Published: 1962.
AKA: Point Blank, The Exploiters, Payback.
Cover blurb: "The tables were turned now -- suddenly the hunted had become The Hunter".
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1963.
AKA: The Steel Hit.
Cover blurb: "It had cost him $18,000. If it kept him alive long enough to do what he had to do, it would be worth it."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1963.
Cover blurb: "Parker didn't like people to push him around -- not even The Outfit".
Review: "The Outfit is the third novel in the Parker series, completing the initial thematic trilogy started in The Hunter and jumpstarting a secondary story of its own, which gets the spotlight in The Mourner. It is also an exercise in style with a whirlwind of varying POV chapters, a deconstruction of the classic perception of the mob, and much more of a character study than it's ever been given credit for."

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Published: 1963.
AKA: The Blonde on Manhunt Street.
Cover blurb: "It takes a thief to catch a thief and Parker was one of the best".
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1964.
AKA: Killtown, Death Comes in Shes.
Cover blurb: "Twelve racketeers take over a whole town".
Review: "The Score, the fifth entry in the Parker series, is a particular favorite among readers, having been adapted not only by Darwyn Cooke as a comic but also by French director Alain Cavalier as the film Mise à Sac. The novel introduces a few recurring characters as part of its large cast, including Alan Grofield, and notably features the biggest job Parker would take on -- robbing an entire town.

To that extent, The Score sets the tone for the rest of the series. The previous three installments had been preoccupied with tying up loose ends leftover from The Hunter, but The Score presents a new kind of story revolving around the mechanics of the heist. If the remainder of the Parker novels follow the intricacies of putting together and pulling off a job, then this novel’s other recurring element becomes as vital as its plot structure. Alan Grofield appeared in three more Parker novels after his introduction, and starred in his own spin-off series of four solo novels."

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Published: 1965.
AKA: The Chicken and the Yegg, The Depraved Ones.
Cover blurb: "If Joe Sheer talked he could crucify Parker, so..."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1966.
AKA: The Split, The Deadly Seven.
Cover blurb: "Who except Parker would be brash enough to hold up a whole football stadium?"
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1966.
AKA: Run Lethal, Table-Stakes Redhead.
Cover blurb: "The terrifying story of the unlikely trio and the lush million dollar casino they dared to knock off".
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1967.
Cover blurb: "Grofield, free-lance extraordinary, rescues a damsel in distress in a life-or-death race across Mexico".
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1967.
AKA: The Naked Plunderers.
Cover blurb: "Here's Parker! When he's not working, he's as human as any of us. But Parker's a professional thief -- and on the job it's different..."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1969.
AKA: A Nymph for the Mafia.
Cover blurb: "Murder and mobsters put the finger on Alan Grofield, Mr. Cool himself, when he meets up with... The Dame".
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1967.
AKA: The Young Bedroom Raiders.
Cover blurb: "Here's Parker! Swinging at the wildest curve ever thrown a professional thief..."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1968.
AKA: The Women Sharers.
Cover blurb: "Here's Parker! Teaching a class in advanced jewel theft, with post-graduate work in kidnapping, mayhem, and applied terror..."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1969.
AKA: The Blood-Money Heist.
Cover blurb: "Here's Parker! Whipped into action by a renegade killer who'd pulled his last double-cross.."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1971.
Cover blurb: "Parker didn't like being a target. If there was killing to be done, he'd do it..."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1969.
Cover blurb: "Grofield takes a fall but rallies for a super encore with a hassle of international no-goods and a bounteous African lady spy".
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1971.
Cover blurb: "Parker had the money. Now he was trapped and the mob was closing in..."
Review: "In 1969, Richard Stark wrote The Blackbird, a twist-filled novel of international spy intrigue, told from the viewpoint of Parker's frequent partner in crime, Alan Grofield. Two years later, out of The Blackbird came Slayground, the 17th novel in the series. The two share a first chapter: a job goes wrong, one man ends up dead, and our two protagonists are separated. Slayground lays out the other side of the story: Parker ends up trapped in an amusement park with the Outfit trying to track him down.

Like the majority of Parker novels, Slayground deals most heavily in subtext. Stark's output had always had an undercurrent of experimentation, the books remain so tight and exciting to this very day for this exact reason, but the nature of his literary experiments had changed over time. The early half of the series tends towards genre changes (The Jugger features Parker trying to solve a mystery, The Seventh is a revenge thriller, The Handle plays with notions of James Bond-esque espionage), while the latter half constructs a relatively simple premise around one central theme (The Green Eagle Score is about psychology, The Sour Lemon Score explores identity, and so on). Slayground's central theme is aging, and the passing of time."

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Published: 1971.
AKA: The Man Who Fought Las Vegas’ Mad-Dog Heisters.
Cover blurb: "A professional actor, and equally professional thief, finds himself forcibly involved with a maniac and a heist that's pure murder."
Review: "Lemons Never Lie, the fourth and final novel starring a solo Alan Grofield, makes for an especially interesting entry in Richard Stark’s canon. Widely received by readers as a return to form, Stark’s story is in actuality a departure from Parker’s world as sharp and disorienting as any previous Grofield adventure had been – if not more so. If the previous trio of solos had been more obvious in their intentions, having given us exotic locations and international intrigue, then Lemons certainly treads familiar ground but ‘familiar’ is all it is. The reader gets the impression of having stepped through the looking glass. As is customary for Stark, it’s a rich and layered narrative, its texture given primarily by an exploration of Grofield’s identity."

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Published: 1972.
Cover blurb: "[...] Parker has to turn manhunter before he can get the job done."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 1974.
Cover blurb: "Now, short on cash, Parker comes back to town to collect his goods."
Review: Coming soon!

Published: 2025.

"The long-awaited French-language adaptation of The Sour Lemon Score has finally hit the stands and after our chat with the creative team earlier this month, we couldn’t be more excited to dive into the pages of the first Dupuis graphic novel released under the Aire Noire imprint. La Proie is as blunt, purposeful, direct and efficient as its protagonist – sometimes losing the finer touches of Stark’s original novel but never its edge.

Visually inspired by Darwyn Cooke’s hit graphic novel adaptations published by IDW, the book stands well on its own with writer/translator Doug Headline and artist Kieran at the helm. Once Cooke had established the visual language of what many would still consider the quintessential portrayal of Parker’s violent world, the real task of any follow-up is that of constructing its own identity. To that end, La Proie succeeds where others might have failed. Kieran’s use of texture – the fingerprints smudged all over in Parker’s wake – is innovative and downright thrilling, his stylized line art an homage to Cooke but never an imitation."

Published: 2025.

Play Dirty (2025) gets right to the heart of the novels. An expertly assembled showcase of moving pieces, Shane Black's latest film is an ode to Richard Stark's most enduring creation. Met by lacklustre reactions from some fans upon announcement, the finished product promises both entertainment and real passion for the source material.

From the moment Zen starts gunning down the other thieves in their hideout, it’s clear that this opening betrayal takes inspiration from The Sour Lemon Score, made even more apparent by Parker crashing through a window the same way he does in the novel to escape George Uhl. At first glance, Zen seems like a stand-in for a Lynn type, a love interest who betrays Parker from the start. But it’s much more apt to say she’s this film’s Uhl, especially when the wife of one of Parker’s murdered allies asks him to get revenge on Zen for his death, mirroring a near-identical scene with Grace Weiss in the novel.