#39: The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark

Legendary thief Parker is brought in on a payroll heist that, surprisingly, takes place on an Air Force base in Richard Stark's The Green Eagle Score.

Donald Westlake wrote quite a few Parker novels as Richard Stark, mostly hard-boiled caper novels, a lot of which became movies, comics, spinoff novels, homages, and so on.  I have read and enjoyed a number of them over the years, which I started looking for after getting to meet the gracious Westlake once.

I found this novel, from the late 60s, as an audiobook at the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana, so I gave it a listen.  It's a very tidy little heist story with an interesting setting, and naturally has the requisite double and triple crosses (many centered around an unscrupulous psychotherapist). 

Genre readers who have yet to discover Donald Westlake, or The Green Eagle Score in particular, will find much to enjoy.

#27: The Score by Richard Stark

Ice-cool criminal Parker gets involved with an intricate plot to rob an entire mining town in a single night, against his better judgement, in Richard Stark's The Score.

I came back to Donald Westlake's Richard Stark pseudonym via Darwyn Cooke's excellent graphic novels about Parker, as well as their appearance at goodbye prices for my beloved Kindle.  They have all, thus far, proved to be very crisp, hard-nosed crime novels.

As is often the case, after much build-up a few wrenches get thrown in the mix just in time for a slam-bang finale, including a surprising revelation about a main character's motives.  Naturally Parker's instincts prove out and he again escapes by the skin of his teeth, with just a hint of further treachery to come.

A solid early entry in the Parker series.

#6: The Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark

Master thief Parker runs afoul of the mob, and goes under the knife to get a new face; broke, he gets involved in an armored car robbery against his better judgement, and it continues to go more and more haywire in The Man with the Getaway Face.

This is the second book in the long-running Parker series by Donald Westlake.  I have read Westlake steadily over the years (and once got to direct him on a TV show) but had only skimmed the surface of this pseudonymous series.  When Darwyn Cooke did a graphic novel version of The Hunter I became interested again and picked up the first few novels for my beloved Kindle.

Parker is a very tough, amoral crook who singlemindedly flattens anything in his way, including shady partners, nosy bystanders, aggressive cops, and other inconveniences. 

In this outing, a very fragile alliance of criminals unravels quickly; hampered more by the fact that Parker's plastic surgeon gets murdered, with Parker being a prime suspect.  It probably won't surprise the reader to find out that crime does pay, and Parker ends with an eye on more illegal exploits.

I enjoyed this very hard-boiled crime story and will pick up the next Parker novel before long.

#43: The Hunter by Richard Stark

Parker is a professional thief who is double-crossed and left for dead by his wife and best friend, then single-mindedly decides to get his cut of the big take no matter who he has to bring down--on up to the top gangsters in the country.

The Hunter is a very tough-minded crime novel from the early 60s, the first Parker novel by Donald Westlake under the pseudonym of Richard Stark.  It is a bleak noir with no likeable characters, but written in a terse, kinetic style.

I have been a long-time fan of Westlake (and once got a chance to meet him, when he appeared on a TV show I was directing) and have read a lot of his large body of work, but had not really dipped into his famous Parker series.

I got interested in reading The Hunter for two reasons; first was because I read a very cool graphic novel version done by one of my favorite artists, Darwyn Cooke, and the second was because I nabbed it for my beloved Kindle for free.

As soon as I finished it I grabbed a handful more Kindle Parker novels for pocket change, and dived right into The Man with the Getaway Face, the second novel in the series (and also a good graphic novel). 

Recommended for fans of inky-black noir.