The heist in this one is a bank/four armored car job. That gets complicated by a card game at the beginning!

Chapter 1 of part Four is a doozy! Stark intricately weaves all the different plot lines together from all the different characters points of view! Riveting reading! And then - a cliffhanger ending? I really hate those! Especially when it is not 'listed' as such! Apparently, from this book until the end is a trilogy, which is fine. I just didn't like getting to the end of this one and having this unexpected ending. I'm not certain, but I don't think that has happened in this series before. Still, it's a Parker novel, so I'll get over it! ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2022-08.html#stark ( )

If you end up writing what turns out to be a long-running series, you needed to find ways of keeping yourself interested. Evan Hunter, writer of the 87th precinct series as Ed McBain, did what comic books used to call “a change of pace issue.” He would write a novel completely from the criminal’s point of view, or from that of a neighborhood, or he would focus on something off-topic for your standard police procedural: a doll, a dead girl’s diary, calypso music, even ghosts. I’ve always associated Hunter with Donald Westlake, the man behind Richard Stark and Parker, even if they started almost a decade apart. To me the passage of time has relegated them to the same era. They also both worked for the same literary agency, though not simultaneously; both could write in any style or voice; both wrote under at least a half a dozen pseudonyms; they had their greatest series success under one of those pseudonyms; had successful forays into Hollywood, both with adaptations of their work and screenplays of their own; and, finally, they made it into the 21st Century when most of their contemporaries had retired or passed on.

Westlake didn’t take the precautions Hunter did; consequently, 12 years into the series, Parker came to an abrupt stop. At least from Westlake’s point of view. He is quoted as saying that one day he had simply lost the Richard Stark voice. I have to believe on some subconscious level he had to know he was coming to the end. Those last three or four books in the initial run read like they were headed toward a definitive conclusion. And it would be twenty-plus years before Westlake would find that voice again, and Stark and Parker would return.

This time the author made sure to keep himself entertained while he entertained us. In small ways at first. Like playing Dominoes with the titles. The first new one, COMEBACK, led to BACKFLASH, then to FLASHFIRE, then FIREBREAK, and then BREAKOUT. That was where the game ended. It was time to attempt a trilogy. Now that’s a challenge! Maybe espionage stories, because of the multiple layers and complexities to be explored, can be stretched out over several books, but generally speaking crime fiction comes with the expectation of a conclusion. Maybe that’s why these final three books--before publication or since--have never been referred to as a trilogy. But the intent seems clear.

To answer his self-challenge Westlake had to use every trick in the book. Literally. Every trick he’s ever used. A single heist story can go smoothly and remain interesting but a series featuring a professional thief needs complications, sometimes while planning the job, sometimes during its execution, sometimes in making the getaway. Sometimes they overlap. Westlake needed them all for the next three books. Plus ancillary characters and subplots.

Like most Parker novels Nobody Runs Forever opens with a sudden act of violence. Seven men in a hotel room, one of them wearing a wire, whom Parker promptly dispatches. It is an act that will later spawn the complications that the novel needs but immediately leads to the next job. An iffy job to begin with, but even as early as 2004 the world was changing and finding large sums of cash was becoming increasingly difficult. Reservations aside, Parker and his associates go forward. What results is your typical Parker novel. Quick, sparse and engaging. And in due course Westlake passes his first test: How to end the book without ending the story? His answer, from word one, was to write toward a specific conclusion. A conclusion that was not necessarily an ending. Certainly not the ending.

Only in not rising to that particular challenge could he mar everything that preceded it. And so, mark “Part 1” a complete success. ( )

Parker and the Armoured Cars
Review of the University of Chicago Press paperback edition (September 2017) of the Mysterious Press hardcover (2004)

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.

The title of Nobody Runs Forever is a an early telegraph that someone will be caught by the authorities at some point in the book. It surely can't be the master planner Parker? After one heist goes awry due to a wired snitch at a poker game, Parker and associates plan a different one that involves the transfer of one bank's assets to another's. Inside accomplices are involved and that adds further possible leaks. Then a bounty hunter and their partner are also on their trail, looking for the missing snitch. To stop the armoured cars, the gang require military grade weapons. The complications and twists just keep piling on and at the end Parker is on the run in a cliffhanger ending that wouldn't resolve until Ask the Parrot (Parker #23) was released 2 years later.

These final Parker novels from #17 to #24 are stronger and more complex than the original run which was probably due to Westlake/Stark's development as a writer over the years and during the 23 year hiatus. Several of these are strong 4's to 5's (I've actually read or listened to all of them now and am just parceling out the reviews over time). #21 and #22 are my favourites of the Parker novels now that I've read them all. Ironically, they are the only ones not available as audiobooks for some reason.

Nobody Runs Forever (Parker #22) is the 1st book of the final trio of Parker novels which are all tied together by the loot and the escape from one heist. The Parker series concludes with Ask the Parrot (Parker #23) and Dirty Money (Parker #24). The last book was issued in 2008 and Donald Westlake (Richard Stark) passed at the end of that year.

I had never previously read the Stark/Parker novels but became curious when they came up in my recent reading of The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives (Sept. 2020) by Nancy Pearl & Jeff Schwager. Here is a (perhaps surprising) excerpt from their discussion with author Amor Towles:

Nancy: Do you read Lee Child?
Amor: I know Lee. I had never read his books until I met him, but now I read them whenever they come out. I think some of the decisions he makes are ingenious.
Jeff: Have you read the Parker books by Donald Westlake [writing as Richard Stark]?
Amor: I think the Parker books are an extraordinary series.
Jeff: They feel like a big influence on Reacher, right down to the name. Both Reacher and Parker have a singular focus on the task in front of them.
Amor: But Parker is amoral. Reacher is just dangerous.
Jeff: Right. Reacher doesn't have a conventional morality, but he has his own morality. Parker will do anything he has to do to achieve his goal.
Amor: But to your point, Westlake's staccato style with its great twists at the end of the paragraphs, and his mesmerizing central character - these attributes are clearly shared by the Reacher books.

The 24 Parker books are almost all available for free on Audible Plus, except for #21 & #22 which aren't available at all.

Other Reviews
There is an extremely detailed review and plot summary (in 3 parts) of Nobody Runs Forever (with spoilers obviously) at The Westlake Review, October 2, 2017.

Trivia and Links
The Nobody Runs Forever page at The Violent World of Parker website is not as complete as those for the earlier books, and only shows the cover for the original Mysterious Press edition.

This paperback is part of the University of Chicago Press 2009-2017 series of reprints of the Parker novels and includes a new Foreword by author Duane Swierczynski. ( )

Running low on cash, Parker goes to a poker game to hear of a job stealing dental gold when he spies a wire on one of the guys and the game turns deadly: a necktie party. One of the players then approaches Parker to rob an armored car during a bank takeover, with the key information provided by a parolee and his paramour, whose husband runs the acquired bank. While there are a few surprising developments, the book suffers from too many extraneous characters although I did like the weaponry provided by Briggs. Things go badly wrong (repeatedly) with the two sources, and Parker and the crew are almost caught because of their stupidity. In my opinion, Stark's books were much better at 225-250 pages, than at 300 . ( )