Book Review: Richard Stark, Deadly Edge (1971)

Deadly Edge perhaps deserves better than the grade I give it, but I’m trying to make distinctions within the Parker canon—or, to put it another way, a C-level Parker novel is still a damn good novel. “Part One” of the book, which runs uninterrupted for nearly 50 pages, details Parker and his partners stealing the all-cash take from a rock concert. No one does this sort of thing better than Starklake, and Deadly Edge would be worth reading just for this set piece. The 150 pages that follow are not nearly so compelling, as Parker plays cat and mouse with two uninteresting villains who want to steal what he has stolen. This, too, is well done, but Parker-the-thief is almost always more interesting than Parker-the-anything-else. Grade: C+