Nobody Runs Forever

Richard Stark, the harder-edged pseudonym of humorous mystery writer Donald E. Westlake, continues the adventures of Parker, the noir antihero of a long-running series. The novel opens with a bang--or at least, a choked gasp--at a poker game, during which Parker strangles a wire-wearing fellow player. It's fortunate for Parker that he committed the murder before the informer was able to transmit any salient details of the theft that the players were planning, but Parker's luck ends there. When he embarks upon a fresh scheme to rob an armored truck, the heist also seems certain to go awry, thanks to the inadequacy of his new co-conspirators as well as two bounty hunters on the trail of the murdered informer.