The Seventh: A Parker Novel

By Richard Stark and Luc Sante

The robbery was a piece of cake. The getaway was clean. The only thing left to do is split the cash—then it all goes wrong. In The Seventh, the heist of a college football game turns sour and the take is stolen from right under Parker’s nose. With the cops on his tail, Parker must figure out who crossed him—and how he can pay the culprit back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780226772943

Book preview

Reviews for The Seventh

[jimmaclachlan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another heist, but with so many twists & turns, not to mention a perfect ending. Only Parker! Excellent. On to the next!

[dh1writer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Parker sets out with six others to steal the gate receipts from a football game. Things don't go quite as planned. A good read, but not as enjoyable as the first Parker Books.

[breic-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Short and fun read. It has a few gems, including a title-explaining punchline on the last page. > "I don't want to be the Lone Ranger, Lieutenant, honest to Christ, I'm not the Robert Ryan type." "You just want to be in on it." When the lieutenant was being sarcastic, he wanted the world to know about it; he carved his words out of blocks of wood and bounced them off the floor. Dougherty let the sarcasm thud by. "That's right," he said.

[davewilde-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Seven cities. Seven brides for seven brothers. Seven dwarfs. Seven sisters. Seven cities. Seven deadly sins. The Seventh. The seventh book of the 24 (or 28 if you count the Grofields) books in the Parker series. Seven shares of the loot Parker and six accomplices got by robbing a college football game. A seventh.
This book is a short 156 pages of excellent hardboiled crime fiction. It opens in a crazy scene with Parker returning from a ten-minute trip to the liquor store for beer and cigarettes only to return to Ellie’s apartment (some girl he was staying with) to find her still sitting naked and cross-legged on the bed, but now with a long sword through her chest and pinned to the wall behind her. All the loot that has not yet been divided into sevenths is gone. Within thirty seconds as he takes in the scene, the police arrive and, not only see the body, but see the closet filled with machine guns. In the few brief moments he was gone, someone killed the girl, took the loot, and set Parker up to take the fall with the cops and fall with his six partners who aren’t going to believe that Parker lost the loot just like that.

Thus begins a taut, nasty little thriller with Parker racing around time trying to find the killer and the loot while the killer plays sniper and takes potshots at Parker from nearby locations. The whole setup for the football game robbery is played out and it is a doozy. There are great scenes in this one as Parker works to convince his partners of his innocence and nearly succeeds. There are great scenes of where his partners have holed up. And, Parker trying to cooperate with the homicide detective, a mutual interest in finding the real killer, you know.

This book feels just like a movie as it unfolds and it would not be surprising if it was planned to be one. Usually by the seventh book most series start to go stale and peter out. Not this one. Westlake (Stark) is at his best here even when it gets a bit comical. Well, comical for a Parker novel. The only fault with this one is that it is such a quick read, leaving the reader wanting for more.

[ecw0647 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Donald Westlake, a.k.a. Richard Stark, is having more fun, even with the title, as this has several meanings in the context of the book: seventh in the series, it’s the seventh split of the take, etc. Anyone familiar with the Parker series will certainly enjoy this book, as did I, with a couple of caveats. Unlike most of his other Parker novels, this one has multiple points-of-view, that of the killer as well as the detective on the case. I don’t remember that in the other Parker novels I have read. I found it a bit disconcerting.

Parker, short on cash, has allied himself with six other career criminals in the heist of a football game’s receipts. He shacks up with Ellen to hide until the heat from the robbery dies down, only to come back from getting some cigs and find her dead in the apartment and the entire stash from the robbery gone. (I found it odd they would have trusted one person with the entire take.) He insists he’ll find the killer and the money. The robber in the meantime, an amateur, has decided he needs to take out Parker.

Some fine twists to bollix things up a bit. Fine entertainment.

I'm very pleased that Chicago has decided to reissue all the Parker series both in trade paperback and ebook formats.

One complaint: On the Kindle version, every occurrence of "tly" becomes "dy" They need to fix that.

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Parker...lumbers through the pages of Richard Stark's noir novels scattering dead bodies like peanut shells..." - William Grimes"Richard Stark's Parker... is refreshingly amoral, a thief who always gets away with the swag." - Stephen KingWell, maybe not always, but I do love me some Parker! For reasons like this - “Parker didn’t give a damn who’d killed her, or why. It aggravated him because his plans were loused up now.” :-)This is book #7, involving a heist of a college football game. 7th book, 7 men pull it off. But then, the loot gets stolen from them! "Somewhere in this dirty city there was a guy who had stolen two suitcases full of money from Parker. And shot at Parker twice. And killed the girl Parker was living with. And tried to set Parker up to take the fall." From what I know, from the first 6 books, that man is in BIG trouble!Very much enjoyed the shootout at the Vimorama! Very much enjoyed the whole book! Book 6 wasn't my cup of tea, so it's nice to see Parker, and the author, back to his regular doings! Not sure which one I'll read next, but I do know that another Parker novel is in my future!

[bjkelley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nice tight story, maybe sort of typical Parker story - heist goes good, then something goes wrong after the heist. With the Parker books, things usually work out for Parker. Same scenario in the Dortmunder books, things don't work out for Dortmunder.