With The Hunter, Donald Westlake (under the prolific penname of Richard Stark) introduces his iconic Parker character and establishes the bleakest possible world of hardboiled crime. Parker is a master thief, utterly ruthless and amoral, who operates with animalistic cunning and violence. When one of his partners rips him off and leaves him for dead, he returns to New York City to methodically exact revenge. Westlake's conception of a protagonist completely without a conscience was riveting enough to sustain over twenty novels, and The Hunter remains just as fresh as it was in 1962. While the narrative is firmly grounded in the world of classic crime fiction, "Stark" writes with a leanness and precision of language that feels genuinely timeless.