Ethan Iverson is Trying to Kill Me

Why else would he review The Blonde in the same post that he reviews Richard Stark's latest brilliant Parker novel, Ask the Parrot? Iverson, of the cool-as-shit jazz trio The Bad Plus, knows I worship at the altar of Stark (and his alter ego, Donald Westlake). He knows I am not worthy to bring Stark a cup full of sharpened pencils, let alone share a blog post.

Hence, Ethan Iverson is trying to kill me.

But at the same time, he nails the appeal of the Parker novels (my favorite series, bar none):

The real attraction of the books is Parker himself, who is staking a claim to being the greatest antihero in all crime fiction. He is unquestionably the most matter-of-fact: If there are emotions in the books, we know about them only because Parker observes them. He doesn’t feel them himself. He just uses them or ignores them.

It's the same detachment you can trace back through Joe Gores's brilliant (and underrated) Interface, and all the way back to Hammett's Maltese Falcon. Go ahead, check them out again. You see everything... except what's going on in the characters' heads. And that makes all the difference.