Richard Stark, The Mourner

It took me a while to get interested in this fourth book in the Parker series, maybe because I was just coming off of book two, maybe because I'd skipped book three, but it just seemed a little disjointed. Eventually the story improved. What's going on is a little complicated, but in brief, Parker and his partner in crime Handy are going after a 15th-century statue. They've got a buyer for it, but there's another party who's after the same mark for different reasons. And actually it's more complicated than that. Anyway, Parker is Parker—shrewd and good at what he does but not above making potentially fatal mistakes. The series continues to interest me, but after this one, probably less so than previously.