When Parker gets plastic surgery from a crooked doctor to change his appearance, he hopes that it will help hide him from the Outfit since they're still slightly peeved at him after the last book. With funds running low, Parker has to quickly sign on for a job robbing an armored car. However, the set-up involves a grouchy waitress named Alma, and she's showing every sign of wanting to pull something cute and keep the money for herself. Plus, the doctor who did Parker's surgery has been murdered and his people have sent a punch-drunk thug after him to see if Parker was the killer. There's a lot of complications, and if there's one thing that Parker can't stand, it's seeing a simple plan get complicated. 
 While a self-contained story, this picks up from The Hunter and leads well into the third book, essentially making the first three of the series a trilogy. One of the nice things about this is that while there's an overall arc to the stories that make them rewarding if you read them all, they can also be enjoyed just as individual books. 
 This one also establishes the tone for the rest of the Parker series. There's usually a job with someone who can't be trusted along with some kind of outside circumstance screwing with Parker's well laid plans. One of Parker's partners sums it up nicely: 
 "It sounds like a good set-up. The way you talked about it, it sounds fine. But there's this Alma. There's always an Alma. Every damn time. Why can't we put together a job without an Alma in it? 
 Unfortunately for Parker, there always will be an Alma around to muck up his schemes.