I know a lot of people are like, "Butcher's Moon! The best of the early Parkers!!!" However, I found the first half a real slog. It felt like Parker did, too, though - "@#$%, not this crap again." Maybe it needed a sense of slog in order for the last half to work. And yet. It was a slog.

One of the best Parker novels culminating in a massive reunion of several previous characters running down a series of callback type scores. Stark directly builds off the plot of Slayground and uses that novel’s slim conceit to build a massive series climax (at least for awhile; after a long hiatus, Parker would eventually return).

Parker and the Crime Spree
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (January, 2013) of the Random House hardcover (1974)

Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific crime author [a:Donald E. Westlake|30953|Donald E. Westlake|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1336863543p2/30953.jpg] (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.

Butcher's Moon finds Parker returning to the town of the scene of the crime in [b:Slayground|447175|Slayground (Parker, #14)|Richard Stark|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174855051l/447175._SY75_.jpg|3854] (Parker #14 - 1971) in order to retrieve the lost loot from that heist which he had to abandon in his escape. He believes that it is the local mob that has collected his score. They in turn are understandably reluctant to reimburse Parker for his losses. The master heister then proceeds to unleash a horde of his cronies to rob all of the mob's front operations while insisting those scores are just interest on the outstanding debt. The truth of the original lost score is gradually revealed.

Butcher's Moon was the culmination of the first arc of Parker stories from 1962 to 1974, after which Richard Stark retired the character for 25 years until [b:Comeback|619717|Comeback (Parker, #17)|Richard Stark|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1392091190l/619717._SY75_.jpg|3846] (Parker #17 - 1997).

Narrator Joe Barrett does a good job in all voices in this audiobook edition.

I had never previously read the Stark/Parker novels but became curious when they came up in my recent reading of [b:The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives|49203398|The Writer's Library The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives|Nancy Pearl|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1588038545l/49203398._SX50_.jpg|73236167] (Sept. 2020) by Nancy Pearl & Jeff Schwager. Here is a (perhaps surprising) excerpt from their discussion with [a:Amor Towles|4536964|Amor Towles|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1472937967p2/4536964.jpg]:

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.

Trivia and Links
There is a brief plot summary of Butcher's Moon and of all the Parker books and adaptations at The Violent World of Parker website.

Unlike many of the 2010-2013 Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook editions which share the same cover art as the University of Chicago Press 2009-2011 reprints, this audiobook DOES include the Foreword by author [a:Lawrence Block|17613|Lawrence Block|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1498734428p2/17613.jpg].

Epic, truly epic. One of the great pieces of American crime fiction in any medium.

masterful! i'm a huge fan of mid-century noir novels and this is an exceptional example. the story is great, the writing smart as a whip, and the characters tough as nails. there's not a shred of padding that often plagues contemporary crime fiction. Authors like Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake) really knew how to present their stories without insulting the intelligence of their audience. this is book 16 of the series; there's a whole lot more reading ahead of me and i can't wait.

Beginning in 1962, over the course of ten years, Donald E. Westlake wrote fifteen Parker novels, pen name Richard Stark, all hardboiled crime fiction featuring Parker, the ultimate cool, calculating heister. And all fifteen short novels follow the same four-step template: planning the heist, assembling the crew, the heist itself, the escape.

But then it happened - Mr. Westlake broke the mold, changed things up, achieved a slam dunk with the publication of Butcher’s Moon in 1974.

How did he do it? Signature Richard Stark but with three major differences: firstly, at well over 300 pages, Butcher's Moon is double the length of his other Parker novels; secondly, Butcher's Moon does not follow the aforementioned four-part heist structure, not even close; and thirdly . . . well, let me hold off on reason number three for now.

"Running toward the light, Parker fired twice over his left shoulder, not caring whether he hit anything or not. It was just to slow them down, keep the cops in the front of the store while he and the others got out."

The above are the opening lines from the novel's first chapter, fast-paced action at the tail end of a heist gone bad - Parker and crew tripped a silent alarm not mentioned in the plan they'd bought. The cops arrive on the scene and shoot a guy named Michaelson who flops down and groans at the top of the cellar steps. Parker orders Briggs, the explosive technician, to "close it up" meaning blow up the cellar door and top steps, the steps where their partner lays sprawled. Is Michaelson dead or just wounded? According to Parker, it doesn't matter since "he's finished."

Minutes later, in the getaway car, unlike one of the heisters who is furious the plan they bought didn't mention a second alarm system, Parker immediately puts this botched job behind him (things like a new silent alarm sometimes happen) and, because he's on a bad luck streak, four botched heists in a row, he immediately considers another way he can quickly get his hands on much needed cash.

When asked what's next, Parker tells the guys he left some money behind after a job a couple years ago and now's the time to go back and get it. We quickly learn Parker's referring to $73,000 and an amusement park on the edge of a Midwestern City.

Parker fans will hear a familiar ring: Richard Stark's 1971 Slayground, a tale where Parker’s driver crashes the getaway car and Parker grabs the sack of dough and makes a run for it, solo. There’s only one escape route - an amusement park covered in ice and snow and surrounded by water, Fun Island, currently shut down for the winter. Turns out, Parker must go up against dozens of armed men under the command of Al Luzini, the local mob boss.

Back on Butcher's Moon. Parker calls Grofield, one of the crew from that armored car heist, and they both go to Fun Island to get the dough Parker stashed away in a remote hiding spot. However, there's bad news: the suitcase with the money is gone, gone.

Parker says some local tough boys chased him to this part of the amusement park and must have come back to look for the money they knew he had with him. Grofield asks if he knows how to find any of them. Parker tells him he knows the name of their boss - Lozini.

Thus the novel's framework: Parker demands his money, all $73,000. Al Lozini doesn't have a clue about any $73,000 but he recognizes Parker is right: somebody in his organization must have gone back to Fun Island and made off with the cash.

But, who? Not an easy question to answer, especially since there's all sorts of political happenings taking place in this small city of Tyler: an upcoming election and (gulp) a power play within Luzini's gangster empire. The last thing the local mob needs is two outsiders (Parker and his buddy) stirring up the muck.

But stir the muck they do. So many players drawn into the action. The body count begins to mount. Parker keeps demanding, "Give me my money." The answer keeps coming back: "no." Then someone crosses the line: he threatens Parker in a way most grotesque. Wrong move, mister!

Nearly 200 pages filled with blood, grizzle and gore and Butcher's Moon is about to take a dramatic shift. I purposely didn't cite any of those grisly, bloody specifics so as not to spoil but as reviewer I'm obliged to address what happens in Chapter Thirty-Five.

Oh, yes, that pivotal chapter. Here's the skinny: the grotesque threat enrages Parker, unleashes Parker's inner tiger, lets loose Parker's inner wolf. Not only does Parker want his money (as he does in all Richard Stark novels), Parker now wants more, he wants Grofield (currently a prisoner held by the mob) and Parker wants blood - he wants all those mob bastards dead. Parker phones twenty-five men. By nightfall, eleven tell Parker they're in.

It's war! All eleven travel to Tyler, all eleven take a seat in the apartment serving as Parker's home base. All eleven examine the plan Parker outlines - the multiple heists and the final attack.

But the key question remains: What's with the change in Parker? Why does Parker now want more than just his money? Even one of the heisters confronts Parker, remarking,"That's not like you."

Parker fans have been debating this very question ever since Butcher's Moon first hit the bookracks. Has Parker really changed or has Parker simply expanded what it means to be Parker? For each reader to decide.

The novel's last fifty pages, the climatic showdown between forty armed mobsters and Parker's eleven surely counts as among the most thrilling, electrifying, spine-tingling episodes in all crime fiction. The gangsters think they'll win with ease based on sheer numbers - but little do they know who they're up against.

Oh, baby, if those Tyler thugs only knew. Parker has assembled a dream team of combatants, men with expertise ranging from electronics to explosives and everything in between. To use a sports analogy, like a local team of semipros taking the field against Manchester United.

I've said enough. Crime fiction too good to be true. No wonder John Banville proclaimed, "We admire Parker to our shame, taking a guilty pleasure in his fearless fearsomeness. This is existential man at his furthest extremity, confronting a world that is even more wicked and treacherous than he is."


American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933-2008

I was struggling to get into this and then I got to this paragraph and closed the book:

“Angie, the waitress he'd been shtupping lately, came back to the office around ten, but he just couldn't get in the mood tonight. "I'm under the weather, honey," he said.
"Gee, that's too bad." She was tough, but a good girl.
Although she was thirty-seven, she was so skinny and bony, it was like being in bed with a teen-ager. She had twin sons, around twelve years of age, both in the custody of their father, an Army man who'd married again and was now stationed in Germany with his family. Sometimes when she'd had too little to drink Angie would get maudlin about those two boys, so far away across the ocean. Faran could live without that kind of crap, but otherwise she was a very, very satisfactory girl, and all in all it was a small price to pay.”

I’m done thanks.

Many familiar faces show up to assist Parker and Grofield get the money they left behind at the start of SLAYGROUND. This is Parker at his best, planning heists and not letting anything stop him until he's reached his goal. This book is a real treat for the die-hard fan that has read all the novels, and a nice capstone to the first run of Parker novels.

My highest recommendation. (But don't start here!)