"I think what they liked about Parker was that he had chosen to reject society, rather than the other way around. He was the prowling outsider, but it hadn't been forced on him. Or maybe not."

- Donald Westlake, The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany

Richard Stark's Parker novels were reintroduced to modern audiences with Darwyn Cooke's comic book adaptations and in the process, these seminal classics of crime fiction have reached readers that might have generally found the genre unwelcoming. Parker has always been an outsider though, and his exploits have historically resonated with more than just the stereotypical Stark fan. We offer an eclectic collection of reviews, thoughts, obscure finds and news from a different perspective.

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In Defence of Grofield: Stark’s Non-hero

03/08/2026

The four Alan Grofield novels have often been looked at as an addendum to Richard Stark’s Parker series, an afterthought for readers to come to only once they’d finished the sixteen hardboiled novels that had made the author a household name in the world of crime fiction. Why these books have been relegated to the status of lesser efforts can be attributed to several factors, all of which we’ll take a look at in turn, but the facts remain that the Grofield novels were released concurrently with the Parker ones, they mark the first hardcovers of Stark’s career and they’re his only spin-off series — in fact, Donald Westlake’s only spin-off in a bibliography consisting of entries in the hundreds. By all accounts, Grofield’s adventures should at the very least be objects of interest to those invested in Stark’s complete canon, but in the decades past their publication, their reputation has only deteriorated.

the novels

The Grofield solo novels are counted as part of the original twenty-book series, as per the back cover blurb on the Butcher's Moon first edition, and appear in the in-universe chronological order.