Richard Stark
1) The handle
Baron is clever—perhaps too clever. He sits on the heavily protected island of Cockaigne, a mini–Las Vegas forty miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, raking in as much as $250,000 some nights, laughing at the Outfit, who can't collect their cut. Now the Outfit can no longer stand the loss of face—not to mention the loss of revenue. That's why they've sent for Parker, who knows that the line between success and failure on this score
...Between Parker's 1961 debut and his return in the late 1990s, the whole world of crime changed. Now fake IDs and credit cards had to be purchased from specialists; increasingly sophisticated policing made escape and evasion tougher; and, worst of all, money had gone digital—the days of cash-stuffed payroll trucks were long gone.
But cash isn't everything: Flashfire and Firebreak find Parker going after, respectively,
3) Slayground
5) Comeback
10) The Score
It was an impossible crime: knock off an entire North Dakota town called Copper Canyon—clean out the plant payroll, both banks, and all the stores in one night. Parker called it "science fiction," but with the right men (a score of them), he could figure it out to the last detail. It could work. If the men behaved like pros—cool and smart, if they didn't get impatient, start chasing skirts, or decide to take the opportunity to settle
...