Books with author Richard Stafford

You probably haven’t ever noticed them. But they’ve noticed you. They notice everything. That’s their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers’ work habits, the positions of the security guards. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack. They’re thieves. Heisters, to be precise. They’re pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. If you’re planning a job, you want him in. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is the heister’s heister, the robber’s robber, the heavy’s heavy. You don’t want to cross him, and you don’t want to get in his way, because he’ll stop at nothing to get what he’s after. Parker, the ruthless antihero of Richard Stark’s eponymous mystery novels, is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose-style—and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency—Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of this series to print for a new generation of readers to discover—and become addicted to. In The Outfit, Parker goes toe-to-toe with the mob—hitting them with heist after heist after heist—and the entire underworld learns an unforgettable lesson: whatever Parker does, he does deadly. “Westlake knows precisely how to grab a reader, draw him or her into the story, and then slowly tighten his grip until escape is impossible.”—Washington Post Book World “Elmore Leonard wouldn’t write what he does if Stark hadn’t been there before. And Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t write what he does without Leonard. . . . Old master that he is, Stark does all of them one better.”—Los Angeles Times “Donald Westlake’s Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you’ve been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust—these are the books you’ll want on that desert island.”—Lawrence Block

You probably haven’t ever noticed them. But they’ve noticed you. They notice everything. That’s their job. Sitting quietly in a nondescript car outside a bank making note of the tellers’ work habits, the positions of the security guards. Lagging a few car lengths behind the Brinks truck on its daily rounds. Surreptitiously jiggling the handle of an unmarked service door at the racetrack.They’re thieves. Heisters, to be precise. They’re pros, and Parker is far and away the best of them. If you’re planning a job, you want him in. Tough, smart, hardworking, and relentlessly focused on his trade, he is the heister’s heister, the robber’s robber, the heavy’s heavy. You don’t want to cross him, and you don’t want to get in his way, because he’ll stop at nothing to get what he’s after.Parker, the ruthless antihero of Richard Stark’s eponymous mystery novels, is one of the most unforgettable characters in hardboiled noir. Lauded by critics for his taut realism, unapologetic amorality, and razor-sharp prose-style—and adored by fans who turn each intoxicating page with increasing urgency—Stark is a master of crime writing, his books as influential as any in the genre. The University of Chicago Press has embarked on a project to return the early volumes of this series to print for a new generation of readers to discover—and become addicted to.In The Outfit, Parker goes toe-to-toe with the mob—hitting them with heist after heist after heist—and the entire underworld learns an unforgettable lesson: whatever Parker does, he does deadly. “Westlake knows precisely how to grab a reader, draw him or her into the story, and then slowly tighten his grip until escape is impossible.”—Washington Post Book World “Elmore Leonard wouldn’t write what he does if Stark hadn’t been there before. And Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t write what he does without Leonard. . . . Old master that he is, Stark does all of them one better.”—Los Angeles Times “Donald Westlake’s Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you’ve been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust—these are the books you’ll want on that desert island.”—Lawrence Block

John Richard Stafford (1874-1966) was a famous Western pulp writer who engaged in cattle ranching with father in Gray and Donley counties, Texas from 1896-98 and was employed as a newspaper writer from1898-1900. His literary talent was passed on to his Pulitzer Prize winning daughter Jean Stafford."When Cattle Kingdom Fell," is a very original story of wild cattle days in the vast plains of Texas. It is a thrilling tale of Western life and intrigue in the days when the freebooters of the plains fought to maintain their grip on the great ranges against the incoming settler with his barbed wireThis is the story of contest between the cattle men and the settlers in Texas—the cattle men trying to preserve large tracts of the pasturage of immense herds of cattle, and the settlers fencing up the land into farms. The adventures of John Burns the manager of Double K ranch, who was in favor of giving to settlers their legal rights, of Nell March, daughter of the owner of the ranch, of Warwick the leader of the cattle, interests, are given in an interesting manner, ending in the success of the settlers and the breaking up of the cattle ranges, and incidentally the happy termination of the love affairs of Burns and of Miss Nell. It is an early 20th Century Western story, written with all the emotional intensity and delicate feeling which this dramatic land of the West holds for the novel reader of today. The story overflows with love. hate, Jealousy, revenge and breathes the atmosphere where its people are fearless, reckless and unconventional. Originally published in 1910; may contain an occasional imperfection

The Outfit was organized crime with a capital O. They were big. They were bad. They were brutal. And no crook ever crossed them and lived to enjoy it. Except Parker. So they wanted Parker dead, and a hit man proved they meant business. Too bad for the Outfit he missed. Ripping off the Outfit was the easy part of Parker's game. Going one-on-one with Bronson, the Outfit's Big Boss, was the hard part.

Cady Stockford is a young girl whose lifetime adventures follow a recurring theme of mystical pirates and enchanted treasure. From tyke to teen, through dreams, or perhaps magic, she leaves home and family behind on unexplained forays into a shadowy realm where time and distance don’t seem to matter and friendships last forever. Do dreams determine destiny? Or, do spirits reach across time and space to complete their quests? Follow Cady as she grows from childlike pirate dreams through dawning adulthood understanding to unravel the ultimate historical puzzle.

The book includes engaging articles to stimulate and hold the interest of students who are reading below grade level. Lower reading levels are achieved through the use of controlled vocabulary, simple sentence structure, and clear illustrations.The questions and student activity sheets are designed to improve the reading comprehension skills of remedial readers. The articles and activities can be used as part of a teacher-directed lesson or assigned as independent work. The selections are engaging and of high interest. There are pre-reading activities that include prediction skills, during- reading reinforcement and open-ended question activities, and after-reading excercises for vocabulary attainment and comprehension. This title is aligned to state and national standards and promotes Reading Next and Adolescent Literacy Initiatives.

"Miss Stafford writes with brilliance. Scene after scene is told with unforgettable care and tenuous entanglements are treated with wise subtlety. She creates a splendid sense of time, of the unending afternoons of youth, and of the actual color of noon and of night. Refinement of evil, denial of drama only make the underlying truth more terrible." --Saturday Review "Hard to match . . . for subtlety and understanding. . . written wittily, lucidly, and with great respect for the resources of the language. "--New Yorker Coming of age in pre-World War II California and Colorado brings tragedy to Molly and Ralph Fawcett in Jean Stafford's classic semi-autobiographical novel, first published in 1947. Torn between their mother's world of genteel respectability and their grandfather's and uncle's world of cowboy masculinity, neither Molly nor Ralph can find an acceptable adult role to aspire to. As events move to their swift and inevitable conclusion, Stafford uncovers and indicts the social forces that require boys to sacrifice the feminine in order to become men and doom intelligent girls who aren't pretty.