The Handle

By Richard Stark

Book Overview

Parker takes down a whole illegal casino in this action-packed entry in the classic hard-boiled crime series Richard Stark's Parker novels are the hardest of hard-boiled, classic crime novels where... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380699001
• ISBN13: 9780380699001
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

big business heist!

a unique parker entry in that he is working for the outfit! requested to rob a baron who owns a casino on an island in the gulf of mexico... sounds kind of james bond... but becomes original and more parker about half way through. anyway the plan gets laid out, grofield (the score) and salsa (the outfit) are in with him and then everything goes sour when a bunch more players are introduced and information gets out. things go over anyway and grofield ends up bleeding and stumbling across the mexican desert two days later and the money is lost! craziness! excellent book!

Another Great Parker Novel

I gotta disagree with the reviewer below-- this is one of the best Parkers. "The Handle" (otherwise known as "Run Lethal") is from the era of the real "classics" in the series, and it's terse and nasty and unpredictable. Yes, it features Grofield, an actor who moonlights as a heistman with Parker-- he's kind of the un-Parker, and some don't like him. He starred in four novels written by Stark/Westlake, and I agree that they're not quite up to the brutal standards of the early Parkers in the amorality stakes (but I still like them a lot). Here, Grofield doesn't dominate the book, just takes a role as a part of the string Parker's assembling. He's a pro, and Parker can count on him. The book works well as a prelude to "Butcher's Moon," where Parker and Grofield find themselves in a similar situation. Never read a Parker novel? Try this or any of the books from the Sixties: they're stripped-down, no-frills action novels, and Stark/Westlake does it better than almost anybody else.