"When it comes to heists,
Parker believes in some cardinal rules. On this job, he breaks two of them:
never bring a dame along—especially not one you like—and never, ever, work with
amateurs. Nevertheless, with the help of a creep named Billy, and the lure of a
classy widow, he agrees to set up a heist of a coin convention. But Billy’s a
rookie with no idea how to pull off a score, and the lady soon becomes a major
distraction."
Much like The Handle, Donald
E. Westlake writing as Richard Stark sees his amoral and sociopathic thief
Parker making mistakes. It’s been pointed out, Parker operates on a very strict
system for each heist, but by The Rare Coin Score, the ninth volume in this
series, the system is still seeming pretty strict, but cracks are appearing (I
was also reminded that much later, Westlake would have his John Dortmunder
character avoid stealing coins, as they’re heavy and not easily gotten rid of).
So, in the last book, we learn the boatman they recruited to help with the
casino rip-off is not the right person (no one likes a sexual predator), and
they send him on his way. While the character did not know enough of the plan,
he knew some of it, including who was going to do it. I thought at the time
that the character was going to get killed; after all there is no honor among
thieves. But when this does not happen, I realized Parker was making a huge
mistake and sure enough the reason things go sideways in that story is because
Parker forgot there is no honor among thieves and information is king, and
things can and will come back to bite you on the ass.
While the unraveling here is not
so much Parker’s fault, it still seems odd that the man who would rather think
about a heist than have sex (though this changes here as well), Parker would’ve
seen this eventuality. Yeah, I mean, it’s not like Westlake/Stark can’t change
Parker’s motives as the series ages, after all, I’m only on book nine of
twenty-four and as formulaic as these books are, characters still need to grow,
and things change (except for Parker’s age, which is 38 here). But after
telling the readers that Parker is this detail orientated man, who hates waste,
who avoids endangerment, who is very studious about emotional involvement on
any job and to then see him make some mistakes like he’s done in the last three
or four books is weird. I can see now that he was slowly (and unintentionally)
laying the groundwork for his Dortmunder character, the mirror opposite of
Parker.
But in The Seventh, The Handle, and now The Rare Coin Score, Parker is making crucial mistakes (I would include The Juggler here as well), even if he ends up coming out ahead. This changes the character fundamentally, from someone who works once or twice a year to someone who needs to this continuously –with little or no explanation why these dynamics have changed. Also, The Rare Coin Score marks the first appearance of Claire, who will steal Parker’s thieving heart—while together they steal two million dollars’ worth of coins.
Publishing note:
While Westlake's titles were released through various Publishers, the Richard Stark books were first released by Pocket Books. Starting with book nine, ten, eleven and twelve, Gold Medal Books published the Parker tales. Random House would take over for thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Mysterious Press took over for the next seven books, along with reprinting a few Westlake titles and some John Dortmunder tales. Grand Central, a division of Hachette Book Group (and formerly Warner Books) would release the final Parker novel in 2008.
Also beginning that year, the University of Chicago Press, one of the largest and oldest university presses in the United States, began reprinting the early Parker books that had long gone out of print. They would eventually acquire all the rights to all 24 Parker books.
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