https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1ix8xi4/the_hunter_by_richard_stark/
created by Strange-Avenues on 24/02/2025 at 18:21 UTC
13 upvotes, 6 top-level comments (showing 6)
I would like to open this post by saying I have watched Payback starring Mel Gibson a hundred times at least and I knew the Parker Novels were out there but I finally got the chance to read the first one.
The Hunter by Richard Stark or Donald E. Westlake as Stark was a pen name he used for these books, is captivating l. The descriptions are vivid and telling, the story flows well and yes there are flashbacks but they work with the structure of the story.
Are there issues with the novel?
Well it is a product of it's time which was 1962. So the women in the story aren't treated well and violence against them is rampant, the women of the story are either sexual objects or just there to be mistreated.
I would say surprisingly for that era there is almost no racism in the novel. The only racism within the writing that I caught was the use of the word coloured for black people but beyond that being the verbiage of the time I didn't catch anything else.
What about the story?
Well it is a heist/revengr story and it displays the full Malice of our protagonist Parker. He is callous and has no compunction about killing or being cruel.
In one scene he accidentally kills a beauty salon owner and she was just in the place he wanted to use to keep an eye on another location. He knocked her out, tied her up and gagged her, she had a breathing issue and died without him noticing until he realized she should have woken up. His only thoughts are of the inconvenience pf her dying and how it was stupid for her to die and it shouldn't have happened.
The revenge story and the heist are well written but none of the players of the story are good people. I enjoyed the novel and as I said it was captivating and I am looking forward to reading the other Parker novels.
However if you like the Parker character from the Jason Statham film Parker or Porter from Payback, which are the most recent adaptations on film for the character I would say be ready to see a much darker character.
Parker considers himself a professional heist man and if he does a job he gets his cut. How he is presented in this first novel.told me everything I needed to know. He has no compunctions about killing, no conscience if he kills an innocent, he is an amoral character who in my opinion may be a sociopath although I am no professional on that front.
Comment by Indifferent_Jackdaw at 24/02/2025 at 19:19 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think this series only gets better, some of the best heist storylines I have ever read and Parker is that rare beast a truly morally grey protagonist.
Yes there is a bit of sexism, but speaking from a female perspective I like that in a series about amoral criminals, the women in their lives are frequently flaky bitches. Enough of the sainted martyr wife, give me some shallow stupid cows and sharp money hungry weapons.
Comment by Hellblazer1138 at 24/02/2025 at 19:35 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I went through a bunch of them when I was working night crew at a grocery store. The only downside I could see to reading them one after another was the intrusive thoughts on how to rob the place I worked at.
Comment by raygun22 at 25/02/2025 at 01:27 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Darwin Cooke did some comics of some of the stories that are amazing.
Comment by Veetupeetu at 24/02/2025 at 18:33 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I have enjoyed both Westlakes, the light one and the dark one. Both got a bit repetitive in the end, but overall both character arcs worked well in their own genre. I think it was very clever to divide his writing to two pen names, as otherwise the readers would have needed to separate the two themselves.
Comment by Bulawayoland at 24/02/2025 at 20:06 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You're gonna love what's coming up. To me, The Hunter was a pale shadow of what Westlake got done in The Sour Lemon Score, Deadly Edge, Slayground, Plunder Squad, and Butcher's Moon. But I really would skip the intermediate Parker novels as well as the ones that came later; they're not nearly up to the mark he set with those five. At least, in my opinion!
Comment by Home_racker at 25/02/2025 at 05:45 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You're gonna love The Man With the Getaway Face.