Spenser's latest case has him playing bodyguard to a Dr. Ashton Prince, respected art lecturer and teacher, and doing a ransom payment for the safe return of a one of a kind painting, "Lady With a Finch" by Frans Hermenszoon, a Low Country painter during the time of Rembrandt. It was supposed to ...
I read this on my flight to live in Italy for a period. I loved it, and I was frustrated by it at the same time. As I read it, I remembered why I love Parker so much: the tight use of language, not only Spenser's banter, but his ability to pack a lot of information and imagery into a few words...
“Night and Day” is the eighth entry in Parker’s enjoyable Jesse Stone set. Compared to some of the others, the storyline is a little tame, although three sets of events bother Jesse enough to seek righting some wrongs, crimes or not. First, a middle school (female) principal is caught literally...
This is one of those books that gives me a dilemma when it comes to reviewing it because the major event in this one doesn’t occur until well into the story so it seems like some kind of spoiler warning is in order. However, that event is described in the book jacket and even in the plot summary...
This compilation dates back to 2002 and I picked it up because it was edited by one of my favourite authors, James Ellroy, and contained a story by another of my favourite authors, Michael Connelly, he of Harry Bosch fame. However, it was a few other stories that really stood out for me.The first...
Hawk used his key to open Spenser’s door and came inside. He set his suitcase down and walked towards the living room of the apartment.“Spenser! You are not going to believe what happened to me in Burma. I had to kill more people than cancer. It was just insane and…..,” Hawk stopped short when...
Years ago, Boston PI Spenser made a difficult decision in helping troubled teen April Kyle get off the streets. Now the adult April is back in Boston running an upscale call-girl operation. April says she has been pretty successful in running the all-women business, but recently some thugs have b...
“You working on anything?” Hawk asked.“I was thinking about breakfast,” I said.“I might need some support,” Hawk said.“You might?”“Yeah. Pay’s lousy.”“How much?” I said.“I’m getting nothing.” “I’ll take half,” I said.“You ain’t worth half,” Hawk said. “Besides, I got the job and already put in a...
Robert Parker is an entertaining author, and that's why his books continue to sell. As one reviewer noted, the stories are all the same, predictable - except for the murdered & victims, and town setting. True, but it's for Spencer (PI) and Jesse Stone (small town chief of police) (the main detect...
This is an old story that has had several previous incarnations. The original story was “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa and then there was the Hollywood original movie “The Magnificent Seven”, followed by a collection of weaker sequels. In “The Magnificent Seven” a Mexican village is being terr...
As a kid, I loved Cross-Over comic stories. You know-- Superman teams up with Batman, or Spiderman fights the Incredible Hulk-- stuff like that.I used to imagine a television episode where the Cartwrights from Bonanza fought a range war against the Barkley's from the Big Valley. Or, what if Pal...
t"What was it like for you?" she said.t"Well, the thing about almost dying," I said, "is that a lot of the time, you don't know that you almost died until a long time after you didn't…."t"Intensive care can be a very brutal experience," Cecile said.t"It is," I said. "But most of the time you don...
I watched her accept the fact that she was alone with me, and watched as her persona adjusted to the fact. She smiled at me. There was a touch of conspiratorial intimacy in the smile. Rikki Wu was sex. I was pretty sure she was spoiled and self-centered and shallow. Maybe cruel. Certainly c...
Robert Parker was one helluva writer. His Spenser novels alone guarantee that he’ll be remembered within the noir genre for years to come. (I reserve the moment to not comment on the Sunny Randall or Jesse Stone novels in this review…not to mention his westerns.) But what is really amazing a...
In SUDDEN MISCHIEF, Spenser is asked by the world’s hottest hottie, Susan Silverman, to defend her former husband against a case of multiple sexual harassment charges from four married women. The man bringing the charges against Susan’s ex is just about the most powerful, and dangerous, man in B...
After the body of a divorced Florida heiress washes ashore in Paradise, Jesse Stone discovers her kinky secrets-and a sordid past that casts suspicion on everyone she knew, from friends to family. Unfortunately no one is talking, so it's up to Stone to speak for the dead... From Publishers Week...
This has got to be the worst private eye novel ever written. Spenser is even more arrogant and conceited than ever. He tells the girl that nobody can kill him... Really? Parker pretends to know L.A. I thought he messed up a bit by mentioning Marineland. My recollection was that Marineland ha...
This author excelled at writing snappy comebacks in his character dialogue.However. That's the only positive thing I can say about this book, so I'm giving two stars for the witty banter (of which there was actually too much; how about a little more action/description?). I admit that detective fi...
Robert B. Parker is back in Paradise, where Detective Jesse Stone is looking for two things: the killer of a teenage girl—and someone, anyone, who is willing to claim the body… Amazon.com Review With assured confidence and a master's economy of means, Robert B. Parker, who is best known for h...
Not only is Pastime one of Robert B. Parker's best novels about the private detective Spenser, but it is also one that clearly demonstrates Parker's skill as a crime writer.Spenser's semi-adopted son, Paul Giacomin, visits Spenser in Boston asking for his help. He can't locate his mother, who has...
It’s 1976 and the Montreal Summer Olympics will be starting soon. But that is of no consequence to Spenser at this point. What is important is the job that the highly successful head of an international conglomerate, Hugh Dixon, has hired him to do. Dixon has retained Spenser as a bounty hunter.S...
In Hugger Mugger, Spenser manages to stay out of bed with a bevy of Southern Belles and out of trouble with the law. He even manages to call in some favors from his old friend on the police force and cooperate with the local constabulary when he works a case down in Georgia. As much as I enjoyed ...
Spenser goes to a gay bar circa 1974. Wacky hijinks ensue.God Save the Child is the second book of the Spenser series, and it’s probably most notable for the introduction of Susan Silverman, the woman who will become Spenser’s long-time girlfriend and eventually the center of his world. Since t...
I’m from an generation for whom Avery Brooks is best known for playing Captain Sisco of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. For another generation, and a different set of genre fans, he is perhaps better known for his 65 episode run as Hawk, PI Spenser’s sometime companion (who even had his own short li...
This Spenser novel is better than some I've read. There is a coherent plot, an actual mystery, and the tough guy vs. tough guy dialogue and activity actually makes sense as Spenser goes up against a number of mobsters as the story progresses. As usual, the novel is marred by the author's obsess...
Robert B. Parker, Early Autumn (Dell, 1981)It may still be a little too early in the game to call the Spenser novels some of the great twentieth-century detective fiction. There cannot, however, be any doubt as to the continuing popularity of, and loyalty to, the line of novels written by Robert ...
" I walked off the spiral, and looked at the penguins on the first balcony. They were the false note in the place. There was no glass wall, no separation between us except six feet of space. The smell of fish and, I supposed, penguin, was rank and uninsulated. I didn't like it. The silent fish...
Reading the Spenser series, along with about six other series in order, has been a challenge but a fun one. When I first began reading Playmates I was thinking about how much I missed Spenser's wise ass remarks, being, not trying to be but actually being funny, by my warped sense of humor standa...
In the previous book in the series, Valediction, Susan had left Spenser to take a job in San Francisco, partially because she said that she needed some time alone because she’d always defined herself as someone’s daughter, wife, girlfriend, etc. and Spenser’s idealization of her had become overwh...
Sometimes, things that look too good to be true are too good to be true. In this case, the wife of a Senate candidate is just that. Indeed, my immediate impression as I started reading this book on my regular commute was that this plot was going to give Parker a chance to blast the right-wing can...
In this story, Spenser is once again on a noble mission and people are killed, but unlike other Spenser stories, the plot didn’t grab me. Furthermore, the dialog lacked the wittiness found in the other Spenser stories. He was much more subdued, almost fatalistic. Even the scenes with Hawk lacked ...
I went back to the kitchen and began to pound a couple of boneless chicken thighs with a heavy knife.t"Takes a tough man to make tender chicken," I said….tI sprinkled some rosemary on the flattened chicken thighs and put them in olive oil and lemon ice to marinate. (p. 11)t"What's for supper?" s...
The absolute best thing in reading Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels for the first time is how wonderfully that the TV series based on them was cast. You have basically two principal roles in the books. First is Spenser -- like the poet -- a tough, no-nonsense Boston private detective who narrate...
I read Robert B. Parker’s The Professional last month and wrote a long review trashing him for ruining Spenser in the last half of his career. Parker died this week, and I feel like a jackass. He had provided me a lot of enjoyment over the years and had a lot to do with turning me into the crim...
Lovely, lovely story about love. The book just took my breath way.Sometimes I feel my mind wandering when reading but not this book. Every sentence says something important about the story. The reviews on the book's cover uses the word 'sparse' and I agree. Very clean, clear and written in a w...
Robert B. Parker writes a tough guy main character whose biggest flaw is his obsessive love of a woman who betrays him? Hmmmm…. I have the weirdest sense of deja vu….By the late ‘90s RBP could, and frequently seemed to, crank out a Spenser novel in his sleep so he started doing other things lik...
Parker vs. Parker?Robert B. Parker cooked up an ex-convict named Jimmy Macklin who has an ambitious scheme to loot an entire island populated by some very wealthy people, and he recruits a crew to help him blow up a bridge, take out a private security force, empty a bank and then make a getaway b...
It’s ten degree above the average, no clouds and the wind is down, here in SoCal just past Thanksgiving and I’m stuck inside an apartment doing respite for my father’s girlfriend while she takes some time off for herself and also to have some fun with her girlfriends. My father is ninety-one, and...
I knew that Robert B. Parker was phoning it in on a lot of these later Spenser books, but this one may be among the weakest and laziest of the bunch.Spenser gets hired by Marlene Rowley to see if her husband Trent is cheating on her. After he follows Trent to a hotel liaison with another woman, ...
There is something evil in the air. Fourteen-year-old Bobby senses it. Who is that man he saw arguing with his pretty new English teacher? And what was the real reason she missed school for days afterward? Bobby knows he should mind his own business, but times are confusing. World War II has just...
"A novel of violence, crisp dialogue, and suspense . . . the reader is immediately caught up in the ambience of danger." -- The Boston Globe From the Paperback edition.
When a shy high school student's body is found washed up on the shore of a quiet New England beach town, an apparent suicide, fifteen-year-old Terry Novak doesn't know what to think. Something just doesn't add up, so he decides to do some investigating of his own with the help of his best friend,...
There was a broad exterior stairway and inside there was a beautiful marble staircase leading up to the main reading room with carved lions and high-domed ceilings. It was always a pleasure to go there. It felt like a library and looked like a library, and even when I was going in there to look u...
Susan said when she opened her door. “Where’s the little tyke?” “He’s with Henry Cimoli,” I said. “I need to talk.” “Oh, really. I thought perhaps you’d been celibate too long and stopped by to get your ashes hauled.” I shook my head. “Knock off the bullshit, Suze. I got to talk.” “Well, that’s w...
I was at my desk, looking at the list of people to talk with about Jumbo Nelson, when one of them walked in. Alice DeLauria looked great. Black dress, three-inch heels, diamonds, and a perfect tan. She kept her sunglasses on. She saw Z and glanced at him without interest, put her small black purs...
The shadow of the bulky Mexican was still motionless outside the door. I was in the other chair, sitting in it backwards with my forearms folded over the back. It had grown dark outside the office and del Rio hadn’t turned on a light, so we all sat in the aftermath of sunset as del Rio talked. &n...
"Commonwealth." "Want a snack before we part?" She nodded and we walked up toward Newbury Street. "How does a slob like that get to be executive nitwit, or whatever he is, in the state education system?" I said. "Knew someone, I suppose," Susan said...
Conn said. “How can you possibly say that?” “I been a cop most of the time since I saw you last,” Conn said. “Guy does something like this, he’s been off center for a long time.” “My son is a fine young man,” Hadley said. “Except that he shot a female child after he fucked her.” Hadley leaned bac...
A waitress came by to take our orders. She was young and blond and wearing a green-and-white outfit that fell somewhere between a Hansel and Gretel costume and a cheerleader’s uniform. Her short skirt revealed long, tan legs of the type you seldom see in Boston in the winter, the kind that make y...
Ann Summers was there at her desk, in a simple black dress today. She remembered me and was glad to see me, a combination I don’t always get. On the other hand, given the activity level in the office, she was probably glad to see anyone. “He’s back,” I said. &n...
We were sitting in his office. Quirk had one foot up on an open file drawer in his desk. The crease in his tan flannels was still intact. His blue-and-tan-striped tie was loosened. His blue oxford shirt was open at the neck. His blue blazer hung wrinkle-free on a hanger on a hat rack near the doo...
I preferred the plain ones. Belson liked the ones with strawberry frosting and sprinkles. “What kind of sissy eats strawberry-frosted donuts?” I said. “With jimmies,” Belson said. “I had too much respect for you,” I said, “ev...
We stood leaning our forearms on the railing and watched the boats and the people and the ducks, green and quiet in the middle of the city. “It sounds like Jeannie’s mother might have wanted to promote you as her daughter’s boyfriend,” Susan said. “I think that was one thing she wanted,” I said. ...
I was making a list of what I knew and questions I had about the death of Ashton Prince. I always liked making lists. It gave me the illusion of control. There was certainly some kind of connection among Prince and Missy Minor and, presumably, Winifred Minor. And obviously one between Prince and ...