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?" she said.t"Grilled lemon and rosemary chicken, brown rice with pignolias, assorted fresh vegetables lightly steamed and dressed with Spenser's famous honey-mustard splash, blue corn bread, and a bottle of Iron Horse Chardonnay." (p. 14-15)tSusan smiled, which was always lovely to see. When she smiled her whole self went into it and the tone of her body changed and her coloration livened. (p. 13)t"We are faced with a decision," I said. "I can have supper on the table in ten minutes and we could eat heartily then fall into bed. But knowing how, as you age, you are inclined toward torpor after a meal, I was wondering how you wished to deal with the question of me jumping on your bones."t…. Susand drank the rest of her champagne and leaned forward and put the glass on the coffee table and stood up. She stepped out of the cowboy boots, and unsnapped the leather pants and wiggled out of them and folded them neatly across the back of the wing chair. Then she turned and looked full at me and smiled with all of her energy and said, "I believe it would be best if you jumped on my bones now."t"I knew you'd say that," I said.t"When did you first suspect?" she said.t"When you took your pants off," I said.t"Yes," Susan murmured, her face against mine, "that would be suggestive."tI put my arms around here. "You know what I miss?" I said. "I miss the old days, before pantyhose, when there were garter belts and the flash of thigh above a stocking top."t"Ah, sweet bird of youth," Susan said with her mouth against mine.t"But I'll manage," I said.tAnd I did. (p. 14-15)"He probably wouldn't seek therapy," Susan said. "He wouldn't need to, his needs are being fulfilled by the crime. People seek help when they are frustrated, when the pressure is too great to bear."t"Just like me," I said. "Whenever the pressure of tumescence becomes intolerable, I seek you out."t"How lovely to think of it that way," Susan said. (p. 15-16)I mused that I had never seen a woman who looked good in leotards, with the possible exception of Gelsey Kirkland. Susan wore sweats and a T-shirt when she worked out. I mused that most men when they started working with weights tried to lift too much and cheated, and that most women did the exercise exactly as they should but didn't try hard. (p. 39)Henry came into the weight room with a woman in full uniform. She wore a lavender leotard, with matching Nikes, and sloppy socks in a darker lavender. Over the leotard she wore a white sort of G-string that looked rather like a diaper. She had on white wristbands and a white headband, and a lavender ribbon tied in her hair. She had managed, somehow, to achieve a condition simultaneously thin and flabby…. Henry smiled kindly and nodded at he machine for hamstrings. The woman got on backwards. Henry smiled even more kindly and got her turned around.t"Heels under here," Henry said. "Now curl the legs up slowly."t"What do you mean curl?" the woman said.t"Try to touch your, ah, backside with your heel," Henry said….t"I can't," the woman said. "It's too heavy."t"It's as light as it goes, ma'am," Henry said, and smiled kindly some more. "Maybe you could try a little harder."tt"It hurts," she said.t"Well" -- Henry laughed kindly -- "like they say, ma'am, no pain, no gain."t"I don't understand what that means," she said.tI knew Henry knew I was there. But he wouldn't look at me.t"Here," Henry said, "I'll help you. Now, curl your legs up, I'll give a push. There."t"Is that enough?" she said.t"No," Henry said. "Usually we like people to start with eight repetitions and work up to twelve and then add some resistance."t"Eight what?"t"Do it eight times."t"I've already done it once."t"Right, only seven more."t"I can't do seven more."t"I'll give you a start," Henry said.tHenry curled the machine up, bringing the woman's legs up to within maybe a foot of her thin, flaccid butt.tt"Ow," she said.tHenry looked at the front desk. There was trim young woman in white sweats there. Henry jabbed his finger at her and thumbed toward himself. She came over.t"There," Henry said to the woman. "I've got you started; Janie will take you through the rest of the machines."tThe woman said, "I don't want to do all those machines today."tJanie said, "It'll be fun once you get started, you'll see." She glanced at Henry. There was no kindness in her glance. I was on the lat machine, and as Henry and Janie exchanged their glances I turned around and did a handstand on the seat of the lat pull down machine, so that I was effectively on it upside down.t"Excuse me, Mr. Cimoli," I said. "Am I doing this right?"tHenry turned and stared at me for a moment with no change of expression.t"Why, yes, sir," Henry said, and smiled kindly. "You're doing just fine." He stepped nearer to me and said more softly, but just as kindly, "Now, why don't you pull the weight down with your dick," and moved off toward the front desk. (p. 39-41) [He then trains hard.]tI was out of the shower and getting dressed when Henry came in.t"Used to be simple," Henry said. "I'd train hard and then when I was ready, I'd go in the ring and Willie Pep or Sandy Saddler would ring my chimes for me, and I'd go home and in a few days I'd start training again."t"That woman didn't seem to have the killer instinct about training," I said.t"Half the people who come in here are like that. They want to feel great and look great and not pop a sweat. That woman was bad. But the worst are the guys who always thought that jocks were vulgar, you know? And then they get a physical and the doctor says they need exercise. So they come down here wearing black socks and white tennis shoes and say things like 'this machine is rather intimidating,' and you got to practically put their fucking hands on the handles for them. They don't come down and scope things out a little. They don't look at the machine and notice there's probably only one way it can work. They don't watch other people work out for a few minutes and see how they do it. They come in and get on the fucking equipment upside down and flap their fucking arms like a fucking cocka doodle fucking do until you go over and say, 'Perhaps it would work better if you did it this way.'" (p. 42-43)
When the fourth victim of the press-named Red Rose Killer is found dead, with no seeming pattern other than they’re all black females, Spenser is called in by Lt. Quirk to help out with the investigation. The killer has left a note, saying he’s a cop and Quirk needs someone - beyond Belson - that he can trust. When another victim is found and her husband confesses all, the powers-that-be want the case closed but new suspicions are raised when it appears that Susan might have the killer as a client. Staying close to home - most of the action seems to take place either in Spenser’s office or Susan’s home/office - and featuring a cracking cast - it’s always good to see Quirk and Belson and Hawk is a character who just gets better and better - this is a real return to the early style of the series, with plenty of story and snappy dialogue and not so much white space. The central relationships are wonderfully played - honour amongst the men, love and affection with Spenser and Susan (and Hawk) - and Parker includes some nice nods to the past (Tony Marcus offers his assistance, Rita Fiore sends a note and Linda Thomas is briefly mentioned - Spenser looks to the window she used to be in but there’s now a blind over it). The plot is nicely layered and unravels in a believable way though the killer has his own POV, which rankled with me at the start but it does show the characters inner workings that we couldn’t see otherwise and helps add suspense to the tense climax (which does suffer slightly, with some ‘Psycho’-like exposition). Wonderfully written as ever, equally comfortable with banter and violence (and with a throwaway line on the penultimate page that makes the whole thing much darker), this is a great novel and very highly recommended.
What do You think about Crimson Joy (1989)?
Serial killers are the cockroaches of crime fiction. No matter how many you see, there’s always a million more. Even Robert B. Parker doing his updated version of old school detective novels with Spenser couldn’t escape the siren call of doing a book about a wacko murderer back in the ‘80s when the serial-killer-as-villain took over the genre.A psycho has been killing black women and leaving a red rose with the bodies. Spenser’s police buddy, Quirk, gets a letter from the killer claiming that he is a cop so he’d like to get some help from outside the Boston PD. Spenser joins the investigation, but things get strange when someone breaks into Susan’s house and leaves a red rose. Is the killer one of her psychiatric patients? The whole issue gives Spenser and Susan an ethical dilemma between her need to protect patient confidentiality against figuring out if the murderer is among them.This is a very ‘meh’ Spenser book for me. Most serial killer stories bore me to tears these days, and the series was always at it’s best when Spenser goes up against plain old criminals. The killer is one of the ‘80’s style villains that was extremely common. He’s got a distinct signature, a pattern that he never breaks, and a domineering mother to give him an instant pop psychology motive.The conflict between Susan’s ethical issues as a therapist, and Spenser’s concern for her safety is mildly interesting, but the two have started to get very smug about their happy relationship. They almost break their arms patting themselves on the back for the way they handle it with a minimum of friction to each other.Probably the most entertaining aspect is when Spenser goes on a talk-radio show to try and draw the killer out and spends a painful hour listening to every moron in the Boston area call in with their misinformed opinions and dumbass theories. Spenser decides that the whole concept is ‘a forum for public masturbation’. It’s amazing how big the forum got over the next couple of decades.There’s also a funny footnote in this era of CSI. Even though the killer leaves semen at his crime scenes and it’s analyzed for blood type, DNA is never mentioned once. How was anyone ever caught before the popularization of the lab geek as hero?Next up: Spenser shoots some hoops as well as criminals in Playmates.
—Kemper
Spenser, Hawk, Susan, Belson and Quirk hunt down a psychopath killer who has mom issues. Serious mom issues. But, Parker has a point "the thing about monsters is, you want to kill them until you meet them, and when you meet them they don't seem monstrous, and killing them begins to seem unkind." And he has another good point too (about love) "all the received truths of popular culture presume that successful love is rooted in shared interests. Dating services computerize preferences, hobbies, vacations, and such so that they can match like with like....and, in fact, of course, love frequently flourishes most successfully when ying meets yang." And Spenser humor "Susan's refrigerator was under the counter, and what it lacked in height it lacked also in width."
—Allison
Crimson Joy, is number 15 in Robert Parker's Spenser series. It is one of Parker's older books, revealing Parker and Spenser at their best. This events in this story affect Spenser personally as well as his psychologist lover, Susan Silverman and their buddy, Hawk. A husband murders his wife imitating the "Red Rose Killer," a serial murderer who has been leaving a rose on the corpses of his victims, middle-aged black women. When the spouse admits his guilt, government higher-ups assure feminist and ethnic pressure groups that the elusive maniac has been caught: case closed. But Spenser's friends in homicide, angered by the cover-up, enlist him and Hawk in an unofficial investigation that seems to implicate some of Susan's patients. Resenting the intrusion on her professional territory, Susan nevertheless cooperates. Spenser and Hawk, as guards, are therefore present during the psychologist's session with the dreaded but pitiable killer and the ensuing tense, final scene. Parker's wit, great dialogue and convincing characters pace the story in an exciting manner. This is yet another great Robert Parker story, and why he is my all-time favorite mystery/adventure author.
—Michael O'Leary
