A superb caper. An amateur gets in touch with Parker, who is getting antsy from inactivity and a dwindling bank account. Eventually, he is convinced that a small town in North Dakota, Copper Canyon, can be robbed, even though it is accessible by only one highway, and is completely isolated with a state police station just outside of town. Lots of targets for a big payday: a mine payroll, two banks and several stores with large daily receipts, a small cadre of defenders, few conduits with the outside world, and a enforced nighttime curfew. Great planning until the amateur's agenda is revealed and all hell breaks loose. Very enjoyable. ( )

Parker & Gang rob an entire Town
Review of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (March, 2011) of the Pocket Books paperback (1964)

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 in some manner and who spends each book getting revenge.

The Score is one of the more ambitious Parker heist novels as it involves a very large group of robbers robbing an entire town in an overnight caper. Of course things don't quite turn out as planned although it is not a typical Stark betrayal that messes up the proceedings. Parker has to salvage things as best as he can under the circumstances.

This book also introduces the Alan Grofield character, an occasional Parker associate. Grofield is a struggling actor who supplements his meagre acting income with robberies. Grofield later had his own spin off series with the Alan Grofield novels.

Narrator Stephen R. Thorne does a good 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 author 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 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
The Score was adapted as the French film Mise à sac (Pillaged) (1967) dir. Alain Cavalier, the entire film can be viewed on YouTube with English subtitles here.

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

Although the 2011 Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition shares the same cover art as the University of Chicago Press 2009 reprint, it does not include the Foreword by author John Banville.

Author William L. DeAndrea's Introduction to the 1981 Gregg edition is available to read here. ( )

A tense, tightly plotted hard boiled heist book. Stark makes great use of shifting POVs at the height of the action get you into the heads of the whole cast of rogues. I am starting to see how he wrote 24 of these. ( )

Another good one. They all (so far) follow a formula and the formula always works. I'm ready for the next. The business with the actor / criminal is pretty funny. ( )

The Score” is number five with a bullet of the twenty-four Parker novels provided to us by Mr. Donald Westlake, writing as Richard Stark. It was first published in 1964, but doesn’t feel dated. Parker, who by now is almost the king of thieves, is asked to run an operation that requires twenty-four men. Although Parker knocks it down to a dozen men, it still is quite an operation. Nothing like this has ever been done before. They are going to take over a small North Dakota mining town, Copper Canyon, a town with only one road in or out and one railroad in or out. In order to pull this off and pilfer the banks on the main street and the plant, they have to take over the police station, the fire station, and the telephone exchange. They also have to have a hideout nearby. Luckily, the guy who came to Parker with the idea, although a bit of an amateur, is familiar with the town and the setup.

A large portion of the book is consumed with getting all the players in motion and setting up the heist. By the middle of the book, one wonders if it will be contained in one volume or spread out over successive volumes, but Stark (Westlake) fits it all in. Somehow his writing, which is sparse and careful, takes the reader on this journey very aptly and even the long set-up of the operation is not dull. Once the operation gets underway, all kinds of excitement breaks out and, despite the number of players involved, it is not hard to follow or to understand who is who. Of course, even the smoothest of operations has a few wrinkles and this one, despite how well-planned and well-executed, nearly blows up in Parker’s face.

Grofield, one of Parker’s accomplices, who is a Shakespearean actor on the side, is introduced to the reader in this volume. Grofield later goes no to star in four novels of his own (The Dame, The Damsel, The Blackbird, and Lemons Never Lie). The suave, cultured, ladies’ man is quite a character and does a few unexpected things.

All in all, another terrific novel in the Parker series. The smooth, professional style that these books are written in makes it almost seem as if it were effortless by the writer (Stark/Westlake).
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