Richard Stark: The Mourner (USA 2009)

From the Publisher:
You probably haven't ever noticed them. But they've noticed you. They notice everything. That's their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers' work habits, the positions of the security guards. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack.

They're thieves. Heisters, to be precise. They're pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. If you're planning a job, you want him in. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is the heister's heister, the robber's robber, the heavy's heavy. You don't want to cross him, and you don't want to get in his way, because he'll stop at nothing to get what he's after.

Parker, the ruthless antihero of Richard Stark's eponymous mystery novels, is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose-style -- and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency -- Stark is a master of crime writing; his books as influential as any in the genre. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of this series to print for a new generation of readers to discover -- and become addicted to. This season's offerings include volumes 4-6 in the series: The Mourner, The Score, and The Jugger.

The Mourner is a story of convergence -- of cultures and of guys with guns. Hot on the trail of a statue stolen from a fifteenth-century French tomb, Parker enters a world of eccentric art collectors, greedy foreign officials, and shady KGB agents. Next, Parker works with a group of professional con men in The Score on his biggest job yet -- robbing an entire town in North Dakota. In The Jugger, Parker travels to Nebraska to help out a geriatric safecracker who knows too many of his criminal secrets. By the time he arrives, the safecracker is dead and Parker's skeletons are on the verge of escaping from their closet -- unless Parker resorts to lethal measures.

Richard Stark: The Mourner. A Parker Novel. With a new Foreword by John Banville. University of Chicago Press, ISBN: 9780226771038 (May, 2009), 232 p., $14.00.

Richard Stark: The Mourner (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
The statue wore white and grieved. Parker wasn't interested in its sentimental value. The thief cared more about retrieving a certain gun that came with it, the one he had used in a previous crime that could incriminate him. By the time Parker comes face to face with the sixteen-inch-tall alabaster figurine called The Mourner, he knows that stealing it for a rich man and his beautiful, amoral daughter is the least of his worries. New players are coming in every minute, from strutting syndicate boys to a fat man with a heavy accent who is lighter on his feet than he looks. Now in a deadly, treacherous endgame, Parker will find out who intends to bury whom - and why no one will be crying over his grave...

Richard Stark: The Mourner. Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0446677728 (August, 2001), 215 p., $12.00.