Comeback

The long-awaited return of the legendary thief created by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) in “a riveting tale of betrayal and escape” (Chicago Tribune).

Foreword by Lawrence Block

After the bloodbath of Butcher’s Moon, the action-filled blowout Parker adventure, Donald Westlake said, “Richard Stark proved to me that he had a life of his own by simply disappearing. He was gone.” And for nearly twenty-five years, he stayed away, while readers waited.

But nothing bad is truly gone forever, and Parker’s as bad as they come. According to Westlake, one day in 1997, “suddenly, he came back from the dead, with a chalky prison pallor”—and the resulting novel, Comeback, showed that neither Stark nor Parker had lost a single step. Knocking over a highly lucrative religious revival show, Parker reminds us that not all criminals don ski masks—some prefer to hide behind the wings of fallen angels.

“Parker has not lost his touch—or his nerve . . . In a world of warped values, an honest crook like Parker is a true treasure.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

“Comeback is brisker, faster, and funnier than the earlier novels . . . Elmore Leonard wouldn’t write what he does if Stark hadn’t been there before. And Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t write what he does without Leonard . . . Old master that he is, Stark does all of them one better.” —Los Angeles Times

“Energy and imagination light up virtually every page, as does some of the best hard-boiled prose ever to grace the noir genre.” —Publishers Weekly