Stealing a holy- roller’s Christian crusade money, now that is a plan I can get behind! For Parker and his ‘string’, that’s what they do in this one!

Chapters 10 and 11 are awesome! Parker’s cool confidence is what I love about these books! And then he takes out 5 guys in 40 seconds - unarmed! (well, except for a metal drawer!) Loved it! I also enjoyed the big showdown between Parker and Liss. Man, why in the heck would you ever even try to double-cross Parker? Why, why, why? ( )

Parker is part of a crew to rob an evangelist's crusade with the aid of an inside man. The plan is precise, but as fan's expect the double crossing begins soon. Parker must eliminate the back stabber, reunite with the remainder of the crew and avoid arrest in a town in which he is a stranger.

Parker Returns After 23 Years
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (April, 2013) of the Warner Books / Mysterious Press hardcover (1997)

Richard Stark was one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific crime author Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008), who wrote over 100 books. The Stark pseudonym was used primarily for the Parker novels, an antihero criminal who is usually betrayed or ensnared in some manner and who spends each book getting revenge or escaping the circumstances.

Comeback finds Parker and a heist crew knocking over the box office receipts (all cash) from a shady evangelist's rally. Their inside man wants his share in order to do the actual good deeds which the scam evangelist is not doing. As almost always, one of the heisters gets greedy and soon the usual disarray follows with Parker trying to pick up the pieces.

Comeback was the return of Westlake/Stark's antihero Parker character after a 23 year hiatus following the 16th book in the series Butcher's Moon (1974). There isn't any mention of Parker aging in the meantime so it is almost as if there was no hiatus at all.

Narrator Keith Szarabjka does an excellent job in all voices in this audiobook edition.

I had never previously read the Stark/Parker novels but became curious when they came up in my recent reading of The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives (Sept. 2020) by Nancy Pearl & Jeff Schwager. Here is a (perhaps surprising) excerpt from their discussion with autho Amor Towles:

Nancy: Do you read Lee Child?
Amor: I know Lee. I had never read his books until I met him, but now I read them whenever they come out. I think some of the decisions he makes are ingenious.
Jeff: Have you read the Parker books by Donald Westlake [writing as Richard Stark]?
Amor: I think the Parker books are an extraordinary series.
Jeff: They feel like a big influence on Reacher, right down to the name. Both Reacher and Parker have a singular focus on the task in front of them.
Amor: But Parker is amoral. Reacher is just dangerous.
Jeff: Right. Reacher doesn't have a conventional morality, but he has his own morality. Parker will do anything he has to do to achieve his goal.
Amor: But to your point, Westlake's staccato style with its great twists at the end of the paragraphs, and his mesmerizing central character - these attributes are clearly shared by the Reacher books.

The 24 Parker books are almost all available for free on Audible Plus, except for #21 & #22 which aren't available at all.

Trivia and Links
There is a brief plot summary of Comeback and of all the Parker books and adaptations at The Violent World of Parker website.

Unlike many of the 2010-2013 Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook editions which share the same cover art as the University of Chicago Press 2009-2011 reprints, this audiobook DOES include the Foreword by author Lawrence Block. ( )

After a 23-year hiatus, author Richard Stark continued his Parker series without missing a beat. Approached by George Liss, a man he has worked with previously, Stark agrees to steal the $400,000 cash proceeds of an evangelist preacher's show. However, the inside man, who is angry that the preacher uses the money for a lavish lifestyle and not to help the needy, tells one person too many. Double cross, triple cross, the preacher's security man, and a vindictive police detective investigating the crime create quite a story. Parker's post-heist hideout is classic. ( )

Another great Richard Stark/Donald Westlake Parker story. The following of different story lines was handled good, but whenever Parker wasn't involved, the plot got a lot less interesting. ( )