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 narrates the action in a quick, jabbing style. Spenser is a bit quicker with the smart remarks than he is with his fists, which is welcome, because otherwise the narrative would degenerate into round after round of I-threw-the-punch after he-threw-the-whiskey-bottle, and nobody needs that. Spenser is smart, too, and capable of the wry literary allusion from time to time. (The title of this installment itself is an allusion to a Keats poem; it's relatively meaningless otherwise.) Anyway, it is very difficult to read Pale Kings and Princes without having the voice of the late Robert Urich echoing in your head, and I recommend that you not even try. It is even harder to hear the dialogue from Parker's other great character, the massive enforcer Hawk, and not hear Avery Brooks's rich baritone -- and a good thing, too. Hawk's dialogue is written in dialect, and it looks incredibly lame on the page if you don't have the resonant voice of authority behind it. Hawk could read like a cartoon, but he's the farthest thing from a cartoon, and it is all to the good that he was portrayed by a tough character like Brooks for all those years that "Spenser: For Hire" appeared on ABC. Of course, maybe you never saw the old series. No problem. Don't worry about it. Pale Kings and Princes is still worth a look, if you have the time, and especially if you're on an airplane and the alternative is reading that damned DaVinci book or what have you. Pale Kings and Princes is largely a Spenser production. The first part of the book is almost maddeningly conventional, just as though Parker is cribbing from every Lone Ranger episode ever written. There has been a murder in a small town in rural Massachusetts. A reporter investigating the cocaine trafficking in the area has focused on the town -- which not coincidentally has a large Colombian immigrant population. The reporter is killed (offstage, before the first page is written). The local police have no suspects and no interest in pursuing the case. Spenser is called on by the newspaper to figure out exactly what happened to the reporter. Spenser's investigative style is simplicity itself. He drives into town, checks in to the local motel, and asks a lot of questions of all the stock characters in any Western town (present, apparently, even in Western Massachusetts). He quizzes the bartender, the chief of police, and the town librarian, all of who tell him to mind his own business. This leads him to a rendezvous with the local gang of toughs, who tell him even more emphatically to mind his own business. (This leads to easily the funniest scene in the book, where Spenser has to give out some timely first aid tips.) Eventually, someone comes forward with a timely bit of information, which leads Spenser to ask a few more untimely and unwelcome questions, and leads to yet another gang of local toughs showing up to challenge him, one that has closer ties to the killing. This may sound a bit repetitive and dull and repetitive. What makes it appealing is the style of the thing. For example, you have things like Spenser's absolute horror of being stranded out in the boondocks, with one restaurant in driving distance, and that one serves salmon loaf and the dreaded "Polish Platter". There is his realization that there is no sign of civilization in the area, with the possible exception of Sam Adams beer. So he imports his girlfriend, psychiatrist Susan Silverman, sporting a sharp fox-fur jacket, for a seedy weekend fling. (There's a great bit where Spenser asks where the good restaurants in town, and one of the anatagonistic townspeople has to stop and think for a minute while she considers that Spenser is, after all, a human being in need of the occasional good meal and not just a sinister, brooding presence.) The plot of Pale Kings and Princes is simple enough -- simple enough that it ought not to be spoiled here, actually. This is a good thing entirely. The leanness and the spareness of the plot is a good thing to hang Parker's distinctive language on, and Spenser isn't the kind of sleuth who figures out impossible murders in locked rooms by inductive reasoning anyway. This gives much more time for intimate verbal sparring between Susan and Spenser, which is a lot more fun than solving a murder anyway. (All the more so because Hawk doesn't show up until almost the very end of the book, when the real ultraviolence starts.) The one point at which Pale Kings and Princes might go off the rails for some readers is an essential unfamiliarity with the characters and their quirks. If you subtract that, you're not really left with much -- just a stark tale of one man's personal (although basically indifferent) struggle against evildoers. Fortunately, those of us who remember the old Spenser TV show -- even if we've never read the books that much -- will have that necessary background, and will benefit immensely from spending time again with Parker's private cops.
This one took me back to the mid-80’s when almost all the fictional bad guys were cocaine dealers. Nowadays with villains like terrorists, serial killers, pedophiles and other psychotic nut cases hogging the mystery/crime genre limelight, it almost makes me miss the days when a kilo of coke was considered the root of all evil.A newspaper sent a reporter into Wheaton, Massachusetts, to check out rumors that it’s the major distribution point for cocaine in the northeast, but the reporter turned up dead and castrated. (The idea that a print newspaper would spend money on investigative journalism is another thing that gives me nostalgia for ‘the good ole days‘.) The newspaper hires Spenser to find out who killed him.Since the local cops are either incompetent or crooked (or both), no progress has been made on the murder and the chief makes it plain that Spenser isn’t welcome. Soon Spenser will be facing off against the Wheaton police, redneck thugs and a Columbian drug kingpin. But maybe the biggest problem that foodie Spenser has is that there isn’t a decent restaurant in town, and he’ll have a lot of problems getting a good meal.I may have to revamp my theory that that all the Spenser books after A Catskill Eagle don’t match the early quality of the series. I’d forgotten about this one, and it’s a very solid Spenser tale with the wisecracking PI facing off against almost an entire corrupt town. Parker still has Spenser capable of making fatal errors at this point. The story is fast-paced, and the dialogue still feels fresh. We’re past the point where there would be any major changes in the series, but this is still a worthy addition to Spenser‘s adventures.Next up: Spenser Vs. The Serial Killer in Crimson Joy.
What do You think about Pale Kings And Princes (1988)?
This is an older Spenser novel. Not that any of them are dated in any sense of that word. Somehow, I had missed this one, or maybe I just haven't read through the "canon" completely...In any case, this takes place primarily in Wheaton, Mass. Spenser has been asked to find out why a young reporter was murdered, and who did it. In the course of events, he finds the police chief remarkably unhelpful (oh, these uptight small-town police chiefs!) and a grocery-store owner with entirely too much money...and paid muscle. Hello, cocaine cartel.After the police chief, his son, and very nearly Spenser himself are killed, he is pretty clear on the Who question, but not so clear on the specifics of Why. After bringing in reinforcements--Hawk AND Susan--they eventually uncover the whole situation, and then deal with it in the most abrupt, useful, and illegal way possible.Good story. I do love the way Parker writes.
—Cat.
A typical Spenser adventure as he takes a job to find out who killed a young newspaper reporter. The reporter was looking into the "rumors" of heavy cocaine trade in a small Massachusetts town that had fallen on hard times when the mills had closed and the imported Columbian workers were left jobless. Spenser runs into heavy opposition from the local Police force and silence from most of the citizens. Eventually working with a State Police officer and Hawk they get to the bottom of the problem. Quick, light and fun as are most of the Spenser books.
—Bob
The guys from the National Book Award never called on Robert B. Parker, and you know what? I'll bet that didn't bother him a whole lot. I believe his intent was to tell an entertaining, mostly tongue in cheek story that gave his readers a couple of hours of fun. This he did quite well. Pale Kings is a pretty typical Spencer outing. This is an earlier one and it's kind of fun to see how the relationships between Spencer, Hawk and Susan matured over the years. I thought the ending was a bit abrupt, but so what? I got what I paid for.
—Doug
