Breakout by Richard Stark

 


In the long list of 24 Parker novels, Breakout by Donald E. Westlake writing as Richard Stark takes its place as #21.

But Breakout is singular.

Breakout is unique in that the novel covers the other side of the world Parker inhabits. As every Stark fan knows, in each and every Parker novel there was always, always the chance of Parker getting nabbed by the law and sent to prison.

Oh, yes, ever since Parker walked across the George Washington Bridge back in The Hunter (Parker #1), Parker faced the looming prospect of time in the slammer. It never happened in Parker #1 thru #20, but the very real possibility was always there.

Parker would be staring at years in prison for a very good reason: prior to striding across the bridge to Manhattan, Parker spent some months in a California detention center after being picked up as a vagrant, the consequence of a double-cross following a heist. But Parker killed a prison guard and escaped shortly before his scheduled release (Parker, wolf on the inside, human on the outside, just couldn't help himself). And now that the law has his fingerprints, Parker would face Murder One.

In the opening pages of Breakout, a job goes quickly sour, an alarm in a warehouse, and the law catches Parker and sends him to prison. My advice for anybody reading this review: DO NOT read Breakout as your first Parker novel. To better appreciate the full impact of Parker in prison, read a number of others in the series prior to picking up this one.

"I spent four nights and five days in that jail, and hated it, even more than you might expect. Every instant was intolerable. I hate being here now; I hate being here now; I hate being here now." These are the words of author Donald E. Westlake after his stint in jail following getting caught stealing microscopes from the science building when he was a college undergrad.

And here's Westlake/Stark writing about Parker's first days in prison:

"The first week is the hardest. The change from outside, from freedom to confinement, from spreading your arms wide to holding them in close to your body, is so abrupt and extreme that the mind refuses to believe it. Second by second, it keeps on being a rotten surprise, the worst joke in the world. You keep thinking, I can’t stand this, I’m going to lose my mind, I’m going to wig out or off myself, I can’t stand this now and now and now.

Then, sometime in the second week, the mind’s defenses kick in, the brain just flips over, and this place, this impossible miserable place, just becomes the place where you happen to live. These people are the people you live among, these rules are the rules you live within. This is your world now, and it’s the other one that isn’t real any more.

Parker wondered if he’d be here that long."

Parker wondering how long he'd have to say in prison is the critical question; in other words, will prison change him as he knows prison has changed other men - such as Lempke.

Stark fans will remember The Rare Coin Score (Parker #9) where Parker can see Lempke, a reliable heister from the past, is now a man prison has made jumpy and prematurely old, a man who has been stripped of all his good sense and so eager for a score he can't even smell a job that's lemons all the way. If this isn't enough, a further revelation some days later: Lempke appears to have lost his nerve, an absolute must when pulling a job.

Parker knows he must remain forever Parker. To do so, Parker has to bust out soon...but there are problems, tops among their number: Stoneveldt, built seven years ago with exactly zero escapes, is located in a big, empty, flat prairie in the middle of the country and Parker doesn't know anybody he'll ever come in contact with in Stoneveldt. He'll have to find a couple of guys like himself: competent, trustworthy and desperate (facing life sentences or close to it). He'll also have to have someone on the outside at the ready to drive them away.

How Parker works out the jail break is for Richard Stark to tell. I'll shift to a couple of themes running through the entire novel:

Parker finds his partners, Marcantoni and Williams - Marcantoni is white and Williams is black. There's the whole dynamic of race. Understandably, Williams is wary about teaming up with two white guys but he can sense Parker doesn't give a damn about skin color and Parker is sharp enough to work out the break. Marcantoni isn't thrilled about Williams but Marcantoni trusts Parker's judgment and figures anything is better than sticking around in jail.

An additional bonus: Parker recognizes immediately Williams is both educated and highly intelligent. Sidebar: the inclusion of Williams is a deserved nod to all Parker fans who are Black Americans, guys (and perhaps gals) who know what it's like being alienated from mainstream society, people who might have racked up their own jail time. Actually, for me, the inclusion of Williams adds great realism to the tale, after all, a huge percentage of the population in American jails are Black men.

As an outlaw, Parker maintains a certain understanding of when you offer help to your partner or partners and when you simply walk away (usually run away or drive away). Stated in other words, Parker doesn't keep tabs or "debts owed" the way several of his fellow outlaws keep these tabs. How and why Parker makes decisions at critical junctures in Breakout makes for a fascinating study. Keep a lookout while you're reading.

Breakout is actually the story of a number of Parker breakouts, the big jail break from Stoneveldt being the first and taking up a third of the novel. The final two-thirds will have you on the edge of your seat, for sure. Breakout rocks the big house as vintage Parker from first page to last.


American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933-2008