"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.

You can reach us at toughbusiness@mail.com -- we welcome inquiries, conversation, and any Parker-related ephemera!

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Pride Month Special: A Response to a Response and the Denial of Subtext

06/07/2026

Donald Westlake’s essay “The Hardboiled Dicks”, a meditation on the crime and mystery genres that had initially started out life as a lecture at the Smithsonian Institute on May 13th 1982, first saw print in The Armchair Detective Vol. 17 #1 (Winter 1984). Westlake approached the subject as a man who had been on both sides of the looking glass, as reader and writer. Having read enough and written enough and researched enough to be considered an authority on the topic at the hand, Westlake’s essay is one of the most significant — and most underrated — analytic pieces on crime fiction from someone who had actually been there to see the genre grow and develop over a number of decades. Most notably, it is also one of the very few explorations of crime fiction on a historical basis to approach the subject of homosexual subtext both in a positive manner and as an undeniable staple of the medium.

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.