Flashfire (A Parker novel) - Tapa dura

In a Midwestern city, Parker calmly tosses a firebomb through a plate-glass window, while some newfound partners in crime take down a nearby bank. Making their getaway in the confusion, the bank robbers tell him two things: that his heist was only seed money for a much gaudier one, and that Parker has to loan them his share of the take. They should have given him his cut, or killed him. Because now Parker is rampaging through the American South, taking on a new identity as he goes, planning his own assault on his former partners' next target, a spectacular jewellery heist in Palm Beach. But Parker didn't count on one unfortunate detail. A very bad and very stupid man knows his true identity, and wants him dead. Another brilliant noir crime novel in the legendary Parker series.

Richard Stark is one of the pre-eminent authors - and inventors - of modern noir fiction. The creator of the Parker series of hard-boiled thrillers, Stark's most recent Parker novels, Comeback and Backflash were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the year. His first novel, The Hunter, became the classic 1967 movie Point Blank. Thirty Years later, The Hunter was adapted again by Hollywood in the Hit Mel Gibson movie Payback. Richard Stark is also, at times, the mystery Grand master Donald E Westlake.