Reviews for Loving Heart

The average rating for Loving Heart based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-03-05 00:00:00 Joseph Pielech II When Parker finally settled his differences with the Outfit, he didn’t expect to get any job offers from them. However, a guy named Baron has set up a profitable casino operation on his own private island in the Gulf of Mexico, and the head of the Outfit can’t stand that they aren’t getting a piece of the action so he enlists Parker to rip off Baron and burn down his operation. Since he needs cash after the events of the last couple of books, Parker agrees and begins planning his own version of D-Day with a small crew of stick-up men invading the island. As usual, Parker will have to contend with people he can’t trust and a twist that puts him on the radar of the U.S. government. Another short but solid Parker adventure. The thing I continue to enjoy the most about these books is Parker’s blunt but efficient nature. The thief continues to be annoyed at anything he considers a waste of time like small-talk or details he doesn’t need to do the job. Despite being a ruthless pragmatist who will kill or double-cross anyone that he thinks can’t be counted on, this book again has Parker going to some trouble and risk to save one of his crew when he could have easily left the man to die. But when he’s thanked for it, Parker can’t grasp why anyone would make a big deal out of it. The story starts with the standard Richard Stark formula of Parker getting pitched on an odd robbery, the recruiting of a crew, the planning and gathering of equipment, the concerns about someone double-crossing them, and a job that doesn’t go as expected. Then the plot takes some detours and has a different ending than I was expecting, and it was fun having the ending be so far off from where I guessed it’d go.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-06-03 00:00:00 Diego Coronel The Handle takes its place as Parker #8 in the list of 24 Parker novels by Donald E. Westlake writing as Richard Stark. The Handle is a rip-roaring crime thriller with twists and spins and Parker action aplenty. Here's the frame: It’s 1966 and a man known as the Baron, a former Nazi, art thief and all around swindler, has been running a casino/illegal entertainment center on an island forty miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas - Gulf of Mexico waters beyond the reach of the USA’s federal jurisdiction. For the past six years, a nationwide crime syndicate calling itself The Outfit has been demanding the Baron cut them in on a slice of the action. Knowing he has the support of Cuba (the Baron performs espionage for the Communists) and also knowing he’ll never leave his well-fortified, heavily armed island, The Baron thumbs his nose and tells the Outfit boys to go to hell. Enough is enough, time to eliminate the competition. Outfit kingpin Karns needs an expert robber to pick the Baron clean and burn his island kingdom to the ground. Karns calls Parker with a deal, tells Parker the Outfit will supply all the needed maps, boats, guns and explosives - you wipe out the Baron and all the loot on the island is yours, guaranteed minimum $200,000. Parker analyzes the heist, agrees to Karns' terms (actually, Parker sets the terms) and begins assembling his crew. Parker fans will be please to know Grofield and Salsa enter the picture. But then the unexpected: two federal agents approach Parker and propose their own deal: bring the Baron back to the US where they can prosecute him and we'll let you go free (the feds have enough on heister Parker's past to send him to the slammer). And we're off. Donald E. Westlake, master storyteller, mixes enough ingredients into his hardboiled crime stew to keep readers in suspense and guessing at every step. The highlight reel includes: Camera Chic Parker tells the Outfit he wants to check Baron's island out for himself, go there as just another tourist. He says he needs a woman with him, someone capable of snapping photos from a hidden camera. The Outfit provides Parker with a tall, slender looker for the purpose. "Her nose was narrow, flanked by prominent cheekbones,and her eyes were large and brown and innocent and liquid, like the eyes of a Walt Disney fawn. She said her name was Crystal, which had to be a lie, and it was impossible she was a brainless as she seemed." Usually Parker doesn't mix women and sex with his working on a job. But there are those exceptions. Will Crystal entice Parker enough to qualify as an exception? For each reader to find out. Thief and Thespian Heister Grofield is almost the opposite of Parker. Loquacious, handsome, erudite, Grofield came into crime to support his acting in live theater. "The two professions complemented one another. The robberies helped him in his characterizations of the roles he was so often given to play, and the acting ability more than once had come in handy in the course of a robbery." The inclusion of Grofield adds great color and spark. Baron Wolfgang Friedrich We're provided with detailed backstory and personal psychology of the Baron, a man who was definitely a member of the Nazi party but, more than pro-Nazi, pro-Germany or pro anything else, the Baron was and has always been pro-Baron, a man at all times adhering to the motto: Looking Out for Number One. However, if we read closely, we can detect some of those old Nazi tendencies popping up in the now fifty-something Baron. The Baron dabbled in art theft (mostly from France) and has a hand in international espionage - no surprising since many crime fiction writers, including Mr. Westlake, wanted to cash in on the 1960s James Bond bonanza. Not 007 Here’s what one literary critic and avid Westlake fan has to say about The Handle: “So that’s Parker’s Bond novel. And what have we learned? That you can put Parker into any situation, and he’ll remain himself. He adapts, but he doesn’t change his way of thinking. For all his seeming independence and individualism, Bond is an organization man, a hireling–something Parker could never be. For all his seeming amorality, Bond is a hero, a solid Victorian gentleman, packed with the same sterling values that motivated Tom Brown or Horatio Hornblower. Ian Fleming just added a few scars and peccadillos to make him more interesting, more modern. Still the same old stock character underneath.” Worth repeating: Parker is no James Bond, no organization man, no hireling. Parker even tells Karns, “I don’t kill for hire.” Even when one of those Federal agents says to Parker, “You’re talking like a man with a choice,” Parker shoots back, “I’ve always got a choice.” And when one of the Feds suggests they join Parker on the job, Parker almost laughs them off, outlining what he does takes expertise, ingenuity, savvy and having a couple of government types around would only louse things up. Similar to those Outfit men back in The Hunter and The Outfit, the Federal agents come off as a bunch of dull order takers, lackeys. At one point, Grofield reflects, “Federal agents were all alike; uptight, honest, courteous, kind, self-righteous, and humorless.” Organizations, be they a huge syndicate or government agency or corporation, have a definite tendency to turn people into stooges, stripping them of ingenuity, individuality, independence and creativity. The Handle provides Mr. Westlake with yet again another fresh opportunity to explore the character of Parker. Parker, human on the outside, wolf on the inside. Parker, according to Dennis Lehane, the greatest antihero of American noir. Pick up The Handle and do your own exploration. American author Donald E. Westlake, 1933-2008