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    The Jugger: A Parker Novel
    The Jugger: A Parker Novel
    The Jugger: A Parker Novel
    Ebook191 pages2 hours

    The Jugger: A Parker Novel

    By Richard Stark and John Banville

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    They say the past always catches up to you—but if he can help it, Parker won’t let his. In The Jugger, an old contact who could blow Parker’s cover tells Parker he’s in trouble — then turns up dead. With Parker’s skeletons on the verge of escaping from their closet, he must put the pieces together—at any cost—before it’s too late.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateJun 15, 2010
    ISBN9780226772851
    The Jugger: A Parker Novel

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    Reviews for The Jugger

    4/5

    92 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5


      I am so glad I have the next novel close to hand. This was a great read; I can't wait to start the next one :)
    • 3/5
      A jugger sounds like some mythical creature out of Dr. Seuss's imagination. What in blazes is it? Apparently, in the world of Parker, a jugger is a safecracker, although I haven't seen that slang anywhere else..

      Joe Sheer is a retired jugger. But, he's still connected to the life. He knows everyone and has many good ideas. For Parker, this guy Sheer is his contact when he disappears into his Charles Willis identity. Someone wants to contact Parker about a job, they don't go and blow up his safe identity. They call Sheer. Sheer contacts Parker or holds the info till Parker makes contact. It's like having a private mail drop. So what happens when something goes wrong with this private mail drop? What happens if someone gets the drop on old man Sheer and finds out that Charles Willis is Parker. Well, all kinds of trouble and enough to fill a whole book.

      The Jugger is the sixth Parker novel and not considered to be one of the best. Westlake himself has had misgivings about this one, deciding after it was published that Parker wouldn't have gone to Sagamore to help anyone, but it's been pointed out that Parker's goal was preserving his clean identity of Charles Willis, a Parkerian selfish motive. This one differs from the other Parkers in that there wasn't a caper he was pursuing or escaping from, but Parker still had a mission here. When his contact ( Joe Sheer) went missing, Parker needed to know if anyone was on to Parker's own identity.
      It has some amusing bits when Parker gets to town and every yahoo he meets thinks Parker is after the same thing they are, but Parker just plays along.

      Particularly good was the creation of the character of Captain Younger, who, even for a bumbling small town cop, has a fascinating backstory. Younger is a yahoo who found his calling in the US Army and then after putting in his thirty years, doesn't know where to send his pension check to. His folks are gone. He doesn't know anyone he cares to contact. So he has his check sent general delivery to Sagamore where he lived thirty years earlier and ends up there.

      But Westlake's delivery is smooth and he tells the story well. Thumbs up.

      What's so great about these Parker books? They are written smoothly in a matter of fact style. It feels like Stark (Westlake) doesn't use any extraneous words. As the name implies, the verbiage is stark. It's not fancy. It's not flowery. Stark is just a great storyteller. If you haven't read the Parker series before, you are sure in for a treat.
    • 4/5
      I really liked this one. Stark was getting too formulaic & this one broke out of that mold in a great way. Parker is still himself, but the circumstances were not what he's used to. As usual, Steven R. Thorn did a good job of reading. Very well done!
    • 4/5
      An early Parker novel with all the parts already installed and working!
    • 5/5
      Typical pulp fiction. Very enjoyable. If you know Parker, you have the jist. Parker's long time friend dies. The sheriff thinks there's money. Another thief Parker knows thinks there's money. The neighbor thinks there's money. They are after Parker and the money. Mayhem ensues.
    • 4/5
      I remember the description of Reacher by another character in Tripwire: a condom stuffed with walnuts. That was how Lee Child described Reacher as being in shape. Now here's the description of Parker by the police chief in Jugger: "There was something almost frightening about Willis [Parker's pseudonym in the book]. He was big and rangy and hard-looking, with the coldest eyes Younger had ever seen, and hands as gnarled as tree branches. His clothes fit him like an impatient compromise with society, as though the man inside them could never really be comfortable in a suit and a white shirt, with a tie knotted around his neck and leather shoes encasing his feet." You decide which is more intimidating. "A condom stuffed with walnuts" just makes me giggle.All the Parker stories are enjoyable reads even though we end up hoping the bad guy wins. Most of the titles I have read involve a successful heist followed by screw-ups. This one is a little different in that everyone is looking for money that essentially doesn't exist, but everyone is willing to kill to find it. Parker gets caught up in the middle from which he must extricate himself, which less than satisfactory results for his future.
    • 3/5
      “Once or twice a year, Parker was in on an institutional robbery - the robbing from organizations rather than from individuals.” That’s Parker! He likes to work in groups, with specialists, and the jobs generally take less than a month, so he ‘works’ 4 to 6 weeks a year. His specialties? Planning and violence.In this story, Parker must check in on Joe Sheer, a man who knows too much about Parker, including what his old face looks like! It's probably the least exciting Parker book I've read so far, but it is still fun to read about a man who is "big and rangy and hard-looking, with the coldest eyes Younger had ever seen, and hands as gnarled as tree branches." A man who buries a young fella "in the cellar in the whole the kid had dug himself." THAT is Parker!Not much else to say about this particular tale. Maybe just - goodbye Charles Willis?

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