The Blackbird - (Alan Grofield Novels) by Richard Stark (Paperback)

About the Book

Donald E. Westlake, writing as Richard Stark, offers the third Alan Grofield novel of suspense. Grofield is a part-time actor, but the rest of the time he's a thief. But in this advernture, no one is giving Grofield the privilege of being asked if he'd like to heroically die for his country.

Book Synopsis

A classic, fast-paced crime thriller that opens with a Parker heist going sour, then turns into an international adventure starring Parker's associate Alan Grofield

Donald E. Westlake is one of the greats of crime fiction. Under the pseudonym Richard Stark, he wrote twenty-four fast-paced, hardboiled novels featuring Parker, a shrewd career criminal with a talent for heists. Using the same nom de plume, Westlake also completed a separate series in the Parker universe, starring Alan Grofield, an occasional colleague of Parker. While he shares events and characters with several Parker novels, Grofield is less calculating and more hot-blooded than Parker; think fewer guns, more dames.

Not that there isn't violence and adventure aplenty. The third Grofield novel, The Blackbird shares its first chapter with Slayground: after a traumatic car crash, Parker eludes the police, but Grofield gets caught. Lying injured in the hospital, Grofield is visited by G-Men who offer him an alternative to jail, and he finds himself forced into a deadly situation involving international criminals and a political conspiracy.

With a new foreword by Sarah Weinman that situates the Grofield series within Westlake's work as a whole, this novel is an exciting addition to any crime fiction fan's library.

Review Quotes

"A pleasure...Westlake's ability to construct an action story filled with unforeseen twists and quadruple-crosses is unparalleled."--San Francisco Chronicle

-- "San Francisco Chronicle"

"Whatever Stark writes, I read. He's a stylist, a pro, and I thoroughly enjoy his attitude."

--Elmore Leonard

"Fiercely distracting . . . . Westlake is an expert plotter; and while Parker is a blunt instrument of a human being depicted in rudimentary short grunts of sentences, his take on other characters reveals a writer of great humor and human understanding."--John Hodgman ""Parade""

"Nobody tops Stark in his objective portrayals of a world of total amorality."--New York Times

-- "New York Times"

"Energy and imagination light up virtually every page, as does some of the best hard-boiled prose ever to grace the noir genre." -Publishers Weekly

-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Grofield is a fun character; his adventures reach a new high in excitement." - Publishers Weekly

-- "Publishers Weekly"

"...as elegantly and unfussily written as you'd expect."--Nick Jones, Existential Ennui

--Nick Jonas "Existential Ennui"