Pick Up The Mourner (Parker, #4) Developed By Richard Stark Distributed In Digital Version

postscore girlfriend Bett Harrow introduces him to her father, who wants Parker to steal a rare alabaster statuette from a foreign diplomat, except that when Parker and his thieving pal, Hardy, start to case the joint, the Outfit is already there in cahoots with someone else.
When the Outfit figures out that it has competition, they turn on their employer, a shady foreign character himself, Parker saves him from the Outfit and they combine forces, each seeking a different prize, Then, things go badly awry, leaving Parker/Hardy in deep trouble, Better than the last one,,stars. The fourth "Parker" novel, and just not as good as the first three, Both the plot and main character are starting to get a bit repetitive, and for someone as savvy as Parker, he allows himself here to get fooled way too easy.
Also, there's what seemed to be a plot hole, because and probable spoiler here at one point, someone doesn't take the time to make sure somebody else is really dead, but then later he's driving the notdeadguy's car, which means he at least had to get the keys off the notbody, right So would probably have noticed the notdeadness.


Also, and this is probably just a personal thing I hate madeup countries, If your story needs an Eastern European country, don't give me "Klastrava" if you can't make it work with Moldova or Romania, then fix your plot!

Anyway, probably enough Parker for a while.
. . This was a terrific entry into the very entertaining Parker series and among the best of those I've read to this point,
Don Westlake aka Richard Stark was phenomenally talented and the Parker character is just plain fun to follow,

Parker is all business and as unemotional as they come, He does what needs doing to secure his money if killing is required, so be it but he believes in economy of effort, so killing isn't his first choice, It's just the implacable nature by which he operates that makes the character stand out, Stark has a clever plot with nice, even pacing here,

He has written books with more plot twists than this one, otherwise I'd have rated it a, As it is,.for yet another winner in the Parker series, The Mourner is the fourth Parker novel from Richard Stark, pretty much a standalone following the first three books that focus on Parkers war with The Outfit, This novel is either a Maltese Falcon knockoff or homage, as you prefer, I think homage, though Parker is of course way more ruthless than Sam Spade, . . and the bad guy and not a detective, But as with Dashiell Hammetts way more famous novel, theres a statue that needs stealing, and a struggle between our antihero and two guys, Menlo and Kapor, of undetermined national origin the Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet of the John Huston film.
The accents of Menlo and Kapor are similar to Lorre and Greenstreet in the audio version I listened to today in the car, Physically the Menlo character is as rotund as Greenstreet, Theres a beautiful dame, of course, ex Beth Harrow, who is as ruthless as almost any of the men,

The guy who wants the statue stolen is a kind of art romantic, but to Parker the statue is just sixteen inches of alabaster, worthK to him.
Aesthetics are superfluous to Parker The Lost Mourner of Dijon might as well be a paintbynumber Elvis painting to him as long as Parker gets his pay day,

Theres a double cross, a twotiming broad, ruthless gunplay, but the tone sort of veers into a comic tone when the supertalkative Kapor and Menlo the two foreign nationals give Stark a chance to show off some surprising dialogue, since Parker hates too much talk and this hampers the otherwise clever dialogue writer Stark/Westlake.
We also get a key incident seen from the different perspective of Menlo,

When asked about who he would cast as Parker, Westlake stated: "Usually I dont put an actors face to the character, though with Parker, in the early days, I did think he probably looked something like Jack Palance.
That may be partly because you knew Palance wasnt faking it, and Parker wasnt faking it either, Never once have I caught him winking at the reader, ” I had kind of thought he was the image of Lee Marvin, though Robert Duvall and Mel Gibson have also played him, He is amoral, hard, sentimental, I think this is a good tribute to Hammett and a pretty good yarn, the least good of the four I have read thus far, but still good! Another very good adventure with Parker.
Not quite as high marks because a couple of things were a bit obvious, The books are a bit formulaic, still there were a couple of good twists amp it was an enjoyable romp,

On to. "The Mourner" is the fourth in thestrong Parker series, Parker is Donald Westlake's creation although he published it under the pseudonym, Richard Stark, Briefly, Parker is a thief, a burglary, a
robber, a heister, Parker works with a few other thieves and is often at odds with the Outfit or the Syndicate, He is a toughnosed, unyielding individual, These Parker stories are solid action from cover to cover and are all highly recommended,

This book is Westlake's nod to the Maltese Falcon in too many ways to be ignored, One of the things he is tasked with stealing is a fourteenthcentury statute, the Mourner, and there are many parties
after it, including an exspy from a small Communist nation somewhere near the Carpathian mountains.
Exspy, August Menlo, is often described as a fat man, just like Gutman in the Maltese Falcon, Westlake does a great job of developing Menlo, who is just the most unusual character as he misunderstands a Southern smalltown speed trap and reacts very badly to the stop, perhaps because he has,of stolen money in his car.


Another character fairly welldeveloped is the voluptuous Bett Harrow, who is holding onto a gun Parker had used in a killing and, with her father, wants Parker to steal the statue.
Bett is always lounging around in a hotel room and has moves like a burlesque dancer, Parker isn't interested in her because, when he is on a job, he is celibate and focused on only one thing, When the job is done, well, that's something else entirely, Bett is your noholdsbarred femme fatale and she is willing to go off with whoever appears to be the strongest,

In this novel, Parker is attacked, knifed, shot, and left for dead, Well, that doesn't distinguish it from other Parker novels, but he is quite roughed up here, With the thievery, the constant battles with the Outfit guys, the spy vs, spy capers involving the statute and other things, and the machinations involving Bett's constantly shifting loyalties, it is a solid, actionpacked Parker outing, Another solid entry in the Parker series, Parker is offered a considerable sum to retrieve a valuable and rare statuette, From there, as is usual, everything goes awry with complications caused by a rogue cop from eastern Europe who has his own plans, Enjoyable. The conclusion of a four volume arc this is the first book in the series not to end on a hook for the next tale, Westlake/Stark continues to flesh out his master thief and surround him with interesting accomplices and foils.

As to the whole series so far, these are the type of short, tight tales not really published anymore or at least not anywhere I see books these days underpages, all action, no filler.
The statue wore white and grieved, Parker wasnt 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 theinchtall 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, Reading my review frombelow before I reread The Mourner, I was struck by one of my observations suggesting that Stark clearly liked Menlo so much he gave him a quarter of the novel.
Now surely all Parker novels are structured in four acts, with the third one given over to things that are going on around Parker and its not uncommon for the third section to be given over entirely to a completely different character, with the corresponding section of The Hunter given over to Mel Resnik.
Therefore, it cant have been that much of a surprise to my younger self that part of this book is handed to Parkers antagonist du jour, So what on Earth was I talking about But then I read the book again and saw exactly what I meant, In Augustus Menlo we dont have a normal run of the mill character for Parker to overcome, we have one whom Richard Stark clearly loves and adores,

When the book focuses on Manlo, it doesnt just look at the now and his motivations of the instant, it gives us his life story, What we have here is a beautiful mininovel, of a straightlaced European policeman, who is comfortably if boredly married and content to live out his life following rules until that is temptation is thrown in his way and he cracks triumphantly.
There really is enough material here for Manlo to have a book just to himself, Hes a wonderful character huge, exotic, European, a charmer, a beautiful talker with a smooth façade that hides a passionate yet corrupt heart, In short hes the greatest character Sydney Greenstreet never played,

The fact that Manlo arrives and totally dominates even his chapters with Parker makes for an odd juxtaposition, Hes such a big character, such a stagey character that he doesnt quite fit in to Parkers world and Parker doesnt fit into his, And yet Stark does make it work you have these characters who ostensibly speak different languages, one who is American hard man taciturn which the other is poetically loquacious, who are steeped in different political philosophies a kind of capitalism versus a kind of communism, Yet deep down they recognise in each other the same strain of dishonestly which means they know each other but cant possibly trust each other.


If memory serves this is the last book for some time where the repercussions of a previous book are played out with the story kicked into life by the theft of Parkers gun in The Outfit which was itself brutally grabbing at loose ends from The Hunter.
Parker is pressured into stealing a medieval statue from the home of a diplomat, but things very rapidly go wrong when other interested parties show their heads, It doesnt work seamlessly, but Stark here does have two fantastic characters in Parker and Manlo and the results are compulsive,



January
Interestingly the last Dortmunder novel I read 'Don't Ask' featured representatives of an Eastern European government behaving in a duplicitous fashion.
As does this Parker novel, The two books were published thirty years apart, but there was clearly something in the idea that Westlake/Stark enjoyed,

Perhaps its that in Augustus Manlo the loquacious torturer and hatchet man in the midst of surrendering to avarice Stark created a character much richer than the normal hapless type who attempts to betray Parker.
He is almost a twentieth century Dickensian grotesque, and Stark likes him so much he gives him an entire quarter of the book,

When Parker and Handy McKay are persuaded to steal a statue, things soon go haywire with the crosses and doublecrosses piling on top of each other, Published in, this is a fresh and entertaining read which contains little that would date it apart from one reference to the Second World War which would put Parker in his dotage for the later novels.
Indeed, with only a few changes this would still work today, and if I was an enterprising film producer looking to put Parker back on the big screen this is certainly one Id consider.


Also, it has one of the great Parker opening lines: “When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbitpunched him and took his gun away.
” If you read the previous novel then you know that Parker's gun was stolen ,after the failed assassination, by none other than his lover Bret, in order to retrieve it he has to steel a valuable statue for her father from a diplomat, things get complicated because said diplomat has been skimming from his government so they have already sent their agents to deal with him.
. . what stands out in this novel is Parker's out of character behavior : usually when a job sours he doesn't stick around , but when his partner is kidnapped he stays and comes to the rescue.
. . When Parker was in the middle of a night of passion with Bett Harrow, he got attacked by a wouldbe assassin from the Outfit, Parker dealt with the guy, but Bett ended up sneaking away with a gun that had Parkers prints on it, Since his prints are on file from an old arrest and Bett knows his best assumed identity, this could lead to big problems,

Turns out that Bett, who has a thing for the bad boys, has a rich daddy who wants to have a small statue worth a fortune stolen from a diplomat who doesnt realize what he has.
For a hefty fee and the return of the gun with his prints, Parker agrees to the job, However, the diplomats communist government thinks hes been embezzling and sends their most trusted spy to settle the matter just as Parker and his comrade Handy McKay are setting up their theft.
Will Parker be able to do the job and recover the incriminating gun

This is another standout Parker story with the usual complications and doublecrosses screwing with what should be a simple job.
Stark a/k/a Westlake uses this one to give us a better idea of Parkers code of ethics, such as it is, While Parker is always a nononsense pragmatist who is willing to do things like torture people for needed info, he considers it a wasteful and unpleasant way to do things.
He also shows that if he makes a deal, and if the other party holds up their end, that Parker will keep his word, Usually. But if anyone doublecrosses him, then hell stop at nothing to get what hes owed,

Another surprising thing in this one is the loyalty he shows to Handy McKay, When circumstances make it appear that ditching Handy would be a safer and more profitable option for several reasons, Parker still sticks with Handy and does quite a bit for him.
Maybe its because hes the closest thing to a friend that Parker has, but it was a little surprising seeing the unsentimental thief stick his neck out for somebody else.
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