The Best Anti-Hero Crime Fiction Novel

Book one in the Parker series, The Hunter by Richard Stark (pseudonym for Donald E. Westlake) holds up as a legendary piece of hardboiled crime fiction (crime fiction that is vividly realistic).

Parker is the titular character—an anti-hero driven by his id, an innate bravado, and a complete lack of social conventions. Stark chisels Parker for us from the get-go:

“Big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders.... His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless.”

He’s intimidating, sure, but also a reminder that tropes and traditions only exist along their opposites.

The plot is simple but precisely executed: Parker goes to New York City, seeking revenge on the woman who betrayed him and the joker who stole his money. All the while, the man schemes and slugs his way from a life of crime to redemption.

Scene for scene, bullet for bullet, pound for pound, The Hunter is the undefeated champion of anti-hero crime fiction.