Last year, I read The Hunter, published in 1963 by Richard Stark (pen name of lauded mystery writer Donald E. Westlake) and found it a highly readable exercise in the thriller genre—its spare, brutally efficient prose seamlessly wedded to the merciless nature of its protagonist, Parker, a man double-crossed by both his wife and conniving partner-in-crime, who escapes death and vows recompense through violent means. The narrative wastes little time in getting Parker to his objective(s), and there is a kind of lurid fascination in experiencing how Parker tramples over and coerces his targets.

This is not the brooding noir PI wading through murky moral waters; Parker is a man of decisive action for whom morals are secondary to his own base fulfillments. It’s not that he is some unfeeling Terminator, although there are similarities in how Parker can get what he wants out of his victims by casually trespassing social norms they are unprepared to have violated. Parker cares enough about society that he will go to such extreme lengths to secure his special freedom in it; but it really is those lengths that make the difference, and which characterize his particular breed of criminality. […]