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Parker #6
The Jugger
Elderly Joe Sheer, a former safecracker, is murdered, but before he dies, he is forced to implicate Parker in some very shady dealings that could mean Parker's own funeral. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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December 15, 2021
The Jugger, a propulsive novel, a novel with drive, a novel hard to put down. However, in the stack of 24 Parker novels, The Jugger is the odd book out - and here's the reason: Parker novels include a four part heist structure - 1) planning the heist, 2) assembling the crew, 3) the heist itself, 4) the escape. With The Jugger, none of these four steps apply since there is no heist.
In case you're wondering about the title, one prime reason: a bank robber is called a jugger, jug being criminal slang for bank - and The Jugger revolves around a retired safecracker by the name of Joe Sheer.
Donald E. Westlake writing as Richard Stark frames The Jugger, #6 in his Parker series, thusly: Parker receives two letters from Joe Sheer, the second letter informing Parker he has problems and needs help. Parker can tell from the shaky handwriting if old man Sheer is being pressured to reveal details on his past partners in crime, Sheer is weak and knows enough about Parker to skin him alive. Thinking he might have to kill the old man, Parker travels to Joe Sheer's small Nebraska town.
Once in town, Parker discovers Joe Sheer is already dead, cause of death, or so he's told, heart attack. Two more surprises hit Parker: a crackpot crook, a little guy named Tiftus, assumes Parker is in town for the same reason he is, to find something Joe Sheer hid away. Likewise, the local police captain thinks Parker is just the man with all the answers. Meanwhile, Parker wonders what the hell is going on.
We follow Parker step by step as he moves deeper into the mystery. In many ways, reading The Jugger reminds me of my reading Raymond Chandler. Fortunately, Parker had two things in common with Philip Marlowe: quick wits and a big, strong body, tough enough to take a beating and bounce right back.
The Jugger contains too many twists and surprises for me to say anything about plot (a reader is best finding out what happens next while actually reading the book). Thus, in the spirit of a movie trailer, I'll flash snips from several scenes to entice anyone reading to pick up this thriller and give it a whirl. Here goes:
Pipsqueak Who Pisses Parker Off
Richard Stark must have had a blast creating the character of Tiftus. The fifty-something runt with the leathery weasel face wears an orange shirt, green pants and black-and-white shoes. Upon meeting Parker, Tiftus blurts out, "Parker, you're an ugly man. You're uglier with the new face, and that's a wonder." (A plastic surgeon gave Parker a new face back there in Parker #2).
And then, a few scenes later, not getting the message even after Parker socked him hard in the stomach, Tiftus insists on following Parker with the goal of working with Parker as partners. When Parker comes out on the street, Tiftus comes over smiling, tapping his head and asks, "Am I smart?" Parker answers, "No."
Tiftus the unreliable loser, the brainless alky who makes his living by small time thievery and giving tips at the race track. Any bets on colorful bozo Tiftus making it past the first half of the novel?
Funeral Guy
Parker goes to the funeral home to meet Bernard Gliffe, the director who handled Joe Sheer's burial. Classic Richard Stark quick sketch - so much conveyed in so few words:
"Gliffe at last came through the draperies at the far end of the room, like an apologetic Sydney Greenstreet. He was an extremely tall, somewhat heavy-set man, with sloping shoulders and broad beam and flatfooted stance. He was about fifty, black hair turning grey at the temples the way it was supposed to, face pallid as bread dough and jowly as a squirrel. His eyes were pale blue, watery, slightly protuberant beneath skimpy eyebrows; at the moment they were blinking away sleep. He was wearing a black suit and black tie.
He came forward as improbably light as a Macy's parade balloon, his dead-fish hand extended."
Commedia dell'arte Capitano
Captain Younger has been on Parker's tale from the get-go. In Part 3 we're giving the detailed backstory of Fatso, the local police captain - a green, frightened dumb kid from small town Nebraska, a career army man (nearly all thirty years as a private), taking over a seventeen man police force back at his home town, taking over as Captain Younger. Wow!
Nobody has a higher opinion of Captain Younger than Captain Younger himself. After all, as he tells Charles Willis (the phony name Parker uses) again and again, he's the Captain who runs this town. Richard Stark states eloquently, "Give a moron a position of authority and he forgets he's a moron."
Many are the memorable dialogues between Captain Younger and Parker. Captain Younger sees himself as a savvy mastermind who will walk away the winner, a very rich winner.
Younger said, "So I'm not the hick cop you thought I was, huh?"
Parker looked at him and shook his head. "No," he said.
One telling characteristic of a buffoon: they're so absorbed in everybody around them acknowledging how great they are, they fail to grasp how people can use irony and misdirection against them.
State Law
The first time Parker catches sight of Regan whose in charge of the state police, he sees: "a tall, straight, strong-looking guy with a grey crewcut and a professor's face." Regan is no fool and Parker knows when Regan looks at him, Regan smells outlaw.
Later in the novel, Parker encounters Regan again. "With his grey crewcut and eyeglasses and hard mouth and the topcoat he didn't look like a college teacher anymore, he looked like what he was; a hard, smart cop, smelling something wrong and not wanting to let go."
Phooey on Captain the clown Younger. Regan's the man Parker must deal with - and he knows it. Will Parker work things out the way he wants? You'll have to read for yourself but I'll give a hint: a little luck never hurt anybody, even a wolf like Parker.
American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933-2008
February 23, 2024
3.5 stars
"Now, am I smart?" -- Adolph Tiftus, smarmy miscreant familiar with Parker's reputation
"Already today I hit you twice. Once I knocked the wind out of you, then I knocked the consciousness out of you. Here you are back the third time. Do you call that 'smart'?" -- Parker, clearly not in the mood for this $#%&, on page 23
Although not quite as solid as the previous three entries, The Jugger (a now-dated slang term for a criminal operative, such as a bank robber or illicit safecracker) is still a reasonably good effort in the long-running series of pulpy paperbacks featuring the antiheroic thief known only as 'Parker.' In this particular plot, Parker is summoned by an elderly former felonious colleague who has retired under a pseudonym to a quiet Nebraska town. Parker arrives but learns that the old man's funeral is the next day (!), and is promptly accosted by a wannabe crook named Adolph Tiftus (my God, how his parents must've hated him to bestow such a horrible moniker) and the corrupt / conniving local police chief. Thus instead of a true heist narrative, Parker works to determine if the old man's death was murder or suicide, and like a chess grandmaster begins to quietly but fatally move all involved persons into positions where 1.) they fully get what's coming to them, and 2.) Parker can abscond without being apprehended by the encroaching heat. Again, it was not my favorite of author Stark's (a.k.a. Donald Westlake) books, but it sort of hits its stride once Parker begins coldly taking action near the finale.
"Now, am I smart?" -- Adolph Tiftus, smarmy miscreant familiar with Parker's reputation
"Already today I hit you twice. Once I knocked the wind out of you, then I knocked the consciousness out of you. Here you are back the third time. Do you call that 'smart'?" -- Parker, clearly not in the mood for this $#%&, on page 23
Although not quite as solid as the previous three entries, The Jugger (a now-dated slang term for a criminal operative, such as a bank robber or illicit safecracker) is still a reasonably good effort in the long-running series of pulpy paperbacks featuring the antiheroic thief known only as 'Parker.' In this particular plot, Parker is summoned by an elderly former felonious colleague who has retired under a pseudonym to a quiet Nebraska town. Parker arrives but learns that the old man's funeral is the next day (!), and is promptly accosted by a wannabe crook named Adolph Tiftus (my God, how his parents must've hated him to bestow such a horrible moniker) and the corrupt / conniving local police chief. Thus instead of a true heist narrative, Parker works to determine if the old man's death was murder or suicide, and like a chess grandmaster begins to quietly but fatally move all involved persons into positions where 1.) they fully get what's coming to them, and 2.) Parker can abscond without being apprehended by the encroaching heat. Again, it was not my favorite of author Stark's (a.k.a. Donald Westlake) books, but it sort of hits its stride once Parker begins coldly taking action near the finale.
December 18, 2020
The Jugger, Stark’s sixth Parker novel, is not written in a typical Parker formula. Parker travels from Miami to Nebraska ostensibly to help his old colleague, Joe Sheer, a jugger (safecracker!) and finds him dead.
The most scathing review of this book is by Donald Westlake (using Richard Stark as a pseudonym) himself:
“I spoiled a book by having him do something he wouldn’t do. The sixth book in the series is called The Jugger, and that book is one of the worst failures I’ve ever had. The problem with it is, in the beginning of the book this guy calls him and says ‘I’m in trouble out here and these guys are leaning on me and I need help,’ and Parker goes to help him. I mean, he wouldn’t do that, and in fact, the guy wouldn’t even think to call him! (laughs)”
Most reviewers agree with Westlake that this is a pretty bad book, but not me. I don’t think Parker was ever really going to help Sheer; he was worried that Sheer, older, mentally losing it, might betray Parker’s secondary identity. I have this feeling that Westlake/Stark may have forgotten some of the details of his own book (he was writing 2-3 of them a year!), but I’m just one reader here.
Unlike an elegantly written and typical heist tale, such as the previous The Score, this one involves no heist at all, though it appears he and others are looking for Sheer’s supposed fortune. In that venture, he has many to match wits with: Younger, a corrupt police chief; a slick FBI agent, a doctor and a sleazy thief, Tiftus, that Parker would never EVER work with at any time. He gets entangled with Tiftus’s girlfriend for a time, too. There is some money involved, maybe, but the main purpose of Parker’s hanging around is to protect his fake identity. So is this as interesting as a heist? I don’t think so, though it is still well-written, with some clever twists.
The book takes some time to slow down and share some of Parker’s philosophy, which is intriguing:
“. . . a man never apologized for what cards he'd been dealt; what did Joe Sheer think all of a sudden at age seventy, he was the captain of his fate? A man was what the world decided he would be, and where the world decided he would be, and in the condition the world had chosen for him. If the world decided to deal Joe a bad hand this time, it wasn't up to him to apologize for not having better cards.”
The novelist John Banville says of Parker, that he is “the perfection of that existential man whose earliest models we met in Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky." Or Camus’s The Stranger. Brutal, pragmatic, amoral, possibly also sociopathic.
No actual jugging takes place in this book; in fact, not that much memorable in the way of plot really happens, though the primary reason he went to Nebraska to protect his false identity (the one he uses ten months out of every year when he is not supporting himself doing heists) is a kind of failure, which I assume is a set up for the next book or so. Still, all of these in the series are very readable, worth the time for sure!!
The most scathing review of this book is by Donald Westlake (using Richard Stark as a pseudonym) himself:
“I spoiled a book by having him do something he wouldn’t do. The sixth book in the series is called The Jugger, and that book is one of the worst failures I’ve ever had. The problem with it is, in the beginning of the book this guy calls him and says ‘I’m in trouble out here and these guys are leaning on me and I need help,’ and Parker goes to help him. I mean, he wouldn’t do that, and in fact, the guy wouldn’t even think to call him! (laughs)”
Most reviewers agree with Westlake that this is a pretty bad book, but not me. I don’t think Parker was ever really going to help Sheer; he was worried that Sheer, older, mentally losing it, might betray Parker’s secondary identity. I have this feeling that Westlake/Stark may have forgotten some of the details of his own book (he was writing 2-3 of them a year!), but I’m just one reader here.
Unlike an elegantly written and typical heist tale, such as the previous The Score, this one involves no heist at all, though it appears he and others are looking for Sheer’s supposed fortune. In that venture, he has many to match wits with: Younger, a corrupt police chief; a slick FBI agent, a doctor and a sleazy thief, Tiftus, that Parker would never EVER work with at any time. He gets entangled with Tiftus’s girlfriend for a time, too. There is some money involved, maybe, but the main purpose of Parker’s hanging around is to protect his fake identity. So is this as interesting as a heist? I don’t think so, though it is still well-written, with some clever twists.
The book takes some time to slow down and share some of Parker’s philosophy, which is intriguing:
“. . . a man never apologized for what cards he'd been dealt; what did Joe Sheer think all of a sudden at age seventy, he was the captain of his fate? A man was what the world decided he would be, and where the world decided he would be, and in the condition the world had chosen for him. If the world decided to deal Joe a bad hand this time, it wasn't up to him to apologize for not having better cards.”
The novelist John Banville says of Parker, that he is “the perfection of that existential man whose earliest models we met in Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky." Or Camus’s The Stranger. Brutal, pragmatic, amoral, possibly also sociopathic.
No actual jugging takes place in this book; in fact, not that much memorable in the way of plot really happens, though the primary reason he went to Nebraska to protect his false identity (the one he uses ten months out of every year when he is not supporting himself doing heists) is a kind of failure, which I assume is a set up for the next book or so. Still, all of these in the series are very readable, worth the time for sure!!
July 17, 2025
"..... a man never apologized for what cards he'd been dealt; what did Joe Sheer think all of a sudden at age seventy, he was the captain of his fate? A man was what the world decided he would be, and where the world decided he would be, and in the condition the world had chosen for him. If the world had decided to deal Joe a bad hand this time, it wasn't up to him to apologize for not having better cards."
Another terrific Parker novel. The robber life aint easy. You think you have a hard life filing tax returns like a regular guy? Just ask Parker or his Jugger friend Joe. This is NOT a heist novel.
It is set in Sagamore which made me recall Charles Williams Uncle Sagamore novels. The Charles Williams connection does not end there. The flash-back plot involving Captain Younger investigating and preying on Joe was similar to the main plot in Girl Out Back, one of my favorite Charles Williams noves.
Joe is Parker's Jugger. Joe is the guy people call to get Parker on board for a heist. But Joe has some problems in retired life and writes a letter to Parker, asking for help. This is a depressing novel about ageing. It is as depressing as a Graham Greene novel. But it is not sentimental. It is not religious. It is brutal like only a Richard Stark novel can be. It is not tender. Stark serves you the truth. The world out there is not easy. Tenderness is not an option.
These Parker novels are about the cruelty of life. Some guys have all the luck. Parker is really lucky in this novel. Not Captain Younger. Not the ageing Joe. Not Rhonda. The guy who makes the cruel decisions and executes them wins. That is life. It is not fair. But the asshole always wins.
Despite the brutal portrait painted by Stark about the criminal life, the Parker novels make you long for the life on the run, planning a heist, pulling it off and then laying low somewhere for a year with a beautiful woman.
Another terrific Parker novel. The robber life aint easy. You think you have a hard life filing tax returns like a regular guy? Just ask Parker or his Jugger friend Joe. This is NOT a heist novel.
It is set in Sagamore which made me recall Charles Williams Uncle Sagamore novels. The Charles Williams connection does not end there. The flash-back plot involving Captain Younger investigating and preying on Joe was similar to the main plot in Girl Out Back, one of my favorite Charles Williams noves.
Joe is Parker's Jugger. Joe is the guy people call to get Parker on board for a heist. But Joe has some problems in retired life and writes a letter to Parker, asking for help. This is a depressing novel about ageing. It is as depressing as a Graham Greene novel. But it is not sentimental. It is not religious. It is brutal like only a Richard Stark novel can be. It is not tender. Stark serves you the truth. The world out there is not easy. Tenderness is not an option.
These Parker novels are about the cruelty of life. Some guys have all the luck. Parker is really lucky in this novel. Not Captain Younger. Not the ageing Joe. Not Rhonda. The guy who makes the cruel decisions and executes them wins. That is life. It is not fair. But the asshole always wins.
Despite the brutal portrait painted by Stark about the criminal life, the Parker novels make you long for the life on the run, planning a heist, pulling it off and then laying low somewhere for a year with a beautiful woman.
February 12, 2011
Richard Stark doesn't give much a description of what Parker looks like. He's a big guy with gnarled tree trunks for hands. This description is given in just about all of the early novels.
It's probably safe to think of Parker as looking sort of like a Lee Marvin type, and since he has probably most famously portrayed Parker, maybe this is what some readers use as their mental image:
Some people might like to think of him as a raving wife-beating anti-semite:
Parker has also been portrayed as an African American in The Split:
Or as an older balding white man:
Or as this guy:
And then there is Jean-Luc Godard's take on Parker, one which doesn't jive well with the text itself, but in my opinion is the most attractive of the bunch:
Leave it to the French to portray a sociopath thief as a beautiful woman who is sort of the postergirl of sexy intellectual 1968 French radical chic.
Godard borrowed (stole if you are of the opinion of Donald Westlake AKA Richard Stark) heavily from this novel to make his movie Made in the U.S.A. Westlake prevented this film from ever being shown in the United States, and it wasn't until after his death that it finally premiered in America, and has since been released by Criterion. The book and the movie work together in an interesting way, the technicolor stylization of Godard contrasting with the bleak middle America setting of the novel.
Having seen the movie first, and only about a month or so ago, just before I decided I'd read all of the Parker novels I couldn't help seeing some of Godard's bastardizations in the book. It definitely created a different reading experience than if I had read the novel first.
It made me think about how each of us has a totally different reading experience from one another for any book we read, and reminded me how much memory in my case colors and shapes the way I picture the world a novel is taking place in. I think it would be interesting, although ultimately boring to anyone besides the reader (or at least in my case) to know where people imagine the stories they are reading to take place, how they picture the characters. In my case there are a handful of places and houses from my past that reoccur and work as the setting for most of the books I read (in this case it would be one of my grandmother's houses, which worked out nicely for how the book developed, her basement had just the right features that would be needed in the story, something I had no idea about when I unconsciously started to think of the action taking place there). I'm not sure what triggers between the text and my memories are necessarily at work when this happens, and how much I probably ignore actual description and just jam the setting into some place familiar. I imagine other people do this too, but I have no proof.
This has been a very un-Parker like review. To rectify the situation tonight when I get back from watching grown men beat the shit out of each other I'm going to just sit with the lights off and stare at nothing, an activity that Parker seems to genuinely enjoy.
It's probably safe to think of Parker as looking sort of like a Lee Marvin type, and since he has probably most famously portrayed Parker, maybe this is what some readers use as their mental image:
Some people might like to think of him as a raving wife-beating anti-semite:
Parker has also been portrayed as an African American in The Split:
Or as an older balding white man:
Or as this guy:
And then there is Jean-Luc Godard's take on Parker, one which doesn't jive well with the text itself, but in my opinion is the most attractive of the bunch:
Leave it to the French to portray a sociopath thief as a beautiful woman who is sort of the postergirl of sexy intellectual 1968 French radical chic.
Godard borrowed (stole if you are of the opinion of Donald Westlake AKA Richard Stark) heavily from this novel to make his movie Made in the U.S.A. Westlake prevented this film from ever being shown in the United States, and it wasn't until after his death that it finally premiered in America, and has since been released by Criterion. The book and the movie work together in an interesting way, the technicolor stylization of Godard contrasting with the bleak middle America setting of the novel.
Having seen the movie first, and only about a month or so ago, just before I decided I'd read all of the Parker novels I couldn't help seeing some of Godard's bastardizations in the book. It definitely created a different reading experience than if I had read the novel first.
It made me think about how each of us has a totally different reading experience from one another for any book we read, and reminded me how much memory in my case colors and shapes the way I picture the world a novel is taking place in. I think it would be interesting, although ultimately boring to anyone besides the reader (or at least in my case) to know where people imagine the stories they are reading to take place, how they picture the characters. In my case there are a handful of places and houses from my past that reoccur and work as the setting for most of the books I read (in this case it would be one of my grandmother's houses, which worked out nicely for how the book developed, her basement had just the right features that would be needed in the story, something I had no idea about when I unconsciously started to think of the action taking place there). I'm not sure what triggers between the text and my memories are necessarily at work when this happens, and how much I probably ignore actual description and just jam the setting into some place familiar. I imagine other people do this too, but I have no proof.
This has been a very un-Parker like review. To rectify the situation tonight when I get back from watching grown men beat the shit out of each other I'm going to just sit with the lights off and stare at nothing, an activity that Parker seems to genuinely enjoy.
May 1, 2023
1965
An aged robber is being stalked by a policeman (who naively thinks the thief saved all his money from a lifetime of crime). Parker receives a letter from the poor, terrified, bank robber, and goes to investigate. Parker destroys his Charles Willis pseudonym, but he lives............This was perfect and amazing, of course. But I did think number 5, The Score, was better. I mean, they can't all be better than the last, could they?
An aged robber is being stalked by a policeman (who naively thinks the thief saved all his money from a lifetime of crime). Parker receives a letter from the poor, terrified, bank robber, and goes to investigate. Parker destroys his Charles Willis pseudonym, but he lives............This was perfect and amazing, of course. But I did think number 5, The Score, was better. I mean, they can't all be better than the last, could they?
August 9, 2011
Parker heads to Nebraska to help out a friend in trouble, Joe Sheer, a retired safecracker (or jugger). Only when he gets to town, Sheer is dead and a crooked cop and a crook both think Parker knows where to find Joe's stash of stolen money. But does the money even exist?
The Jugger is a break from the usual Parker formula. Instead of planning a job, Parker has to get a crooked sheriff off his back and convince the interested parties that Sheer didn't have any money. Of course, Parker does it in his inimitable style. I was surprised as hell at the fate of one of the other people looking for the cash. And the end set up the next few books nicely, as did Sheer's death since he was Parker's go-between.
The Parker books are worth every crime fiction fan's time and money. Put down your Nora Roberts and go get them!
The Jugger is a break from the usual Parker formula. Instead of planning a job, Parker has to get a crooked sheriff off his back and convince the interested parties that Sheer didn't have any money. Of course, Parker does it in his inimitable style. I was surprised as hell at the fate of one of the other people looking for the cash. And the end set up the next few books nicely, as did Sheer's death since he was Parker's go-between.
The Parker books are worth every crime fiction fan's time and money. Put down your Nora Roberts and go get them!
August 11, 2014
The sixth Parker novel is somewhat of an oddity, there is no heist involved at all. Parkers' general job as organizer and enforcer does not come into play this time.
Parker gets a letter from one of his previous work-partners, a safe cracker aka a jugger, who due to his retirement became a go-between for Parker and something that resembles a acquaintance in Parker his world. This letter makes Parker seek out his previous co-worker and if necessary take action. Parker finds the man deceased and already buried.
He then finds himself in a search for wealth by the various parties and is directly involved by all parties.
A very well written book that deviates from usual books by Stark, and does so in a very exciting way. It is more a mystery with Parker thrown in as a sort of detective.
The end of the story however changes a lot for Parker in the future.
Well advised.
Parker gets a letter from one of his previous work-partners, a safe cracker aka a jugger, who due to his retirement became a go-between for Parker and something that resembles a acquaintance in Parker his world. This letter makes Parker seek out his previous co-worker and if necessary take action. Parker finds the man deceased and already buried.
He then finds himself in a search for wealth by the various parties and is directly involved by all parties.
A very well written book that deviates from usual books by Stark, and does so in a very exciting way. It is more a mystery with Parker thrown in as a sort of detective.
The end of the story however changes a lot for Parker in the future.
Well advised.
November 11, 2018
Jug, back when this was written, was slang for bank, so a jugger was a bank robber, and Joe Sheer was a safe cracker. Our protagonist, Parker, had worked jobs with him before, and used him now as a go-between when someone wanted to get hold of Parker.
Parker heads to Nebraska to check things out, and ends up between a slimy cop and another hoodlum and his girl looking for easy cash.
Parker is a hard case, but I was surprised at the unexpected violence 2/3 of the way through. Well written crime/noir story.
Parker heads to Nebraska to check things out, and ends up between a slimy cop and another hoodlum and his girl looking for easy cash.
Parker is a hard case, but I was surprised at the unexpected violence 2/3 of the way through. Well written crime/noir story.
September 5, 2023
There’s a sequence in this Parker novel, in which the bad guy gaslights and intimidates a certain character for several chapters, and it’s so wickedly funny and dark, that you’ll never forget this book.
February 1, 2011
In Richard Stark's The Jugger, everybody's favorite sociopath Parker (AKA Charles Willis) has to beat cheeks to Green Acres when his osteoporotic middle man Joe Sheer sends out a distress signals, and Parker, looking out for Numero Uno, is worried that Sheer's goose is cooked and that there might be a lot of bread crumbs lying around the joint leading straight back to him. And—as we all know—Parker doesn't do criminal celebrity. This leads to successive run-ins: first with a shady crook from Parker's past dolled up like Liberace on crack, and then with the local heat—a dim-witted hay-chawer with a mind for one thing—loot. He's sniffed out a quick payday, but Parker is in the dark as to why the vultures are circling. Well, Sheer, natch, is toast by the time Parker rolls in and nobody can seem to keep their sticky fingers out of the stiff's pockets. Parker needs to act-wise to get to the bottom of it all before he misses out on the score and has his cover blown sky-high.
This one's better than The Score (the only other Stark I've read as of this writing), but the plot (at times) bends in such implausible ways that it's enough to make a contortionist's neck snap. Gritty realism, it ain't. But Stark isn't in short supply of small-town grotesques to liven up the show, including a nosy neighbor kid who's tapping out the plot in Morse code from one house over. As a way to kill a few hours, you could do worse than The Jugger. It hums along real nice and the ending is a doozy because of how it goes down—which is to say rotten...
This one's better than The Score (the only other Stark I've read as of this writing), but the plot (at times) bends in such implausible ways that it's enough to make a contortionist's neck snap. Gritty realism, it ain't. But Stark isn't in short supply of small-town grotesques to liven up the show, including a nosy neighbor kid who's tapping out the plot in Morse code from one house over. As a way to kill a few hours, you could do worse than The Jugger. It hums along real nice and the ending is a doozy because of how it goes down—which is to say rotten...
September 21, 2010
When Parker gets a couple of letters from retired safe cracker Joe Sheer saying that he’s having problems, he’s worried that the old man is getting pressured into revealing secrets. Since some of those secrets would be about him, Parker packs a bag and is off to Nebraska thinking that he may have to permanently shut Joe up.
After he arrives in the small town that Joe had settled in, Parker learns that Joe is already dead, supposedly from a heart attack. But the police chief is instantly on Parker’s tail, and another thief is in town and won’t leave Parker alone. Everybody seems to be looking for something that Joe hid and assumes that Parker is there for the same thing.
This was a change-up from the pattern of the Parker stories to date since there was no robbery or real revenge motive going on. Parker just blundered into a situation, and is trying to get out without blowing his best fake identity. This isn’t about getting away with the loot, it’s about getting away without a warrant being issued against his phony name.
This also really took Parker’s ruthless nature up a notch. We know from the previous books that Joe Sheer was one of the few people that Parker would even remotely consider a friend, but he doesn’t have a moment’s regret about potentially having to kill him. Plus, Parker will stop at nothing to pin the crimes involved on other people to preserve his cover ID.
The ending also has the usual habit of having some element carry over from one Parker book to the next.
After he arrives in the small town that Joe had settled in, Parker learns that Joe is already dead, supposedly from a heart attack. But the police chief is instantly on Parker’s tail, and another thief is in town and won’t leave Parker alone. Everybody seems to be looking for something that Joe hid and assumes that Parker is there for the same thing.
This was a change-up from the pattern of the Parker stories to date since there was no robbery or real revenge motive going on. Parker just blundered into a situation, and is trying to get out without blowing his best fake identity. This isn’t about getting away with the loot, it’s about getting away without a warrant being issued against his phony name.
This also really took Parker’s ruthless nature up a notch. We know from the previous books that Joe Sheer was one of the few people that Parker would even remotely consider a friend, but he doesn’t have a moment’s regret about potentially having to kill him. Plus, Parker will stop at nothing to pin the crimes involved on other people to preserve his cover ID.
The ending also has the usual habit of having some element carry over from one Parker book to the next.
June 3, 2025
I'm really enjoying all the Parker novels. This one is another that I haven't already read in comics form. It's not the best Parker book so far, but I didn't mind it at all. I was pretty onboard the whole way but the ending was a bit of a let down.
We get to see Parker operating as his wholesome alter-ego, trying to balance protecting his image while dealing with a crooked cop. I enjoyed the story-line of the cop and Parker's old comrade Joe - the cop starts to extort the old man once he discovers Joe's life of crime, basically committing elder abuse.
We get to see Parker operating as his wholesome alter-ego, trying to balance protecting his image while dealing with a crooked cop. I enjoyed the story-line of the cop and Parker's old comrade Joe - the cop starts to extort the old man once he discovers Joe's life of crime, basically committing elder abuse.
March 28, 2021
Stark broke the mold with this particular Parker tale! Well maybe he didn't break it so much as just bend it all outta wack...
And I mean that as a compliment.
Said tale involves no heists per se, but still manages to contain all the double crosses, missing monies, murder and mayhem expected. Loving these lil' compact criminal capers!!!
runoutandgetyousomeothis
And I mean that as a compliment.
Said tale involves no heists per se, but still manages to contain all the double crosses, missing monies, murder and mayhem expected. Loving these lil' compact criminal capers!!!
runoutandgetyousomeothis
July 27, 2021
Best Parker I’ve read so far. Typically good noir from Richard Stark.
December 22, 2024
My first encounter with a three star entry in the Parker series. This one wasn't as strong or compelling as what came before, but the writing is still good and Parker is still bad. The scale of the crime is just rather small, is all. Though, to be fair, it's a bit hard to beat the plot from the last novel, the Score, in which they rob an entire town!
I hate to say it, but it's not really essential. If you're looking for your first Parker novel, I'd recommend the Hunter or the Score, though the first three make for a nice three-part story.
I hate to say it, but it's not really essential. If you're looking for your first Parker novel, I'd recommend the Hunter or the Score, though the first three make for a nice three-part story.
March 27, 2016
Parker surprised me in this book. In previous stories I'd come to think his thieves' code made him moral. His behavior isn't out of character here, but I mistakenly started thinking he was basically a good guy.....not really. He can still shock me with swift brutality. Great book.
March 1, 2018
A bit of a departure from the usual Parker fare. One of his old comrades, Joe Sheer, writes to Parker, initially telling him he has some problems he is handling, but then asks Parker to come help. Joe was a safecracker and one of the people who could reach Parker about a job. Parker decides to help his friend, but arrives too late: Joe is dead and the circumstances of his death are shrouded in mystery; however, another crook shows up looking for money and the local sheriff wants the loot too. As always, Parker's best work is improvising a solution when things go awry, and he crafts an artful solution to this problem.
December 15, 2019
I was dead if I didn't have goodreeds & its information!!!PARKER....😭
May 31, 2016
‘The Jugger’ is an atypical Parker novel.
There are others, true, which don’t focus on a robbery, but instead deal with the aftermath. But in ‘The Jugger’, there’s no robbery in the background, it’s all aftermath. Yet even though this is quieter and more restrained than other Parker novels, that doesn’t mean the stakes aren’t high, as what ends up being threatened here is one of the most fundamental things of all – Parker’s secret identity.
We’ve already in these books seen Parker come back from the dead; we’ve already seen him as the strongest, smartest, most powerful man in any room he’s in. It’s not a huge leap then to see Parker as the series’ Super-Hero, or at least Super Anti-Hero. And like all good super individuals, Parker has a secret identity.
When he’s on, he’s Parker, super thief extraordinaire; but on downtime, he’s mild-mannered businessman and laundromat owner, Charles Willis.
Maybe it’s not the best of disguise as those who are a little dubious themselves look at him and realise that he isn’t quite comfortable in those clothes, that he looks more dangerous than your average businessman. But then your proper businessmen do see him as one of their own, even sticking their necks out for him as “the federal government doesn’t understand businessmen”.
But what’s particularly interesting is that the book explicitly states that Parker only works for a couple of months a year, the rest of the time he is Charles Willis. That’s the name he uses and that’s the life he lives. So even though – in these pages – the character of Willis is a lot vaguer, you could argue that Parker is more Willis than Parker – it’s just that novels about him hanging out in Miami doing nothing aren’t as much fun.
If only Parker hadn’t checked in using the Willis name when he went to investigate the death of his old friend, Joe Sheer, then he wouldn’t be in this mess. Now though he finds himself trapped in a small town with dead bodies piling up around him, a dodgy cop who is after money which doesn’t actually exist and a sharper cop who might just blow things apart. But the fact that Parker has used Willis’s name and Willis’s actual address means he has potentially more to lose here than anyone can imagine.
As such Parker is forced to play detective so he can extricate himself cleanly from this town, but Parker is the kind of detective who might commit more murders than he solves.
For all that it’s different, ‘The Jugger’ is an understated and thrilling read. And in the third section – you know that section in every Parker book where focus drifts away from the man himself – we do get the tale of an old man tortured and beaten to the point of suicide by a vicious bully, and it’s some of the best and most affecting writing anywhere in the Stark books.
There are others, true, which don’t focus on a robbery, but instead deal with the aftermath. But in ‘The Jugger’, there’s no robbery in the background, it’s all aftermath. Yet even though this is quieter and more restrained than other Parker novels, that doesn’t mean the stakes aren’t high, as what ends up being threatened here is one of the most fundamental things of all – Parker’s secret identity.
We’ve already in these books seen Parker come back from the dead; we’ve already seen him as the strongest, smartest, most powerful man in any room he’s in. It’s not a huge leap then to see Parker as the series’ Super-Hero, or at least Super Anti-Hero. And like all good super individuals, Parker has a secret identity.
When he’s on, he’s Parker, super thief extraordinaire; but on downtime, he’s mild-mannered businessman and laundromat owner, Charles Willis.
Maybe it’s not the best of disguise as those who are a little dubious themselves look at him and realise that he isn’t quite comfortable in those clothes, that he looks more dangerous than your average businessman. But then your proper businessmen do see him as one of their own, even sticking their necks out for him as “the federal government doesn’t understand businessmen”.
But what’s particularly interesting is that the book explicitly states that Parker only works for a couple of months a year, the rest of the time he is Charles Willis. That’s the name he uses and that’s the life he lives. So even though – in these pages – the character of Willis is a lot vaguer, you could argue that Parker is more Willis than Parker – it’s just that novels about him hanging out in Miami doing nothing aren’t as much fun.
If only Parker hadn’t checked in using the Willis name when he went to investigate the death of his old friend, Joe Sheer, then he wouldn’t be in this mess. Now though he finds himself trapped in a small town with dead bodies piling up around him, a dodgy cop who is after money which doesn’t actually exist and a sharper cop who might just blow things apart. But the fact that Parker has used Willis’s name and Willis’s actual address means he has potentially more to lose here than anyone can imagine.
As such Parker is forced to play detective so he can extricate himself cleanly from this town, but Parker is the kind of detective who might commit more murders than he solves.
For all that it’s different, ‘The Jugger’ is an understated and thrilling read. And in the third section – you know that section in every Parker book where focus drifts away from the man himself – we do get the tale of an old man tortured and beaten to the point of suicide by a vicious bully, and it’s some of the best and most affecting writing anywhere in the Stark books.
April 19, 2013
An average story most of the way, but I liked the twists and turns at the end.
Parker comes to town after receiving a strange letter from one of his guys. The guy died after sending the letter. Strange things are happening. A bad cop is involved. Parker is trying to figure it out. Then Parker kills someone which shocked me. I shouldn’t like this because he killed a kind-of-good person. But the “shock” was what I liked. And the ending I liked. It seemed Parker had everything all nice and neat and packaged, and then a little thread here and there didn’t fit. The investigating cop pulled, and things began unraveling. The result was twists and turns that I did not expect.
The narrator Stephen R. Thorne was good, but I wish he had a rougher, darker or more menacing voice for Parker. His Parker voice was too clean cut and normal sounding.
THE SERIES:
This is book 6 in the 24 book series. These stories are about bad guys. They rob. They kill. They’re smart. Most don’t go to jail. Parker is the main bad guy, a brilliant strategist. He partners with different guys for different jobs in each book.
If you are new to the series, I suggest reading the first three and then choose among the rest. A few should be read in order since characters continue in a sequel fashion. Those are listed below (with my star ratings). The rest can be read as stand alones.
The first three books in order:
4 stars. The Hunter (Point Blank movie with Lee Marvin 1967) (Payback movie with Mel Gibson)
3 ½ stars. The Man with the Getaway Face (The Steel Hit)
4 stars. The Outfit.
Read these two in order:
5 stars. Slayground (Bk #14)
5 stars. Butcher’s Moon (Bk #16)
Read these four in order:
4 ½ stars. The Sour Lemon Score (Bk #12)
2 ½ stars. Firebreak (Bk #20)
(not read) Nobody Runs Forever (Bk #22)
2 ½ stars. Dirty Money (Bk #24)
Others that I gave 4 or more stars to:
The Seventh (Bk#7), The Handle (Bk #8), Deadly Edge (Bk#13), Flashfire (Bk#19)
DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Unabridged audiobook length: 4 hrs and 10 mins. Swearing language: Christ used once. Sexual content: none. Setting: 1965 mostly Sagamore, Nebraska. Book copyright: 1965. Genre: noir crime fiction.
Parker comes to town after receiving a strange letter from one of his guys. The guy died after sending the letter. Strange things are happening. A bad cop is involved. Parker is trying to figure it out. Then Parker kills someone which shocked me. I shouldn’t like this because he killed a kind-of-good person. But the “shock” was what I liked. And the ending I liked. It seemed Parker had everything all nice and neat and packaged, and then a little thread here and there didn’t fit. The investigating cop pulled, and things began unraveling. The result was twists and turns that I did not expect.
The narrator Stephen R. Thorne was good, but I wish he had a rougher, darker or more menacing voice for Parker. His Parker voice was too clean cut and normal sounding.
THE SERIES:
This is book 6 in the 24 book series. These stories are about bad guys. They rob. They kill. They’re smart. Most don’t go to jail. Parker is the main bad guy, a brilliant strategist. He partners with different guys for different jobs in each book.
If you are new to the series, I suggest reading the first three and then choose among the rest. A few should be read in order since characters continue in a sequel fashion. Those are listed below (with my star ratings). The rest can be read as stand alones.
The first three books in order:
4 stars. The Hunter (Point Blank movie with Lee Marvin 1967) (Payback movie with Mel Gibson)
3 ½ stars. The Man with the Getaway Face (The Steel Hit)
4 stars. The Outfit.
Read these two in order:
5 stars. Slayground (Bk #14)
5 stars. Butcher’s Moon (Bk #16)
Read these four in order:
4 ½ stars. The Sour Lemon Score (Bk #12)
2 ½ stars. Firebreak (Bk #20)
(not read) Nobody Runs Forever (Bk #22)
2 ½ stars. Dirty Money (Bk #24)
Others that I gave 4 or more stars to:
The Seventh (Bk#7), The Handle (Bk #8), Deadly Edge (Bk#13), Flashfire (Bk#19)
DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Unabridged audiobook length: 4 hrs and 10 mins. Swearing language: Christ used once. Sexual content: none. Setting: 1965 mostly Sagamore, Nebraska. Book copyright: 1965. Genre: noir crime fiction.
May 10, 2013
I guess a "jugger" is a guy that breaks into safes, and Joe Sheer was one of the best, was being the operative word. Now he's come down with a bad case of dead and Parker's concerned, not because Sheer was his golf buddy or anything, but he was one of the few people with a direct connection to Parker and Parker's got a sweet little cover identity set up. He doesn't want anyone nosing around Sheer's death to blow it. Throw in an aging crook who looks like he failed an audition for The Monkees and a greedy small-town cop looking for a big payoff and you've got yourself another great Parker read.
The Parker novels are consistently excellent books (at least for me so far) and there's basically nothing to say about the writing that I haven't said before. The writing is sharp as a tack and is a welcome respite from today's bloated five-hundred page thrillers.
There are a couple of interesting things that I've noticed about this one. For one, there's no big heist in The Jugger. Parker's just out to preserve his cover identity, but I find that an interesting analog to Donald Westlake's own "cover identity," Richard Stark.
Also, we get a little glimpse into Parker's philosophy of life:
It's an interesting look into the fatalistic worldview of Parker, whom John Banville in the introduction describes as "the perfection of that existential man whose earliest models we met in Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky." Parker's a symbol of Sisyphean revolt, making no apologies for the cards he's been dealt because he's always got another one up his sleeve.
The Parker novels are consistently excellent books (at least for me so far) and there's basically nothing to say about the writing that I haven't said before. The writing is sharp as a tack and is a welcome respite from today's bloated five-hundred page thrillers.
There are a couple of interesting things that I've noticed about this one. For one, there's no big heist in The Jugger. Parker's just out to preserve his cover identity, but I find that an interesting analog to Donald Westlake's own "cover identity," Richard Stark.
Also, we get a little glimpse into Parker's philosophy of life:
…a man never apologized for what cards he'd been dealt; what did Joe Sheer think all of a sudden at age seventy, he was the captain of his fate? A man was what the world decided he would be, and where the world decided he would be, and in the condition the world had chosen for him. If the world decided to deal Joe a bad hand this time, it wasn't up to him to apologize for not having better cards.
It's an interesting look into the fatalistic worldview of Parker, whom John Banville in the introduction describes as "the perfection of that existential man whose earliest models we met in Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky." Parker's a symbol of Sisyphean revolt, making no apologies for the cards he's been dealt because he's always got another one up his sleeve.
August 1, 2023
Some of the best characterization and pacing of any of the Parker novels I've read so far, with the most exciting cliffhanger ending. Makes me wish I could read them in order instead of getting them from the library when I can.
February 12, 2020
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.
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.
September 13, 2022
Richard Stark threw us a little curveball with this book -- it isn't about a heist. It's about keeping Parker's (bad) name (and his fake name) in good standing.
Joe Sheer was a jugger, the name for a safecracker, which Joe was in his early days. As of late, he kept the income rolling in by being the connection between others who need help in a heist.
Parker received two letters from Joe, not calling Parker by his fake name, telling Parker he's in trouble. He hurries from Miami to Nebraska, but too late -- Joe had died. By suicide? Parker had to deal with three amateurs -- a town cop, a nutty crook, and the boy next door -- to not only find out what really happened to Joe, but to try and save his life. Or lives, actually. And all his money. And all the companies he has as tax breaks. A great tale!
Joe Sheer was a jugger, the name for a safecracker, which Joe was in his early days. As of late, he kept the income rolling in by being the connection between others who need help in a heist.
Parker received two letters from Joe, not calling Parker by his fake name, telling Parker he's in trouble. He hurries from Miami to Nebraska, but too late -- Joe had died. By suicide? Parker had to deal with three amateurs -- a town cop, a nutty crook, and the boy next door -- to not only find out what really happened to Joe, but to try and save his life. Or lives, actually. And all his money. And all the companies he has as tax breaks. A great tale!
October 23, 2014
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!
December 24, 2020
Notes:
Currently on Audible Plus
I liked the first half more than the conclusion. It's cool to see the way Stark can draw out a scene with just a few sentences and then go off on a rambling flashback. lol Contrast. =P
Currently on Audible Plus
I liked the first half more than the conclusion. It's cool to see the way Stark can draw out a scene with just a few sentences and then go off on a rambling flashback. lol Contrast. =P
April 15, 2022
The first swing and a miss for the series, but still a quick read, and it contains the (so far) most cold blooded act by our protagonist that is as chilling for its calculated brutality as it is heartbreaking for the honest naivety of the victim.
May 25, 2025
One of the best Parker novels so far. It seems like Westlake "fixed" this edition after his disatisfaction with the first. Mean Parker is my favorite Parker. The plot barely has any familiar tropes and the escalating tension and torment the antagonist inflicts on an elderly is the kind of thing that puts me on edge anticipating Parker's indifferent wrath.
March 5, 2024
The Jugger departs from the usual heisting and thievery, landing squarely in murder mystery territory instead, but Stark’s plotting is tight and the dramatic irony is sharp. It’s exactly the brand of darkly ridiculous double-crossing and double-double-crossing that I expect from a Parker book.
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