Parker put down the body and answered the phone. And from that moment on he had two jobs to do. One was to rob a remote Montana lodge where a dot-com billionaire hid stolen art treasures in his basement. The other was to find out why a hit man had come to his home--and who had sent him. Parker couldn't do one job if he didn't finish the other.

The master thief wasn't the only one in his crew with scores to settle. Recently released from prison, Lloyd is the brains behind the Montana heist, the only guy who can crack the lodge's alarm system. But Lloyd had a quarrel with some former partners--and a temper. And when he explodes, and shoots a guy through the eye, Parker just happens to be by his side.

Now Parker and his would-be partner are both cutting swaths of destruction on their way to Montana. With broken bodies and broken promises piling up behind them, one question remains: Is there enough room in this heist for both men to come out alive?

In Firebreak Richard Stark has elevated the noir novel to a kind of relentless poetry, painting a searing portrait of seemingly ordinary men moonlighting in death and destruction. From an elderly husband-and-wife team of assassins to a pair of crippled criminals stewing in their hatred of Parker, Firebreak is a furious drama acted out by people who know only one way to fight fire: with fire.