The Jugger

parker finds out that his go-between, joe sheer, is dead. he comes to his town for the funeral and ends up mixed up with a hick cop and an unknown person who both are looking for joe's mysterious hidden fortune that parker doubts even exists. many twists and turns from parker being knocked out in a basement by some person wearing a burlap sack for a mask to faking someones suicide. a great book!

Richard Stark (aka the late Donald Westlake)hits another bulls-eye in the brilliant Parker series. The action is always taut and relentless and the writing terse. The no-nonsense nothing wasted style perfectly suits the protagonist, Parker, as he works his cool professional way through another complicated heist. This is pure hard-boiled nihilistic noir at its very best! Vale Donald Westlake!

I read that Stark thought "The Jugger" was his worst book. I disagree. I think I see where he's coming from, though. This story and book are out of character for Parker. He actually has to explain himself a couple of times and his enemies are outside of his world. So, it's a bit different from the previous books. I think, however, that this is the best plotted since the first book. I really enjoyed the novel and it could easily stand alone outside of the series. I hope "The Seventh" comes back in print soon.

Joe Sheer, a fine old man, retired safecracker (jugger), has been Parker's contact man for years. Parker receives a disquieting letter from Joe and wonders if he is getting a little old for the job. Parker decides to pay him a visit, not to present a gold watch, but perhaps to help Joe along to his eternal rest. The usually overly careful Parker flies to Sagamore, Nebraska to have a hands-on visit with Joe using his clean-as-a whistle alias, Charles Willis.Picture Smalltown U.S.A. Friendly folks, picket fences, nicely clipped lawns, tree shaded lots, porch swings, and you have Sagamore. Now picture deadly purposeful Parker strolling down the sidewalks. Neither one of them are quite ready for the other. Alas for Parker, there is no heist this time, Joe is already dead, and the local and state police are taking far too much interest in Charles Willis. Parker has to put his superb planning abilities in high gear to settle the natives, and solve the mystery of Joe's alleged buried fortune. Parker's sole interest in this is to get Charles Willis back to Miami unknown and uninvestigated.This is a fine Parker outing where Parker is the only one in Sagamore with good sense, and with much exasperation has to lead the law to the truth. To get the job done, a few homicides happen, and a left over lady with "the eyes of a pickpocket and the mouth of a whore" helps him out. "The Jugger" is best read after you have read a couple other Parker novels for background. For all other Parker aficionados, this is choice.

Talk about waking from a coma. The Jugger begins confusingly - good confusingly, that is - with Parker in a hotel room in a small town in Nebraska. There's a dead guy in the obituary column, an annoying guy hanging around Parker, a cop outside. Everyone knows more than the reader at this stage, but nobody really knows anything. Turns out after a few chapters that the dead guy is the titular Jugger - a locks man who knew too much about Parker. The annoying guy and the cop think the dead guy knew something else - like where his life's earnings are hidden. Parker needs to make sure no one else knows what the dead guy really knew.The story unfolds piece by piece, and Parker responds in the only way imaginable for one of fiction's most amoral characters.Tough, very tight.