Breakout
A Parker Novel
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1.5 • 2 Ratings
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
Even Parker makes mistakes. Locked up in a prison from which no one has ever escaped, it's only a matter of time before the law uncovers his real name - and his extensive criminal past.
To get out, Parker must take on the only accomplices he can find - yet his fellow convicts demand a price: help with another job.
Their plan has too many weak links. And Parker isn't a man who likes complications. But with a big potential payoff and no other options, Parker is willing to chance it, just this once.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This fifth book about master criminal Parker since his welcome return from a 20-year hiatus is packed so tightly with the painstaking details of everything from the dank tedium of prison life to the architecture and construction of a Midwestern shopping complex that it comes as a shock to realize the volume isn't bigger than it is. Stark, the nom de crime adopted for this series by MWA Grand Master Donald Westlake, is an artist of compression, with the ability to create a complex, frightening character in very few words. Of an Asian lawyer visiting Parker in prison, he writes, "Li was amused, not by Parker in particular but by his own entire life; it made him easy to be around, but suggested there were circumstances when he might not be completely reliable." But Stark is also remarkable because he seems to know how everything works and can explain it without slowing down the story. Stuck in a fortress-like holding prison "on the outskirts of the only large city in this big empty midwestern state" after a robbery goes bad, Parker links up with two other prisoners in a totally logical way, then plans a breakout (the first of several in the book) so credible that we're swept up in its mechanics. But before he can return to his haven in rural New Jersey, Parker has to pay off the help he received by taking part in another robbery that falls apart in a different way that's just as exhilarating. Watching artists like Stark and Parker at work is a great pleasure, which an increasing audience will be delighted to share.
