The coldblooded criminal known as Parker tries, and fails, to stay under the radar in rural New England: “Nobody does the noir thriller better than Stark.” —San Diego Union-Tribune In Ask the Parrot, the followup to Nobody Runs Forever, ruthless thief Parker is back on the run, dodging dogs, cops, and even a helicopter. His escape brings him to rural Massachusetts, where he is forced to work with a small-town recluse nursing a grudge against the racetrack that fired him. Even in hiding, Parker manages to get up to no good. It’ll be a deadly day at the races . . . “Richard Stark’s Parker crime novels are the ultimate page-turners.” —Jonathan Ames, The Boston Globe “Parker is a blunt instrument of a human being.” —John Hodgman, Parade “Often funny, laced with Stark’s brutally morbid humor . . . fast-moving, tense scenes that drip with potential violence before, inevitably, exploding into actual violence.” —Christopher Bahn, AV Club

“Lots of bleak fun . . . This stellar series just gets better and better.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) The saga begins with a poker game gone lethally awry. When Parker goes in on a messy scam—stealing an armored car—with someone he barely knows, as usual the amateurs get in the way of the job. From a nervous ex-con and his well-intentioned sister to a bank manager’s two-timing wife and a beautiful, relentless cop, too many people have their hands too close to Parker’s pie. Even when he sees the job turning bad, he can’t let go of the score—and there just might be nowhere left to run . . . “Another thrill ride worth staying up all night and calling in sick tomorrow morning for.” ?Austin Chronicle “The shrewdest sociopath this side of Tom Ripley . . . a great hard-boiled series.” —Booklist

Even Parker makes mistakes. Locked up in a prison from which no one has ever escaped, it's only a matter of time before the law uncovers his real name - and his extensive criminal past. To get out, Parker must take on the only accomplices he can find - yet his fellow convicts demand a price: help with another job. Their plan has too many weak links. And Parker isn't a man who likes complications. But with a big potential payoff and no other options, Parker is willing to chance it, just this once.

Between Parker’s 1961 debut and his return in the late 1990s, the whole world of crime changed. Now fake IDs and credit cards had to be purchased from specialists; increasingly sophisticated policing made escape and evasion tougher; and, worst of all, money had gone digital—the days of cash-stuffed payroll trucks were long gone. But cash isn’t everything: Flashfire and Firebreak find Parker going after, respectively, a fortune in jewels and a collection of priceless paintings. In Flashfire, Parker’s in West Palm Beach, competing with a crew that has an unhealthy love of explosions. When things go sour, Parker finds himself shot and trapped—and forced to rely on a civilian to survive. Firebreak takes Parker to a palatial Montana "hunting lodge" where a dot-com millionaire hides a gallery of stolen old masters—which will fetch Parker a pretty penny if his team can just get it past the mansion’s tight security. The forests of Montana are an inhospitable place for a heister when well-laid plans fall apart, but no matter how untamed the wilderness, Parker’s guaranteed to be the most dangerous predator around.

In The Handle, Parker is enlisted by the mob to knock off an island casino guarded by speedboats and heavies, forty miles from the Texas coast. With double-crosses and double-dealings from the word go, Parker knows the line between success and failure on this score would be exactly the length of the barrel of a .38.

Parker and his team attempt to get past a mansion's security and heist a Montana millionaire's stolen paintings. No matter how untamed the wilderness, Parker's guaranteed to be the most dangerous predator around.

How can you save a burning forest with just sprinkles of water? This timeless Buddhist tale may just have the answer! In this ancient tale of one of the Buddha’s past lives, the Buddha is born as a little gray parrot who takes it upon herself to save her beloved forest home from a raging fire. Even though she can only sprinkle drops of water onto the blaze, her perseverance, courage, and compassion change everything, eventually saving the forest in an unexpected way. Zen teacher and acclaimed storyteller Rafe Martin and award-winning illustrator Demi render this centuries-old classic into a beautiful and timeless tale that will inspire all of us to find our own bravery and to act selflessly for the benefit of all.

After the publication of Butcher's Moon in 1974, Donald Westlake said, "Richard Stark proved to me that he had a life of his own by simply disappearing. He was gone." And 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 novels that followed showed that neither Parker nor Stark had lost a step. Backflash finds Parker checking out the scene on a Hudson River gambling boat. Parker's no fan of either relaxation or risk, however, so you can be sure he's playing with house money--and he's willing to do anything to tilt the odds in his favor. Featuring a great cast of heisters, a striking setting, and a new introduction by Westlake's close friend and writing partner, Lawrence Block, this classic Parker adventure deserve a place of honor on any crime fan's bookshelf.

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

BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE • From the internationally bestselling author of The Sense of an Ending comes a literary detective story of a retired doctor obsessed with the 19th century French author Flaubert—and with tracking down the stuffed parrot that once inspired him. • “A high literary entertainment carried off with great brio.” —The New York Times Book Review Julian Barnes playfully combines a detective story with a character study of its detective, embedded in a brilliant riff on literary genius. A compelling weave of fiction and imaginatively ordered fact, Flaubert's Parrot is by turns moving and entertaining, witty and scholarly, and a tour de force of seductive originality.