The Rare Coin Score is Parker novel #9 in a series of 24 Parker novels by Donald E. Westlake writing as Richard Stark. Here's a delicious stroke of Americana: to satisfy public craving during the 1930s and 1940s, Walter B. Gibson (pen-name Maxwell Grant) sat at his typer and hammered out 10,000 words a day to create more than 300 Shadow novels. In effect, using the same plot template, Mr. Gibson wrote the same Shadow novel over and over again - and his fans loved him for it. Recognizing the popu...

Donald Westlake, writing as Richard Stark, once said that what he was hoping to convey in his Parker novels is “a workman at work,” a workman who just happens to be a professional thief. He was hoping readers might get hooked on the close focus on a craftsman, solid, dependable, detailed, annoyed by small talk, all business. Tough, but especially uncompromising. And I am sure Stark was hoping we would appreciate some of those serious craftsmanlike qualities in his writing, too!Luc Sante writes,

This is the book where Richard Stark (a/k/a Donald Westlake) quit opening every Parker book with the word ‘When’ so I can quit trying to be clever and starting all my reviews the same way. (And none of you even noticed. I work and slave over a hot laptop all day and this is the thanks I get!)Parker doesn’t need money for a change, but he’s getting bored and restless as he aimlessly travels the country bedding down every woman he can get his hands on so he’s glad to get a call about a planned sco...

Parker gets involved in a caper to rob a coin convention. Complicating matters are an attractive young woman and Billy Lebatard, the man who came up with the operation that happens to have a crush on her. Can Parker pull of the heist without the situation unravelling?The Rare Coin Score was one of the best Parker stories I've read yet. Throwing Claire into the mix gave it a little something extra that set it apart from some of the other stories. Parker with a woman in tow? It sets up plenty of f...

This top-notch Parker caper comes from the mighty pen of Richard Stark (a.k.a. Donald Westlake). What a shame there will be no other titles. This time Parker, the most hardboiled of American thieves, decides to throw in with a motley crew heisting a rare coins convention. Of course, things never go as planned no matter how carefully he sets up the job. This is the job where Parker meets his loyal and smart lady friend Claire who has a key role. It's a thrill to see how Parker thinks on the fly a...

In some ways, this is a typical Parker novel (good caper, wrong partners), it is also atypical as Parker gets involved with a woman before the theft vs. afterwards. This time around, he is recruited by to rob a coin convention by a collector, Billy Lebatard. Initially rejecting the idea and sending away a partner, he is convinced to stick around by Claire, a woman for whom Billy has a crush. As they often do for Parker, things go badly wrong, and he has to play along until he can regain control....

The foreword by Luc Sante is excellent in most ways. He describes Parker's character very well & gives a very good overview of the series. Unfortunately, it contains a lot of series spoilers. Since I was driving & it wasn't a single track, I couldn't really skip it. This is the publisher's fault. Luke mentions that it's been 23 years since the previous book, so that has to be the break between Butcher's Moon #16 (1974) & #17 Comeback (1997). This book is #9! I guess Audio Go just decided it woul...

First published in 1967, this is another book in Richard Stark's (Donald Westlake's) Parker series that has long been out of print and unavailable. Happily, it has now been resurected and republished by the University of Chicato Press.In this book, Stark's amoral protagonist plots the theft of a couple of million dollars (that's 1967 dollars!) worth of rare coins from a coin collector's convention in Indianapolis. He devises a fairly ingenious plan, the execution of which sadly depends on some u...

Parker gets involved into a score that involves rare coins, the crew involved does not gets his hopes up and he has to figure out himself how to really do the job. The pay off could be great if it all works out.Parker meets Claire for the first time and she kind of breaks his usual cycle of doing things which kind of surprises Parker. For the first time since his wife herself killed and almost got him killed Parker meets somebody that has an effect on how he acts and reacts.The story is not a lo...

In Parker's ninth outing he knocks over a coin convention. He also acts a little less like a sociopath robot and a little more like a sociopath human. Parker still likes to sit in dark rooms though when no one is around and he still knows that others might find this to be a little weird so he denies himself this one pleasure in life by leaving a light on when he knows someone is going to drop by. This novel is better than the last couple of Parker adventures.

Parker's bored with the easy life between jobs and breaks several of his self-interest rules when he involves himself with amateurs. I guess if he didn't break a few rules he might get stale as a character, but no sign of that happening. Excellent Parker story.

audio book There was a 10 minute intro about the Parker series for first time Parker readersNothing super here but nothing heavily invested.

Stark - when writing about Parker - is one of those authors (like Wodehouse or Chandler) who really inspires me. There is a brutal simplicity to the prose that beautifully captures the character and keeps the plot going at a cracking pace, even when the characters are just sat around and planning. I pretty much end every Stark novel wanting to go away and write beautifully taut prose about a strong amoral character. (I haven't done it yet, but one day...)The plots (again like Wodehouse) are fair...

Amorality is in first place with cunning a close second!! Oh yeah!!! 3 1/2 Stars

Parker and the Coin ConventionReview of the Blackstone Audio Inc. audiobook edition (February, 2012) of the Fawcett Gold Medal paperback (1967)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 or ensnared in some manner and who spends each book getting revenge or escaping the circumstances.The Rare Coin Score

Now that's more like it!I've been hearing about Richard Stark/Donald Westlake's amoral heist man Parker most of my adult life. If you like crime fiction, goes the party line, you'll like Parker. So I got in. And I ... didn't like Parker as much as I wanted to. I've had the same issue with Harry Bosch. Maybe we don't all have to like everything, even if it's by an author you like in a genre you adore. The last book I'd read in the series was called The Mourner, and I liked it so little that I did...

I was almost dreading this one because I knew from all the introductions of previous books that this is the one where Parker falls in love. But Westlake's careful character work across the previous eight entries primed the pump in a way I couldn't perceive until I was deep in this one feeling stuff you don't generally feel reading one of these. Kind of an amazing thing he did, here.

Tough, one track mind Parker needs a score, the only way he knows how - ill gotten gains. Pulled into a partnership with a shifty coin collector/dealer, the crime is to rip off a large rare coin show, with a million dollars at stake.Throw in a gorgeous femme fatale, an ex con, and some muscle, and the tale is a good, fast moving one.

The 9th Parker novel. The first appearance of Claire. And the start of the middle stage for the Parker series.Parker is called in to assist in the theft of rare coins at an Indianapolis Hotel. The plan by a numismatist is flawed. Parker is able to map out a better heist plan. And a former member throws a monkey wrench in the works.The author gives a good explanation of the "fence's" duties and the problem with splitting the take after a job.This series would be perfect for Amazon Prime or Hulu.

Parker stumbles upon a group of fellow thieves that are planning to rob a group of coin collectors and sellers of their rare an valuable possesions. With Parker onboard, the plan starts to take form and seems possible, but once all the wheels are in motion, the heist goes south. Parker is left scrambling for the door with the dame (Claire) in his wake.I really don't need to elaborate further on Parker or even this specific novel in the series, others have already done a much better job of this.I...

"Parker lay in the dark on his hotel-room bed and waited to be contacted. Lying there, he looked like a machine not yet turned on. He was thinking about nothing; his nerves were still." In this installment of the Parker series, Parker is involved in the heist of a rare coin conference along with his usual assortment of dublicious cohorts. And of course it goes badly, because it's Parker. This is the story in which we are introduced to Claire, Parker's 'main squeeze' for much of the rest of the

"Parker spent two weeks on the white sand beach at Biloxi, and on a white sandy bitch named Belle, but he was restless, and one day without thinking about it he checked out and sent a forwarding address to Handy McKay and moved on to New Orleans.”

This job falls apart for some fairly predictable reasons - thus the “seventh Parker novel” becomes merely one in a series. Other Parker offerings, and most entries, have seemed fresher to me, if somewhat predictable (forgivable, in that I’ve devoured 10 in a row, lol). Still, the economical prose and Parker and his cronies are characters second-to-none.

Notes:Currently on Audible Plus

Early on this reads like the novel where Richard Stark decided to provide details on Parker’s sex life that would merit the forty years worth of steamy pocketbook covers the books bore before University of Chicago Press took the series on. It is also the novel where he takes up with Claire, a love interest who will be around for a while. Being Parker’s girlfriend will be a balancing act. Late in the story Parker gives Claire two options. She knows she’s taken the right one when he doesn’t kill h...

Parker joins a caper he quickly discovers is run by amateurs. This grates on him, as he's a professional, and hates poorly conceived gigs. But he takes over, and find a score within a score, and in the process hooks up with Claire.

I love the old Gold Medal covers I grew up looking at as a kid, so I’m featuring the one above instead of going with an image of the new edition.I don’t much care for the new edition covers, actually. Too simplistic. The Parker books need the old school pulp treatment.Because they’re old school pulp stories.I read The Rare Coin Score again, as it turned out. I first read it probably forty years ago, and even then there was enough of an impact left that I remembered bits and pieces of the plot an...

I miraculously found this one book in the Parker series that I had not read. It was a pleasure (mixed with sadness that there will be no more) to read this, as Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) was a master at terse, concise writing in the noir genre. This is a vintage piece (I believe written in the 60's), so some of the allusions to women need to be taken in their context of the period. That being said, this is the novel when Parker meets Claire, who turns up again in many subsequent books.

“Parker spent two weeks on the white sand beach at Biloxi, and on a white sandy bitch named Belle, but he was restless,...”First words of the first sentence of the book, and I’m already smiling! Another Parker story! The one where he first meets Claire! And they, along with a few others, are planning to knock over a coin convention.This little paragraph is an example of why I like Parker so much: “He was relieved, but didn’t show it. If she’d said yes he would have had to kill her, here and now....

This was the weakest of the Parker books that I've read so far. The twist at the end was good but the relationships that Parker forms in this one seem rather out of character. In fact, the whole job, stealing a huge load of rare coins, seems out of character for him. The redundancy in Parker's thoughts about what to do with the woman he has a relationship with at the end is also noticeable. Definitely my least favorite of the Parker novels that I've read so far.