The Blackbird An Alan Grofield Novel
by Richard Stark, foreword by Sarah Weinman
University of Chicago Press, 2012
Paper: 978-0-226-77042-0 | Electronic: 978-0-226-77043-7
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226770437.001.0001
ABOUT THIS BOOKREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Donald E. Westlake is one of the greats of crime fiction. Under the pseudonym Richard Stark, he wrote twenty-four fast-paced, hardboiled novels featuring Parker, a shrewd career criminal with a talent for heists. Using the same nom de plume, Westlake also completed a separate series in the Parker universe, starring Alan Grofield, an occasional colleague of Parker. While he shares events and characters with several Parker novels, Grofield is less calculating and more hot-blooded than Parker; think fewer guns, more dames.

Not that there isn’t violence and adventure aplenty. The third Grofield novel, The Blackbird shares its first chapter with Slayground: after a traumatic car crash, Parker eludes the police, but Grofield gets caught. Lying injured in the hospital, Grofield is visited by G-Men who offer him an alternative to jail, and he finds himself forced into a deadly situation involving international criminals and a political conspiracy.

With a new foreword by Sarah Weinman that situates the Grofield series within Westlake’s work as a whole, this novel is an exciting addition to any crime fiction fan’s library.

REVIEWS

“A pleasure…Westlake’s ability to construct an action story filled with unforeseen twists and quadruple-crosses is unparalleled.”—San Francisco Chronicle


— San Francisco Chronicle

“Nobody tops Stark in his objective portrayals of a world of total amorality.”—New York Times

— New York Times

“…as elegantly and unfussily written as you'd expect.”—Nick Jones, Existential Ennui

— Nick Jonas, Existential Ennui

“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
— Publishers Weekly

“Grofield is a fun character; his adventures reach a new high in excitement.” – Publishers Weekly
— Publishers Weekly

“Fiercely distracting . . . . Westlake is an expert plotter; and while Parker is a blunt instrument of a human being depicted in rudimentary short grunts of sentences, his take on other characters reveals a writer of great humor and human understanding.”
— John Hodgman, "Parade"

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

The Blackbird

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thrirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight