Books

Breakout

Breakout
Pub date 1st November 2002
Original publisher Mysterious Press
Publisher (UK) Quercus
International publishers Payot et Rivages (France), Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (Germany), Sorozat Konyvek Kft (Hungary)

Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark

In a hulking drab warehouse in a hulking drab city in the center of an empty state, Parker is caught moving pharmaceuticals into a waiting truck. Led into a joint called Stoneveldt - from which no one has ever escaped - Parker has to find a way out, before his whole violent past catches up with him. And getting out of Stoneveldt means taking on the only partners he can find, including one who is already planning his next job. For Parker and his fellow jail breakers, freedom is just another word for committing their next felony. They pull off the perfect jailbreak and then start the perfect heist. But things go south in a hurry - leaving three men dead and Parker and his fellow escape artists scratching, clawing, and running for their lives. Suddenly, the big, drab city in the big, empty Midwestern state has become a prison. A cast of cops, busybodies, snitches, and weak links have turned into jailers. And for Parker, the ultimate jailbreak is about to begin.

 

Praise for Breakout

“Stark, the nom de crime adopted for this series by MWA Grand Master Donald Westlake, is an artist of compression, with the ability to create a complex, frightening character in very few words. … But Stark is also remarkable because he seems to know how everything works and can explain it without slowing down the story … Watching artists like Stark and Parker at work is a great pleasure, which an increasing audience will be delighted to share.”

- Publisher’s Weekly

 

“Lots of carpentry and building razing: a sort of a breaking-and-entering manual for do-it-yourselfers. A minor but very readable effort from master craftsman Stark”

- Kirkus

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