Why I Won't See Parker, and Why Donald Westlake Is Spinning in His Grave

In 1962 Donald Westlake, under the pen name Richard Stark, wrote The Hunter. It was the first of a series of novels about Parker, an amoral criminal who kills whenever it suits his purpose.

Unlike Jim Thompson in The Killer Inside Me, Stark makes no attempt to analyze or explain Parker. His pre-criminal past (if he ever had one) is never mentioned. He has no conscience. He doesn’t seem to particularly want to kill; he just doesn’t care. In The Hunter, when he accidentally kills a w...