The Jugger

The Jugger is the sixth book in Richard Stark's long-running Parker series. In it, Parker fears an old colleague is about to rat him out, and travels to Nebraska to determine whether he needs to take care of the problem. Parker arrives to find his former partner dead and a large amount of money missing. Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westlake) claimed to dislike this book due to some implausible actions on the part of Parker. But he is a bit hard on himself; the novel mostly works — the first half is especially strong — and at any rate a mediocre Stark/Westlake book is still miles ahead of its peers.