out-of-the-ordinary plot twists like these as long as he
doesn't betray him, and I don't think Westlake ever has.
Keeps the character interesting. And you're right about him
not bringing work home, so to speak, but it happened before
Backsplash. In Deadly Edge, the bad guys end up in Parker's
home, with Claire.
Some news of note from the Little, Brown catalog:
The rumor is fact. Michael Connelly's next book will feature
both Harry Bosch and Terry McCaleb. The title is A Darkness
More Than Night, to be released in January, 2001. The blurb
says that Terry is drawn into the hunt for a homicidal maniac
(is there any other kind?) and finds that the suspect who
seems to fit the profile he develops is none other than Det.
Harry Bosch. Guess Harry isn't adjusting to married life as
well as we hoped.
And--George Pelecanos' new book, Right As Rain, will be out
in February 2001. "Derek Strange is an ex-cop who now runs
his own detective agency. The mother of an officer killed by
another cop hires him to clear up any lingering doubts about
the investigation. Although the other cop, Terry Quinn, has
been cleared, his guilt torments him. After Strange
interviews him, Quinn joins the investigation. The two seek
their answers in the darkest sectors of Washington,
DC."
Martha
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