Another solid Parker novel. It struck me how developed the characters in this slim and fast novel are. In addition to Parker, we have the six guys in his crew, a detective, two gun molls, and "the amateur." I think I could draw all of them. Some, like Shelley or Rudd, have about a single paragraph dedicated to them, and yet, I know these guys completely. There are even two beautiful and tragic romances! Not to again compare him to P.G. Wodehouse, but Westlake is such a good writer that he makes it look easy to fit this, plus the main plot, in 150-odd, extremely readable pages.

The introduction to the book is the odd introduction which I enjoyed reading (although, spoiler alert, much?). Yes, as Luc Sante says, Parker is a professional, and the books are about a craftsman at work. The Parker novels are about Parker working through jobs, troubleshooting, and dealing with the extraneous factors which dog good professional work---Incompetence, the law, amateurs, the economy, etc. The fact that this works so well, I think, demonstrates two things.

First, that humans like seeing things being worked out. Something in us is hardcoding a certain puzzlemania. I recently had the pleasure to hang out with some toddlers, and if you put a few blocks in front of them, they can't help but to start stacking them. The joy of reading the Parker novels stems from that same ganglion. But it's not just puzzles, not just the "who-dunnit" aspect of mystery novels, which the Parker novels often spoil for you in the first half anyway. It really is just watching someone carefully and competently putting together a dovetail joint.

Second, that explaining how and why craftsmen ply their trade is an extremely effective way of character development. All of the characters are described through their former professions: Rudd the carpenter, Clinger the owner of a movie theater, Feccio the restauranteur, and so on. This works for an extremely simple reason: Our professions largely define us. How we think, how are bodies are shaped (Stark's physical description of his characters always relate back to their profession), what we get to do during out leisure time, the company we keep, and so on. Which brings us to the strange conclusion that Westlake is much closer to the Marxist or Realist tradition than any soi-disant Marxist writer, like Sally Rooney. In this way, Westlake weirdly reminds me of... Wes Anderson. It seems perverse to compare the grim and hardboiled Westlake to Wes Anderson, but perhaps their similarities run deeper than their differences. Like a chimp and a banana, they make look very different, but the stuff that really matters---ion channels and respiration---are all the same.

Rating: 5 footballs