When Parker first hears about the plan to loot all of Copper Canyon, he thinks it’s insane. How can you rob an entire city? However, when he sees the details and realizes that this is an isolated town that could be completely cut off and it’s police force neutralized, Parker starts thinking that it just might be possible if he can find the right men for the job.A solid crew is put together, a plan developed, and even the amateur who came up with the idea, Edgars, seems smart and willing to let P...

This is Parker #5, and a good one. For 3/4 of the story this is a pretty straightforward story of a group of men who decide to "take" (i.e., steal all the money from) a small isolated North Dakota town. Parker decides that it is just a crazy enough plan to work, though he also becomes the lead architect of this meticulous plan. He's worried about a couple aspects of it, but it works like clockwork. Most of the way. But not quite all the way. What did you expect, a heist that just works perfectly...

Well, let's see here. There's been a lot of Richard Stark hoopla around our little corner of Goodreads lately, and I am proud to offer this review as minor corrective to the unbridled enthusiasms unleashed herein. Despite whatever I may say in the course of this review that might lead you to believe otherwise, I did actually enjoy this book. But it is slight, insubstantial, and clunky at times. I'd like to say, with some slippage in the analogy, that it's the equivalent of watching one of those

The Ballad of Copper Canyon – You can bet a batch of ballads and songs were written and sung following the notorious robbery of an entire town. And the bandits made a smooth getaway - the true American frontier spirit in action.The Score takes its place as #5 in the Parker series written by Donald E. Westlake under the name of Richard Stark. If you're after excitement, The Score scores a slam dunk.Here's the skinny: Ever since the last heist months ago, Parker has been on a spending splurge. Par...

An amateur named Edgars hires Parker, Grofield, and ten others to help him with an outlandish plan: to rob an entire North Dakota town! Things go smoothly until it turns out Edgars has ideas of his own...After reading five of the Parker novels, I figured out why love them so much. It's two aspects: Parker's superb ability to plan heists and trying to figure out how the inevitable double cross is going to go when it happens. The Score illustrates this nicely. As usual, Parker's cruel professional...

The plan might sound completely nuts but it's too tempting for Parker to pass up. This time, he signs onto a heist to rob the entire town of Copper Canyon, North Dakota! Author Richard Stark had a real knack for conceiving really original plots for his various heist novels. As I've mentioned in other reviews, these books are so simple and although there's not really a whole to talk about, so far they've been consistently enjoyable for what they are. The omniscient POV style that is a trademark t...

a small town in north dakota sits deep in a narrow valley. a single road the only way in or out. parker and eleven men head down at midnight and methodically take over the tiny police department then the fire department then the phone switchboard. once the town's defenses have been neutralized and communication is cut off from the outside world, the team knocks over the town's two banks, the jewelry store, and then robs the town's entire payroll. a heist to the extreme! forget one bank, one stor...

One of the best Parker stories I've yet read. Despite adhering to a similar formula, Westlake manages to keep them fresh and interesting. The heist plots are inventive and full of suspense, and in this case incredibly audacious. But most compelling is Parker's cadre of fellow thieves and love interests, each with their own very visible foibles, that makes for some tense and gritty interpersonal dynamics, often coming, as they do, into conflict with his strict professional code and highly regimen...

The first place Parker heads to in The Hunter when he gets to New York City to seek revenge on being double-crossed and beginning Stark's series of novels is the Wall Street area. The Score's basic premise is a group of criminals go to a small factory town in North Dakota with the purpose of robbing every business in town of all it's money during one night. Nowhere in the book is it ever mentioned what will be left of the town after Parker and his friends steal all of the payroll money from the

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 Can...

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 out...

So, Parker...you knew better than to get involved in this cluster......errr, flop. We all hope you learned from this experience that when your instincts tell you to pass a job by, pass it by.Lots of action in this somewhat convoluted overly complicated heist...and Parker knew it was too complicated. he almost walked away, and I'll bet by the time it was over he was wishing he had.Okay so I like the series it's good full of action...and makes me feel a little creepy about liking them. I mean Park...

Even though ‘The Score’ is a short novel – my copy runs to a distinctly svelte 158 pages – this is clearly Richard Stark going for epic. The idea of robbing not just a bank, or a factory pay-roll, but an entire city is just genius. It’s a big idea, but one Stark puts across with a beautiful economy. Of course a raid like this needs a sizeable crew and each of the gang of rogues who are pulled together for this heist is beautifully and efficiently sketched in just a few sentences. (What’s more fo...

Parker, bored with hanging around at the beach, decides to check out  another larcenous job opportunity, but there's something hinky about the guy organizing the whole thing. Against his better judgement, Parker deals in because the payoff could be big. This time Parker and the gang knock off a whole town! But you know what happens when things seem to go too smoothly...I've read Parker #1, #3 and now #5. You'd think I was hitting all the odd ones first. Nah. That's just what my local library has...

I think I've hit my limit of Parker books for now. The formula was a bit too predictable, although this was his most ambitious job yet. Unfortunately, I guessed most of the high points pretty much from the beginning. Still, the details were fun to follow & Parker is a wonderful anti-hero. While I have #6, I'm missing the odd numbers after that through #12. I'll see if I can't get them for another Parker marathon at another time.

60th book read in 2018.Number 63 out of 720 on my all time book list.A surprise. Great characters. Can be read as a stand alone.

Did anybody write better heist novels than Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)? Well, maybe Dan J. Marlowe - One Endless Hour and Four for the Money are good examples. Seriously, though, it's hard to top these Parker novels for their depiction of heists. And this one is all about the extreme caper - to rob an entire town in rural North Dakota. In the previous Parker novels he'd been trying to clear himself from the Outfit or dispensing with unfinished business. In this one he is free and clear and a...

Good semi-noir entry, with Parker pulled into a heist unlike any he's been involved with before - an entire town ripe for the plucking.

This is my favorite Parker yet. We get a sliver of insight into Parker's character and a very exciting heist story.

Parker and eleven of his fellow thieves make plans to rob every establishment in a small one-horse town on a single night. What could possibly go wrong?!?! Oh yeah- plenty!!! 3 1/2 Stars for this crazy smile inducing caper!!!

Parker is lollygagging in Miami in-between jobs when he gets a tip on a big score. The job is loaded with red flags, but the take is too tempting; rob an entire town in North Dakota. It will take loads of coordination, a team of thieves, an insider, and more than a little luck. The story is a straightforward account of the set-up, execution and aftermath, but the sparse writing keeps it clipping along. A little far-fetched at times (still not sure why the entire town is under a night curfew), an...

This best comparison for this book is Ocean's Eleven, if it were more hardboiled than flashy and the goal was to steal an entire town instead of a casino. Yes, you read that right, an entire town -- not the town's bank, jewelry store, or mining payroll, but all of them simultaneously. What could possibly go wrong?This is the first Parker book I have read -- in fact, it is the first I have read by author Richard Stark/Donald Westlake. I enjoyed reading about Parker and would definitely read anoth...

I've been a long fan of Richard Stark's (aka Donald Westlake) hardboiled Parker the thief series. THE SCORE is set in a boxed-in Western town where Parker and a large gang hit several banks and the mine's payroll at once. A clever twist is dropped into the last part. Parker is like Mr. Spock, all business and no time for humor or fools. One of the gang members, Alan Grofield, appears later in LEMONS NEVER LIE published by Hard Case Crime.

In a lot of ways, THE SCORE is the quintessential Parker novel. I’m not saying it’s the best one (it’s definitely ONE of the best, though), but if you’re looking for one that best represents what Parker and his world are all about, you could do worse than this one. It involves his biggest, craziest heist thus far, and highlights some really fascinating supporting characters, and features the debut of fan favorite Grofield. Grofield is sort of an “anti-Parker”, a charming, smooth-talking rogue-is...

It's an outrageous plot that has been reused since (and I know not enough to say if it was even original to Stark/Westlake) so it's partly timeless, but it is simultaneously of its time, since the communication issues and societal situation that even allows the story to occur, while certainly odd at printing, are practically impossible now without larding on coincidence and circumstance to the point of absurdity.

Notes:Series is Currently on Audible Plus

Definitely my favorite of the Parker novels since, unfortunately, the first one. Basically it’s about Parker and a crew of some known and unknown variables robbing an entire town. I mean, what else can I say? If you’re not interested in this book just from reading that sentence, there’s nothing I can say to get your attention. These books are short as hell so it’s really hard to get bored, and Parker is of of course one of the all-time tough guys, a dude for whom it’s a routine workday when he k...

As I've stated before, these Parker books fucking rule. Of the ones I've yet read, this one may rule hardest.

COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American CrimeBOOK 175 (of 250)I've read 2 Stark/Parker novels previously and it escaped me completely why these were being republished. So I thought I'd try one more, perhaps I'd find one that redeemed the series. HOOK - 2: >>>"When the bellboy left, Parker went over to the house phone and made his call. He gave the operator downstairs the number he wanted, and waited while the phone clicked and ticked and snicked in his ear....On the 8th ring, the nosy operato...

Weak 3 stars. There wasn’t enough suspense or the unexpected.This wasn’t as good as some of the others in the series, but it was ok. I’m intrigued with Parker, and that keeps me reading.Edgars has an idea for stealing from several businesses at the same time in a North Dakota town. He tells a guy who brings in Parker to plan and run it. It will require 12 to 20 guys.The ending was weak. Things felt hanging and not wrapped up well. I would have liked a different ending for some of the good guys w...