A Return to the Cerebral Spenser
|
What you get from Robert B Parker, and his hero private eye Spenser, is almost unique in modern crime fiction. While so many others offer noir pastiche or pulp fiction played for laughs, Parker unashamedly walks the same rain soiled streets that Hammett and Chandler did before him, without apologies.
Hundred Dollar Baby marks Parker's 34th Spenser novel and for his regular readers, of which I am proud to call myself one, the characters are all too well known. Unlike most detectives Spenser holds not one but two sidekicks, each serving a valuable purpose in highlighting the juxtaposition of his own character. Firstly there is Hawk, the embodiment of Spenser's macho side, reliable, imposing and most of all moral and then there is Susan Silverman, Spenser's long time partner in love and personal psychoanalyst. While Hawk allows Spenser to tread familiar private eye territory, Susan provides an outlet for Spenser's intellectual and thoughtful side, providing Parker an opportunity to philosophise in a way seldom seen in the pulp detective novel.
For this case Parker resurrects a number of characters from earlier novels. April Kyle (Ceremony & Taming A Sea Horse) walks back into Spenser's life. Despite appearing, at least on the surface, to have turned her life around, she again needs Spenser's help. But in this tale of deceit and exploitation, April turns out to be just another one of many willing to lie to Spenser to conceal the truth of what quickly becomes one of Parker's most shocking novels.
In a return to classic Spenser, the usual suspects appear more as cameos as our favourite gumshoe finds his detecting skills tested to the max. The gun is relegated to the desk drawer as this adventure finds a more cerebral Spenser than we have seen recently.
|
|
A Damaged Woman Breaks
|
Ceremony is one of Robert B. Parker's best books in the Spenser series. In that book, Susan Silverman persuades Spenser to track down teenage runaway, April Kyle, and rescue Kyle from the gritty world of the street walker. Kyle didn't want to be rescued and that book ended with Spenser introducing Kyle to a madam in New York City, Patricia Utley, who promises to look after Kyle. Kyle breaks out of that life when she falls "in love" with a pimp during Taming a Sea-Horse. That book was pretty ordinary . . . and occasionally seemed like little more than an opportunity to wrap stylish dialog around a superficial look at the sex trade. April Kyle is back again in Dream Girl as the madam for a Boston Back Bay mansion where suburban soccer moms do the horizontal for big bucks.
When April Kyle walks into Spenser's office to ask for his help, he doesn't recognize her. But she certainly gets his attention fast enough when Kyle asks him to get rid of some men who are disrupting her operation, which Ms. Utley helped her set up. Spenser and Hawk quickly dispatch some Andrew Square thugs . . . and begin to sense that things are not as they seem. Why would anyone bother to take over a low-profit operation like this one? Naturally, the motives are complex, twisted, and pathological. Susan opines from afar about Kyle's mental health while Spenser and Hawk spend most of the book on boring stakeouts.
Unless you really wanted to know more about how to be a successful madam (including recruiting those suburban soccer moms), there's nothing for you in this book. The story is mostly uninteresting. What does happen moves way too slowly. I felt like I was reading a short story that had been stretched beyond recognition. The ending is unbelievably bad . . . and unbelievable.
For the first time in my reviewing career of looking at Robert B. Parker's books, my advice is to skip this one. Only occasional glimpses of sparkling dialogue provide any reward for the reader. Certainly, few will be enlightened by Parker's amoral defense of the expensive part of the sex trade. I felt the need to wash my hands of Parker's views on that subject after finishing the book.
|
|
|
as usual, brilliant
|
The very reliable Mr Parker. Great plot, great wit, great characters, little amateur psychological edge, clever touching on delicate social issues, can't-put-downable
BUT please Mr Parker can we soon be investigating who shot Pearl? I'm sick of the fawning over the **** dog.
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada