Book Report: The Handle by Richard Stark (1966, 1988)

Book coverI bought this book back in November, and I’ve already read it. I do sort of have a last-in-first-out method. The fresher the purchase, the closer I am to the eagerness to read the book that drove me to buy the book.

I’m not sure if this is the first Stark book I’ve read; I don’t have any other book reports on them on the blog here, so I haven’t read one in the last ten years. If I did, it probably came during my high school years, but I don’t remember it. So it’s like going into a series fresh except for knowing what the series character is and seeing a portrayal of it on the big screen (Payback, donchaknow?).

So Parker is an amoral, immoral bad guy who does heists for the Outfit. One or two a year, not enough to get greedy. This time, the Outfit wants him to hit an offshore casino run by a former German officer on an island claimed by Cuba. When the Feds get wind of the operation, they want Parker to grab the man himself and bring him in. So Parker cases the island, builds a team, and executes the plan–which goes awry when a rejected team member tips the casino that the heist is coming.

It’s a quick, pulp read. It’s just a little off in that some of the detail and description in the beginning is, I don’t know, a little overdone, a little out of the pace of a proper pulp novel. From the front matter of this book, I see that Stark is a pen name of Donald Westlake. You know, Westlake is an author of whom I’ve read a couple of books, but not someone I’ve rushed out to read all. I wonder if the poor pacing in the beginnings is what does it. I don’t know.

This volume is a LARGE PRINT EDITION from 1988, which is 22 years after the initial publication date. Man, those pulp books could stay in print, couldn’t they? Aside from some of the huge bestsellers today, what do you think will still be in print in 2034? Not a whole lot, probably, with the industry changing as it is. I mean, if you look at the sales stats today, the more modern edition I’ve linked to is still in the top 100,000 books sold on Amazon. So it’s got longevity that even my torpid review won’t dent.

Books mentioned in this review:

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