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After the publication of Butcher's Moon in 1974, Donald Westlake said, "Richard Stark proved to me that he had a life of his own by simply disappearing. He was gone." And readers waited.But nothing bad is truly gone forever, and Parker's as bad as they come. According to Westlake, one day in 1997, "suddenly, he came back from the dead, with a chalky prison pallor"—and the novels that followed showed that neither Parker nor Stark had lost a step.
Backflash followed finds Parker checking show more out the scene on a Hudson River gambling boat. Parker's no fan of either relaxation or risk, however, so you can be sure he's playing with house money—and he's willing to do anything to tilt the odds in his favor. Featuring a great cast of heisters, a striking setting, and a new introduction by Westlake's close friend and writing partner, Lawrence Block, this classic Parker adventure deserve a place of honor on any crime fan's bookshelf.
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“Backflash” is the eighteenth novel in the Parker world. It is wedged between “Comeback” and “Flashfire” and, as Lawrence Block points out in the introduction, this is Westlake (aka Stark) having fun with his titles and connecting them. It is part of the second set of Parker novels, published from 1997 to 2008 after a 23-year hiatus from the series. These are longer novels than most of the original sixteen. In some ways, they feel smoother, more professionally finished.
This one involves what looks for most of the book more like a con game from The Sting than a simple show your guns and rob them kind of caper. The subject of the caper here is a gambling boat running a route up and down the Hudson River in upstate New York. show more “It looked like any small cruise ship, white and sparkly, a big oval wedding cake, except in the wrong setting. It should be in the Caribbean, with Tommy Carpenter, not steaming up the Hudson River beside gray stone cliffs, north out of New York City.”
This is a trial run for the boat and estimates of how much dough is traveling on the boat range in the neighborhood of several hundred thousand. A retired, but still well-connected state bureaucrat has got the idea for the caper and engages Parker to do it. Parker likes the money angle, but for the life of him, can’t figure out why this straight- laced career bureaucrat is even involved in such a thing. Parker himself organizes the crew in this one and it includes a number of characters from other Parker novels, including a couple from the art caper in Plunder Squad such as Noelle, whose main job there was to take off her clothes and distract the sheriff’s deputies and Mike Carlow who explains that people get used to everything, but being dead. The wonder of this book is how Parker’s crew cons their way onto the boat and then off it with the loot and I won’t spoil it by telling about it.
The great characters in this book don’t stop with Parker’s crew, but include the state bureaucrat that engages Parker on this enterprise and others that try to get in his way. Some of the descriptions are hysterically funny like the motel clerk with the “neat egg-shaped head with straight brown hair down both sides of it, like curtains at a window, and nothing much in the window” and the bartender who looked “like a retired cop who’d gone to seed the day his papers had come through.” Then there’s Susan Cahill, who is in charge of guest relations on the gambling boat, “she in low-heeled pumps, dark blue skirt and jacket” and “her smile looked metallic, something stamped out of sheet tin. The hand she extended, with its long, coral-colored nails, seemed made of plastic, not flesh.”
The book is simply another great addition to the Parker universe. It is written in Westlake’s tight prose and filled with action and planning and double-crosses. show less
This one involves what looks for most of the book more like a con game from The Sting than a simple show your guns and rob them kind of caper. The subject of the caper here is a gambling boat running a route up and down the Hudson River in upstate New York. show more “It looked like any small cruise ship, white and sparkly, a big oval wedding cake, except in the wrong setting. It should be in the Caribbean, with Tommy Carpenter, not steaming up the Hudson River beside gray stone cliffs, north out of New York City.”
This is a trial run for the boat and estimates of how much dough is traveling on the boat range in the neighborhood of several hundred thousand. A retired, but still well-connected state bureaucrat has got the idea for the caper and engages Parker to do it. Parker likes the money angle, but for the life of him, can’t figure out why this straight- laced career bureaucrat is even involved in such a thing. Parker himself organizes the crew in this one and it includes a number of characters from other Parker novels, including a couple from the art caper in Plunder Squad such as Noelle, whose main job there was to take off her clothes and distract the sheriff’s deputies and Mike Carlow who explains that people get used to everything, but being dead. The wonder of this book is how Parker’s crew cons their way onto the boat and then off it with the loot and I won’t spoil it by telling about it.
The great characters in this book don’t stop with Parker’s crew, but include the state bureaucrat that engages Parker on this enterprise and others that try to get in his way. Some of the descriptions are hysterically funny like the motel clerk with the “neat egg-shaped head with straight brown hair down both sides of it, like curtains at a window, and nothing much in the window” and the bartender who looked “like a retired cop who’d gone to seed the day his papers had come through.” Then there’s Susan Cahill, who is in charge of guest relations on the gambling boat, “she in low-heeled pumps, dark blue skirt and jacket” and “her smile looked metallic, something stamped out of sheet tin. The hand she extended, with its long, coral-colored nails, seemed made of plastic, not flesh.”
The book is simply another great addition to the Parker universe. It is written in Westlake’s tight prose and filled with action and planning and double-crosses. show less
Parker is approached with a job to rob a riverboat casino on the Hudson. But, he says, “I don’t like anything where there’s one entrance, one exit.” and, “A boat on the water is a cell, you can’t just up and go away.” Both good points! BUT, it’s ALL cash, possibly 400 grand, so…
But there always seems to be a hitch with these plans, and in this book, Ray Becker is that hitch.
Parker said, “I came to tell you, your problems are over after all.”
No loose ends in Parker’s world.
Another really good chapter in this series! I am in awe that even though this is the eighteenth book, it's still fresh and entertaining! I'll be sad when I finally read my last Parker novel.
But there always seems to be a hitch with these plans, and in this book, Ray Becker is that hitch.
Parker said, “I came to tell you, your problems are over after all.”
No loose ends in Parker’s world.
Another really good chapter in this series! I am in awe that even though this is the eighteenth book, it's still fresh and entertaining! I'll be sad when I finally read my last Parker novel.
Loved this one, slight change of format, classic setting up the job, maybe my favorite?
Book #18, though #2 after a long hiatus. Parker is contacted by a man named Cathman, a retired government bureaucrat, who wants to rob a casino ship on the Hudson River between Albany and Poughkeepsie. As the inside man, Cathman has all the details, but Parker is worried about his motives and the limited escape routes from a riverboat casino, even one filled with cash. After completing his due diligence and developing a viable plan, he assembles a familiar crew of thieves to pull off the daring job. But, as always, there are competing forces, leading to the usual post-heist mayhem. I especially liked the role played by Noelle Braselle, as a sympathetic, wheelchair-bound invalid.
Parker and the Riverboat Casino
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (April 2013) of the Warner Books / Mysterious Press hardcover (October 1998)
Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific crime writer 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.
In Backflash, Parker is engaged by a retired state bureaucrat who is morally opposed to gambling and a new state initiative for a trial run boat casino. Parker enlists a heist crew who take on disguises for their entry onto the boat with one part show more of the crew doing the robbery and the others to get the loot off the boat separately. Parker is suspicious of the insider bureaucrat's motives and senses that a betrayal may be planned so he has to keep watching his back throughout. These final Parker novels from #17 to #24 seem 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).
Backflash is the 2nd book of 5 in a title arc by Richard Stark where the second syllable in each one-word title provides the first syllable of the next one as in 1) Comeback, 2) Backflash, 3) Flashfire, 4) Firebreak and 5) Breakout.
Narrator Keith Szarabjka does an excellent job in all voices in this audiobook edition. The narration includes the Introduction by Lawrence Block as read by Szarabjka.
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:
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
The Backflash page at The Violent World of Parker website is not as complete as those for the earlier books, but does provide cover images of the different editions.
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 [author:Lawrence Block|17613]. show less
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (April 2013) of the Warner Books / Mysterious Press hardcover (October 1998)
Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific crime writer 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.
In Backflash, Parker is engaged by a retired state bureaucrat who is morally opposed to gambling and a new state initiative for a trial run boat casino. Parker enlists a heist crew who take on disguises for their entry onto the boat with one part show more of the crew doing the robbery and the others to get the loot off the boat separately. Parker is suspicious of the insider bureaucrat's motives and senses that a betrayal may be planned so he has to keep watching his back throughout. These final Parker novels from #17 to #24 seem 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).
Backflash is the 2nd book of 5 in a title arc by Richard Stark where the second syllable in each one-word title provides the first syllable of the next one as in 1) Comeback, 2) Backflash, 3) Flashfire, 4) Firebreak and 5) Breakout.
Narrator Keith Szarabjka does an excellent job in all voices in this audiobook edition. The narration includes the Introduction by Lawrence Block as read by Szarabjka.
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.
Trivia and Links
The Backflash page at The Violent World of Parker website is not as complete as those for the earlier books, but does provide cover images of the different editions.
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 [author:Lawrence Block|17613]. show less
Another classic Parker from Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake.) In this episode, Parker is approached by Cathman, a disgruntled ex-state employee who ostensibly has it in for gambling and the state wants to increase its revenue stream by allowing riverboat gambling. Cathman has blueprints of the boat and additional details, so Parker checks him out and decides it's possible to pull a heist.
As with all the Parker stories, you know there will be a glitch, there always is, so the suspense and interest come less from the planning and details of the heist (and this one is quite complicated), but as much from watching and enjoying how Parker manages to deal with the unexpected and odd difficulties.
Definitely one of the better Parker novels.
As with all the Parker stories, you know there will be a glitch, there always is, so the suspense and interest come less from the planning and details of the heist (and this one is quite complicated), but as much from watching and enjoying how Parker manages to deal with the unexpected and odd difficulties.
Definitely one of the better Parker novels.
Parker is a professional thief who goes about his business with ruthless efficiency. In his eighteenth outing the heist involves a casino ship sailing the Hudson River in upstate New York and a lot of the book involves deciding whether the inside man is trustworthy, if the theft is viable, and the gathering of the crew once the decision to go ahead is made. Secrecy is compromised on several levels and there’s a lot for Parker to clean up. As usual, light and entertaining.
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Author Donald E. Westlake was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 12, 1933. He attended colleges in New York, but did not graduate. He wrote more than 100 novels and 5 screenplays throughout his lifetime. He also wrote under numerous pseudonyms including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, and Samuel Holt. Almost 20 of his novels were adapted into films and show more he created the television series, The Father Dowling Mysteries. He is a three-time winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America and was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for The Grifters. He was also named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 1993. He died of a heart attack on December 31, 2008 at the age of 75. (Bowker Author Biography) Donald E. Westlake has won three Edgar Awards & was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for "The Grifters". He lives in upstate New York. (Publisher Provided) show less
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Backflash
- People/Characters
- Parker
- Dedication
- This is for Walter and Carol, who got married tomorrow.
- First words
- When the car stopped rolling, Parker kicked out the rest of the windshield and crawled through onto the wrinkled hood, Glock first.
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