The Seventh

By: Richard Stark

Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne

The robbery was a piece of cake. The getaway was clean. And seven men were safely holed up in different places while Parker held all the cash. But somehow the sweet heist of a college football game turns sour, Parker's woman is murdered, and the take is stolen. Now Parker's looking for the lowlife who did him dirty, while the cops are looking for seven clever thieves - and Parker must outrun them all. When hunters and hunted meet, some win, some lose….

©1996 Richard Stark. All rights reserved. (P)2011 AudioGo

4 ½ stars. Entertaining. Surprising things.

I laughed several times. It starts slow but good later.

Authors: Here’s a great example of how to create a stupid (but smart) character who does wacko things. This guy really made the story. Had me laughing with surprise. I liked being in his head when he was thinking why he had to follow Parker. Because if he wasn’t always behind Parker, Parker might get behind him. He would have been smarter just to leave town, but he doesn’t - for weird reasons, and I bought it.

Cops are investigating the murder of a woman in Parker’s room and also the robbery that Parker was behind. The murderer stole the loot hidden in Parker’s room before it was divided. So now Parker and his buddies are investigating to get the money back.

CAUTION SPOILER:
I was shocked when Parker went to the homicide detective asking for information to use in his own search - and the cop gave it to him. Parker was a suspect!
END SPOILER

The narrator Stephen R. Thorne was good, but I wish he had a rougher or more gravely voice for Parker. His Parker voice was too clean cut and normal sounding.

THE SERIES:
This is book 7 in the 24 book series. It’s about half the length of a typical novel. If you are new to the series, I suggest reading the first three, and then pick and choose among the rest. I prefer reading them in order since there is a flow, and some books have spoilers about prior books. These stories are about bad guys. They rob. They kill. They don’t go to jail. They’re smart. Parker is the main bad guy, a brilliant strategist. He partners with different guys for different jobs in each book.

The first three books in order are: The Hunter (Point Blank movie with Lee Marvin 1967) (Payback movie with Mel Gibson), The Man with the Getaway Face (The Steel Hit), The Outfit.

Genre: noir crime fiction

The Best One

I've been burning through these rapid-fire, and this one is absolutely the best so far.

Never quite se where something is going

Stark wields a great story - a few things at the end of this one didn’t make sense but I’ll not spoil that for anyone - reader is good but not great!

Audio noir at its best

Short, sweet, and the narrator makes it complete.
Stark & Parker are as entertaining as McDonald and McGee

Love Parker

Always a great read. Reminds me of Elmo’s Leonard. Can’t wait till the next one

Another great Parker novel!

I dont know if there are any crappy Parker novels. Stark had this down to a science. Never boring, never drawn out. Just beautifully delivered staccatto story.

Parker Makes a Mistake

If this were a Dortmunder novel – and by that, I mean if it were the exact same plot, staffed by him and his gang – it would be funny. After all, they make mistakes all the time and we laugh. But when Parker makes a mistake, a lot of people die.

Of course, Parker has made mistakes before -- just never this big. And in this seventh installment, Parker not only makes a big mistake but openly expresses his frustrations to his colleagues, a heretofore unknown show of weakness. Just as oddly, the happy ending (for Parker, of course) owes almost nothing to his efforts.

All this, added to the morbid fascination of a nefarious netherworld where bad is good, just makes a gripping story even better -- as does Stephen Thorne’s work at the mic.

This one's a lulu!

Parker was holed up in an apartment with a woman after a job. He went out for beer and cigarettes, gone ten minutes and back. The woman was dead and the cash from the heist was gone. $134,000 gone. There were seven men involved in the job. The thief had to be one of them. Parker went to the one man he knew the location of, Dan Kifka, he’s good. Parker gets the addresses of two more guys; Little Bob and Arne Fetchio, they sound good too. Flashback to the heist, detailed from start to finish. So much for the setup of the story. Three more guys to check out. Newspapers made a big deal of the woman’s gruesome murder that Parker left behind, and that gives him an idea. Parker pulls one of the most devious or unbelievable, depending on how you look at it, ploys to gather information that I have read about. This story is a nice twist from the usual Stark fare; Parker being ripped off, looking for the person that took the cash and killed the woman he was shacked up with. Rather than Parker being the cool, rational, perfectionist in his strategizing, he was frustrated and infuriated in his inability to find the stranger while the stranger tailed him. And IMHO made a few critical mistakes; mistakes, miscalculations, or short-sightedness - "potato, potahto". This was not like Parker, but playing detective was never his expertise.

Nailed it again

Super good story picking up on Parker having to rebuild after that last, dumb from the start, job burned his best alias to the ground

Parker you big, lovable, ruthless crook

Enjoyed this book immensely. Parker is my hero. The twists and turns are awesome.