I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
This is a real good news/bad news situation. The good news is that this is probably tI received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
This is a real good news/bad news situation. The good news is that this is probably the best Spenser book that Ace Atkins has written yet. The bad news is that it’s the last one he’s doing. *sigh* Let’s focus on the good news for the moment.
Carolina Garcia-Ramirez won a stunning upset in a Congressional race, but while her outspoken support of progressive policies has made her a new hero for the left, the right wingers hate her guts and aren’t shy about saying so. When some of the threats seem to be more serious than the typical social media bile, Spenser is hired to provide protection and do some sleuthing to see if someone in CGR’s inner circle might be a mole. It doesn’t take long before Spenser finds clues indicating that a white supremacy group is plotting against CGR. As usual, Spenser turns to Hawk for help, but this time Hawk has a favor to ask in return. He wants Spenser to track down a woman he hasn’t heard from in years.
So obviously this one was inspired by a real person and the reactions to her, and that’s a little tricky because Spenser has always been extremely apolitical. That hasn’t changed with Atkins writing it so while Spenser admires CGR for several reasons, that’s on a human level, not a political one. Spenser also won’t abide racism so making the bad guys a bunch of white power assholes means that this is still a straightforward good guy vs. bad guys story with a few ripped-from-the-headlines elements instead of the book feeling like a political manifesto even as Atkins uses the opportunity to highlight how the worst of the worst have felt free to really be themselves these days.
All of that made for a compelling plot, but where this one really crackles is with the very Spenser-ness of it all. The dialogue and banter is quick, clever, and frequently funny. The action is sharp, especially in a climatic scene. Some Spenser history comes up. A lot of delicious sounding food is eaten, and some booze gets drank. There are still dates with Susan, work-outs with Hawk, and a dog named Pearl.
The Hawk sub-plot of him asking Spenser to find a woman was an interesting wrinkle in all this. Atkins had cracked the door open a little on Hawk. Not so much that it gave away too much about a character, who is cool precisely because of the mystery about him, but just enough that it made him feel fresh and even a little more dangerous. What comes out of that is another piece of a great book.
Maybe it’s because I knew that this was the last Spenser that Atkins is doing, but it all seemed extra sharp to me this time. I hated to finish this one because it meant that something I’ve very much enjoyed for ten years now is coming to an end. As swan songs go, this is a great one, and hopefully whoever takes over Spenser next can do half as well....more
I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley.
Spenser tries to bring down a rich pedophile who has been protected for years by his wealth and I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley.
Spenser tries to bring down a rich pedophile who has been protected for years by his wealth and influence. This guy also has a partner in a woman who helps him lure the girls in, and they are often taken to a private island where other powerful men come to party.
That’s just such a disturbing and creepy premise that I’m glad this is a work of fiction and that nothing like that could happen in real life….
In the first Spenser book that Ace Atkins wrote the detective helped a fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie find her mother’s killer. Now Mattie is old enough to legally drink, and she’s been working for Spenser and training as a junior PI. It’s Mattie who is asked by a young girl from her neighborhood for help after she had an icky encounter with a rich pervert at an exclusive club. It soon becomes apparent that there’s some very twisted and rotten stuff going on, and that the guy behind it all will use all of his wealth and power to do anything possible to stop any of his victims from going public.
There are several interesting things going on in this one. The main plot was obviously inspired by a true story although Atkins changes things up so that just because we know what happened in real life doesn’t mean you know how this book will end. The idea of a guy like this with a private island and a stunning list of powerful friends who are involved would probably seem too over-the-top to work in a Spenser novel if it hadn’t happened. So you’ve got Spenser going up against people that you really want to see get kicked in the teeth which makes it satisfying when the detective starts rattling their cages.
Another satisfying thing is that we get a lot of Hawk in this one. Atkins has been judicious in his use of everybody’s favorite bad ass best friend character so that he could explore and expand the roles of other supporting players in recent books, and he’s done a great job of it. Still, it’s always comforting to know that Hawk is around, and it was nice to get a little insight into what Hawk does when he isn’t saving Spenser’s ass in Boston.
Bringing back Mattie was another nice touch. Spenser has taken in other people like his surrogate son Paul and his former PI apprentice Z. Sixkill so this follows a pattern. However, Mattie is an incredibly independent woman who doesn’t always see things the way Spenser does, and while the two have a real bond, she also isn’t afraid to start finding her own way versus just following in Spenser’s footsteps.
The one thing I wasn’t crazy about was the subplot of Spenser getting a new puppy after his dog Pearl has passed away. As the series has done in the past, Spenser gets another dog of the same exact breed and again names her Pearl. This always seemed like a cheat by Robert B. Parker to keep Spenser in a timeless limbo, but Atkins does explore why Spenser does this as a coping mechanism. It makes some sense, but at this point Spenser is essentially ageless so why not just make it the same Pearl vs. periodically killing one off and getting another one?
Aside from that minor nitpicking, I enjoyed this one from start to finish. Mattie’s part of the plot gave it the kind of freshness that Ace Atkins has been bringing to the series from the start while the stuff with Spenser and Hawk felt very old school, like some of the earliest RBP books. It was a nice combination that appealed to me as a long time Spenser fan while still feeling new and modern....more
Spenser goes Hollywood, and I’m not talking about that upcoming Netflix movie.
A young woman originally from Boston has gone missing after moving to LoSpenser goes Hollywood, and I’m not talking about that upcoming Netflix movie.
A young woman originally from Boston has gone missing after moving to Los Angeles, and her mother has hired Spenser to find her so he heads west. Tracking down the young lady puts Spenser at odds with a powerful Hollywood producer, a self-help group that seems more like a cult, and a dangerous Aremenian gang.
Fortunately, despite being far from home Spenser has plenty of friends around to help out like his former protege Z. Sixkill who has started his own private detective business. There’s also Spenser’s thug buddies Chollo and Bobby Horse that work for the local crime boss who Spenser is on good terms with thanks to their previous encounters. LAPD Captain Sameulson is still around although he’s less thrilled to see Spenser back in town causing trouble again.
Ace Atkins has become one of the those writers that I file under R for Reliable at this point. For several years now he’s been producing both Spenser and Quinn Colson books like clockwork, and every time I start one of his I know that I’m in for a good time. For both these series he’s also been walking the tricky tightrope that balance familiarity with mixing things up so that neither start to seem formulaic or stale.
This is a prime example of that with Atkins again drawing on the long history of Spenser as written by the late Robert B. Parker so that it still seems like the same character, but then using that as a jumping off point to move in new directions. This isn’t the first time Spenser has gone out to LA so he’s dealing with a bunch of familiar characters and situations, but this never feels like we’re just going over the same old ground. Atkins also has a knack for putting a slightly different spin on some of these old supporting characters so that they seem to have more going on than just being props in Spenser’s world. For example, I loved how Samuelson, who has plenty of reasons to dread seeing the detective come to town, gets thoroughly pissed off when he once again finds himself knee-deep in a Spenser related mess.
There’s also a nice ripped-from-the-headlines vibe to this story although it doesn’t go in the direction that I initially thought it would. I also appreciate how Atkins has managed to update Spenser by using more tech and things like social media while still keeping his old school nature. There’s also a fun tip of the cap to another crime series when Spenser briefly crosses paths with another fictional detective. Long time fans also know that LA is the spot of one of Spenser’s biggest regrets, and there’s a nicely done acknowledgement of that, too. Another sly Easter egg appeared to be a reference to the upcoming movie.
Through it all we’ve got all the staples of a good Spenser story. Funny banter, good action, descriptions of food guaranteed to make you hungry, and a twisty mystery that Spenser unravels by being a pain in the ass to anyone he comes across who is standing in the way....more
I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like. And I like books by Ace Atkins.
Spenser iI received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like. And I like books by Ace Atkins.
Spenser is asked to look into a famous unsolved art heist, but since it occurred twenty years ago the trail is very cold and the museum people he’d be working for are couple of overbearing snobs guaranteed to be a pain in the ass. The only reasons to take the case are a five million dollar reward for the return of one particular painting and that Spenser has been asked to finish the job by another private investigator who is dying from cancer. Spenser greatly respects this detective who spent years trying to track down the lost art, and if you know anything about Spenser you can probably guess that he cares a lot more about fulfilling this guy’s last request than the money.
While the heist was successful it was the work of clumsy smash-and-grab thieves, not a highly skilled Ocean’s 11 kind of crew, and there are rumors that the painting has been floating around Boston’s organized crime underworld for two decades. As Spenser looks for the long lost Gentlemen in Black he’ll find that the painting has left a bloody trail in its wake since it was taken off a museum wall. He’s also got competition in the form of another unscrupulous investigator trying to get the reward.
This is the seventh Spenser novel that Ace Atkins has done since taking over the series after the death of Robert B. Parker, and Atkins has long since proven that the he was the right writer for the job. He still has Spenser behaving very much like the guy fans have known and loved for years with the detective trying to solve the case while cracking wise as well as cracking heads, and there is plenty of eating and drinking and general banter along the way. Atkins has kept all those familiar elements while subtly refreshing the series by not being afraid to incorporate some changes in the lives of Spenser and his supporting cast.
Most of that updating this time comes in the form of Vinnie Morris. Vinnie has long been one of Spenser’s ‘good’ criminals who is an occasional ally, and as he’s done for others in the series Atkins adds some depth and personality that makes Vinnie more of a unique character than just another version of Spenser with a few differing surface traits. While Hawk is off in South America on one of his secret missions (And I really want a spin-off series about Hawk’s adventures.) Vinnie more than fills the role of Spenser’s back-up buddy here. Atkins also now has the confidence to add some Southern touches with Spenser making his versions of a few country style dishes as well as taking a trip to Memphis where he gets some barbecue and works in a few Elvis references along the way.
The story was obviously inspired by the real heist of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, and it’s a juicy concept of a case with plenty of good twists and turns. We also get a lot of fun interactions of Spenser irritating all kinds of unpleasant people from an angry police captain to a murderous mobster to a snooty stuffed shirt on the museum board. Overall, it’s another remarkably solid outing that most fans of Spenser and PI novels in general would enjoy....more
I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
I usually spend some time in my reviews of the new Spenser books from Ace Atkins talkI received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
I usually spend some time in my reviews of the new Spenser books from Ace Atkins talking about how well he’s done with the tricky job of taking over the series from the late Robert B. Parker. I’m not going to do that anymore because at this point this is entirely Atkins’ series, and Spenser is as good as he’s ever been.
Connie Kelley was swindled out of several hundred thousand dollars by her boyfriend, M. Brooks Welles, who has since vanished, and Connie would like Spenser to track him down and get her money back. Welles claimed to be a military veteran and spy whose experience made him a regular fixture on the cable news as an expert in those matters. What Spenser quickly finds is that Welles is a con man who has left a trail of broken promises and unpaid bills in his wake including a land scam that involved a shady gun dealer.
One of the best parts of this one is the character of Welles because he makes for an infuriating bad guy for Spenser to chase. He’s a compulsive liar who absolutely will never admit that he’s fibbing even when he’s confronted with direct evidence of it. What’s really amazing is how many people he’s burned who continue to fall for it and keep putting their faith in him. I mean, what kind of rubes continue to believe a guy who has been conclusively proven over and over again to be completely full of shit?
As usual we get a lot of twists and turns that find Spenser eventually making a trip down South where even more shenanigans are going on. Along the way he’ll have to deal with cranky cops, angry ATF agents, a wavering client, professional mercenaries, and more scams than you can shake a stick at. We also get the reappearance of a supporting character we haven’t seen in a while as well as plenty of great stuff with Hawk, too. Atkins also continues to rehab Susan so that I actually now enjoy her interactions with Spenser rather than just cringing at the sight of her name on the page.
Of course the heart of it all is Spenser who is his usual hard-punching, straight-shooting, smart-mouthed, gourmet-cooking self, but he still continues to show signs of growth in these newer books including a refreshingly pragmatic streak of how far he’s willing to take a case. Overall, it’s pretty much a book that most fans of Spenser or modern PI novels in general would enjoy reading....more
I thought I knew all there was to know about Spenser, one of my favorite fictional detectives created by the late Robert B. Parker, but I’d never hearI thought I knew all there was to know about Spenser, one of my favorite fictional detectives created by the late Robert B. Parker, but I’d never heard about this short story until my friend Anthony clued me in and provided a link to it.
Essentially RBP didn’t write anything with Spenser other than novels and a few feature pieces that weren’t really stories except for this one which was requested but then rejected by Playboy. It eventually saw print in some long-gone men’s magazine and was published as a very limited edition hardback that went for a fortune among Spenser fans. Thanks to Anthony and the miracles of the interwebs I got to check it out.
Spenser’s old girlfriend Brenda Loring comes to him for help after she’s been raped twice by the same man. She suspects that her ex-husband has hired someone to do this to her, and Spenser quickly gets right in the middle of it with a little assistance from Hawk.
This gets into RBP’s repeated themes regarding possessive and obsessive love that he dwelled on far too much, but it is much darker than almost anything else I’ve read by him. It also made me sad to hear how Brenda Loring’s life went after she and Spenser went their separate ways because even though she only appeared briefly at the start of the series I always liked her a lot more Susan.
Frankly, I can see why RBP never got into short fiction. He tries to do an entire Spenser novel in this, and it comes across as rushed. It goes back to a time when Spenser was a lot more willing to get his hands dirty so that’s kind of interesting as is the glimpse of Hawk in a real dark side mode, but it’s something I’d call more of a curiosity than a must-read for Spenser fans.
Spenser tries to track down a serial arsonist. I sure hope he doesn’t get burned by the experience….
OK, I apologize for that one.
Three firefighters weSpenser tries to track down a serial arsonist. I sure hope he doesn’t get burned by the experience….
OK, I apologize for that one.
Three firefighters were killed in a blaze of undetermined origin, and a year later there are still no answers. That doesn’t sit well with a fireman friend of Spenser who thinks it was arson and believes the authorities haven’t done enough to find whoever was responsible. Spenser starts nosing around and as usual manages to piss off some very dangerous people in the process.
I’ve noted in other reviews what a fantastic job that Ace Atkins has done in taking over the Spenser character following the death of Robert B. Parker, and this is another great continuation of that work. Once again Spenser is still the same guy that RBP created back in the ‘70s, and yet there’s an amazing freshness and energy for the forty-fourth book in a series.
What’s most interesting about this one is that Atkins is now introducing the very real possibility of change to the Spenserverse. RBP didn’t monkey with the successful formula he’d created after the first 20 or so books. He locked Spenser and the other characters into a kind of limbo where age became meaningless, and yet their past timeline didn’t change. RBP was so committed to keeping things the same that even when he’d occasionally acknowledge the passage of time by letting Spenser’s dog Pearl die of old age he still avoided any impact by just having him get another dog that looked exactly like her and naming her Pearl also.
Part of the appeal of a series is the familiarity so it’s understandable why RBP played it like that, but a lack of change also removes the possibility of growth to the characters as well as real consequences to their actions. Atkins started his time with the series with everyone in their same roles, but he’s been subtly laying the groundwork for change to occur. Now he’s starting to deliver on that with characters like Quirk and Vinnie getting new jobs that actually shift their dynamics a bit as well as adding a new female cop as a frenemy to Spenser. There’s also a couple of other real and permanent adjustments to Spenser’s world including one event that’s probably the biggest shake-up in thirty books.
All of these things have helped things feel less permanent in the series, and that helps add a sense of stakes to the proceedings. For example, when Spenser fights a large thug in one scene the outcome is very much in doubt, and making Spenser a little more fallible adds drama to the story. Overall, there’s a sense that Atkins has been quietly shaping Spenser to be a better fit for the 21st century rather than keeping him in an increasingly unrealistic stasis. As one character tells Spenser, “Those days are long over. Get with the fucking times, or they’re gonna get with you.”
It’s the way that Atkins artfully balances the updating of the series while still knowing and respecting the core of what made it great that makes his version of Spenser such a treat to read....more
“On the first day of February, the coldest day of the year so far, I took it as a very good omen that a woman I’d never met brought me a sandwich.”
Thi“On the first day of February, the coldest day of the year so far, I took it as a very good omen that a woman I’d never met brought me a sandwich.”
This may be the smartest client that Spenser has ever had because one sure way to motivate the private detective is to offer him food. It also helps if you’re hiring him to help an innocent person who got royally screwed over by powerful people because Spenser enjoys sinking his teeth into a case like that almost as much as biting into a free sandwich.
In a rundown old mill town a judge has sentenced a young man to nine months in a juvenile detention facility for making fun of a school official on Twitter. (And if making fun of people on Twitter is a jailable offense then I’m in a lot of trouble because my mocking of former Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli would probably have been enough to get me the death penalty.)
Spenser investigates and finds a pattern of the judge throwing every kid he can into jail for minor infractions, and some more digging reveals ties between the judge and the private company getting paid by the government to run the prison as well as a dangerous mobster. Spenser soon finds himself threatened by both the local cops and thugs.
This is the fourth Spenser novel that Ace Atkins has done after being hired by the estate of Robert B. Parker to carry on the series, and he’s done an exceptional job of writing these in a way that feels like his own style while still being true to the character. This one has scenes and dialogue that really feel reminiscent of the early Spenser, and I especially like how Hawk has regained some of the rougher edges he used to have that had gotten sanded off in the later RBP books.
One of the more interesting changes is that while the Atkins books are still self-contained stories that he’s been leaving plot threads hanging to be addressed later, and this gives the series more of a sense of on-going serialized continuity than it typically had before. Spenser still exists in a kind of ageless limbo, but there’s been changes to his world since Atkins took over that are adding layers to the stories.
So we’ve got all those elements along with the kind of plot in which Spenser can really shine as he takes on corrupt officials and criminals with his usual mix of tough guy stubbornness and smart ass comments. That makes for a great read that any fan of the private eye genre should enjoy.
Considering the image conscious nature of the National Football League and the recent legal problems of a certain former member of the New England PatConsidering the image conscious nature of the National Football League and the recent legal problems of a certain former member of the New England Patriots, I was more than a little shocked that Ace Atkins was able to use the actual team name as well as reference real people like Tom Brady and Bill Belichick for a story that involves a talented but trouble prone player. I would be willing to bet that more than a few lawyers from the NFL, the Patriots and the publisher got to bill some hours while they worked out some kind of arrangement.
Spenser goes to work for Kinjo Heywood, a star linebacker for the Pats. Kinjo has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, but he claims that men have been following and harassing him. Spenser thinks this may be linked to a night club shooting that Kinjo was investigated as being part of, but he was eventually cleared by the police. Things take a darker turn when Kinjo’s young son Akira is kidnapped and no ransom demand is immediately made.
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating that Ace Atkins has turned out to be an excellent choice to carry on with the Spenser series after the death of Robert B. Parker. Atkins has brought a new energy and edginess to a series that had gotten pretty formulaic and stale, but it’s all been done in subtle ways that still respect the elements fans love about the character.
Spenser is still the same smart-mouthed tough guy with a code who can cook a delicious dinner from scratch while enjoying a couple of beers, but Atkins has modernized him a bit like when Spenser notes that an hour of computer research gets him more than running around all day used to. He even uses a GPS tracker to tail a suspect at one point although he still thinks of it as ‘cheating’. There are also some jokes about Star Wars, hobbits and Twitter that make Spenser seem more up-to-date than he had in RBP’s later books although he still retains his old school nature.
The supporting characters are also feeling more lively and engaged these days. Hawk is a bit rougher around the edges and a little meaner than he had been in the later books so that he feels like a different person, not just another version of Spenser. Z, the protégé Spenser took on in RBP’s final book, is fast turning into one of my favorite parts of the series, and even Susan Silverman is a lot more likeable now. She even gets one of the best ‘Hell, yeah!’ moments of the entire book.
Kinjo is also an interesting twist on the old RBP standard of having Spenser’s clients usually turn out to be terrible people It would have been really easy to play him as just the kind of stereotypical famous bad-boy athlete that is all over ESPN these days. However, Atkins (A former college player at Auburn who was once on the cover of Sports Illustrated.) does a great job of making Kinjo a real and sympathetic person, not just a cliché. He’s actually a decent guy who loves his son deeply and brings a level of dedication and talent to the game that Spenser can respect, but he’s still got some of the ego and flaws that come to many people who achieve fame and fortune.
Another factor I like about how Atkins is a bit different from RBP is that he’s leaving some loose ends and subplots unresolved which I assume will come into play later. These are still self-contained and satisfying stories but leaving a few things simmering on the back burner adds a little tension and anticipation as to what we might get in the future.
The idea of a writer being hired to continue the work of someone who passed away can be a touchy one, and in a lot of cases, probably not a good thing. However, with three remarkably solid and entertaining books now done by Ace Atkins, I’m certain that they couldn’t have found anyone better to carry on with the Spenser adventures, and I’m already looking forward to the next one.
Next Up: Spenser gets a free sandwich in Kickback.
Way back in 2009 I read Robert B. Parker’s new Spenser novel The Professional and wrote up a review bitching about how he fell into bad habits late inWay back in 2009 I read Robert B. Parker’s new Spenser novel The Professional and wrote up a review bitching about how he fell into bad habits late in his career. Then he died a few months later, and I felt slightly guilty about bashing a series I once loved so I started re-reading them from the beginning. I figured I would just hit the early ones and quit before I started getting irritated. Yet I found myself compulsively going through all the Spenser books until I got to the point where I had re-read and reviewed almost all of them here on Goodreads.
The one I’d never read was this which RBP wrote as a young adult story about the adventures of Spenser in his youth. Frankly, when it came out, I was pretty sour about the whole series and was not interested because it seemed like the whole thing would just be a rehashing of a story Spenser told in Pastime about an encounter he had with a bear when he was a teenager out hunting with his father. That brief story was one of my favorite bits of the entire series, and I worried that RBP had screwed it up in some kind of cash grabbing attempt to do a YA book.
After going through all the other Spensers, including the two new ones written by Ace Atkins who has taken over the series and injected new life into it, I decided that finally reading this would be a good way to cap off this personal project that had somehow spiraled into an obsessive compulsive need to endlessly bitch about Susan Silverman. (Plus, if you include this one, it makes RBP’s official Spenser count 40 books instead of 39, and that’s a nice round number.)
So my hopes weren’t high for this, and in the early going, I wasn’t thinking much of it. Spenser and Susan are hanging out in Boston, and she gets him talking about his past which means we aren’t free of Susan even in a story from before Spenser met her. It might not have been quite so irritating if these would have been framing chapters, but instead the present day interludes are scattered through the book as she offers her brilliant insight into what effect those events had on Spenser. And even in a young adult book, RBP couldn’t resist about 127 references to Susan having a PhD from Harvard.
Spenser tells Susan how his mother died in childbirth and he was raised by his father and two uncles in Wyoming. It wasn’t a typical upbringing with the three men equally sharing the responsibility of taking care of Spenser. They taught him how to cook, box, carpentry and took turns reading a set of great novels to him every night. All of this had been in Pastime including a story of the three men beating the hell out of a bunch of drunks who had bullied young Spenser. As I feared, the bear story was something that suffered from some changes. (view spoiler)[In the original story, Spenser’s father takes him to a bar and orders him his first Scotch after he saves himself from a bear by not panicking and holding his ground. In this version, Spenser’s dad takes him home where he and the uncles have a drink while Spenser has a Coke with them to acknowledge his bravery. I guess you really shouldn’t have teens drinking in a YA novel, but that was a key note in the story so I didn’t like the newer version. (hide spoiler)]
Then something amazing happened. The book gets good. Spenser tells Susan stories that we haven’t read in previous books, and they are actually kind of dark and compelling. Young Spenser shows the courage and character longtime fans would expect when he tries to save a girl from her drunken and abusive father and then he starts looking out for a young Hispanic classmate who is being bullied. Whether it’s following a mean drunk down a river or standing up against racism, you can see the elements of the adult detective Spenser coming together.
Then there’s another surprising turn when RBP delivers two of the most heartfelt moments in the series. Most Spenser fans will have a lump in their throat when reading one scene and then Susan goddamn Silverman actually contributes an observation that hadn’t been discussed a hundred times in other books, and it actually makes a lot of sense and explains a lot about why Spenser is so invested in his idea of her as the only woman for him. It’s pop psychology, but it’s sincere and it fits. For a second, I almost liked her. Just for a second.
In the end I was pleasantly surprised and pleased by this as a Spenser fan, and I’m glad that it will be the last RBP Spenser story I ever read. (Assuming no long lost books ever get published.) Now my long Spenser quest is over and you can all rest easy that you won’t ever have to see another review in which I bitch about RBP.
Although the Jesse Stone series is still there. And Sunny Randall. And his western series with Cole & Hitch……
Wealthy Heidi Bradshaw made her money the old fashioned way, by marrying and divorcing rich men. She wants Spenser to escort her to her daughter’s wedWealthy Heidi Bradshaw made her money the old fashioned way, by marrying and divorcing rich men. She wants Spenser to escort her to her daughter’s wedding on a ritzy private island she owns even thought she already has a security force. Spenser takes the job and brings his girlfriend Susan along. Shortly after they arrive on the island, Spenser sees an old frenenemy of his. Rugar (a/k/a The Gray Man) is an international assassin who very nearly killed Spenser once although the two eventually made a sort of peace.
Does Spenser alert the security forces that a very dangerous man is on the island? Does he urge his client to postpone the wedding until he can figure out why Rugar is there? Does he demand any clarification as to why he was hired? Does he call the cops or any of the many thugs he knows to come back him up against one of the most dangerous men he ever faced? Does he put his pain-in-the-ass girlfriend on a boat back to the mainland to make sure she’s out of danger?
He does none of these things.
So when Rugar uses a helicopter to land a small army on the island during the wedding despite a rising storm, then kills several people and kidnaps the bride, Spenser isn’t exactly prepared for the situation, but he does manage to eventually escape Rugar’s men.
With the helicopter unable to take off while the storm is going on, does Spenser pull a Die Hard and kill off all of the bad guys? Does he try to get to a radio or find some other means of calling for help? Does he try to lead the rest of the wedding guests or the woman paying him to safety?
He does none of these things.
What he does is to go rescue Susan (but only Susan) from the bad guys and hides in a barn all night with her until the Rugar and his guys leave with the bride once the storm breaks.
This isn't exactly Spenser’s finest hour.
It’s kind of a shame because the set-up of having Spenser trapped alone on an island with a bunch of mercenaries and one of his deadliest foes could have been a pretty entertaining action story that broke up the stale formula of the later books. Instead of Spenser channeling his inner John McClane, the early chapters are just used as an excuse for Spenser to do his usual thing after that. He runs around trying to figure out who would hire Rugar to kidnap the bride while getting into the psychological issues and ugly personal histories of those involved. Even the potential rematch of Rugar Vs. Spenser is short changed in this story.
Parker tried to explain away why Spenser is so nonchalant about the appearance of Rugar on the island at first and works very hard to rationalize his behavior once things get bloody. Realistically, running and hiding is the smart thing to do so I can understand that part of it.
However, these types of PI novels aren't supposed to be about realistic behavior in the main characters. If they were, it’d be just stories about some boring people running a bunch of background checks on their computers. I read this sub-genre for larger than life heroes going above and beyond the call of duty. Hiding until the bad guys leave may be what most of us would do, but I expect more from a fictional bad ass like Spenser.
Frankly, he just seems like kind of an idiot in this one.
Up next: I finally close out this endless cycle of bitching with the one Spenser I haven’t read, Chasing the Bear. ...more
I recently got to see some mystery writers including Ace Atkins and Megan Abbott at an event and signing in St. Louis and got one of my proudest momenI recently got to see some mystery writers including Ace Atkins and Megan Abbott at an event and signing in St. Louis and got one of my proudest moments when I met Atkins and mentioned that I liked the homage he’d done to True Grit in his first Spenser novel Lullaby.
“You know, you’re only like the third person I’ve talked to who picked up on that, and Megan Abbott there was one of the other ones,” Atkins told me. This made me so happy that I walked around with a big stupid grin on my face for the next week. Nothing like the current writer of one of your favorite characters telling you that you picked up on something that few others did to boost the old ego. (See the full write-up on my trip to St. Louis at Shelf Inflicted .)
I don’t think that I’ve got any equally insightful observations about Wonderland so I guess I’ll just have to stick to a basic review. Spenser’s old friend and former boxing mentor Henry Cimoli needs some help. Someone is trying to buy out the tenants of his building and they’re using hired thugs to intimidate people into selling. With Hawk out of town, Spenser relies on his protégé Zebulon Sixkill (a/k/a Z) to back him up. When it turns out that someone is looking to buy Henry’s building as part of a larger scheme to bring a casino to Boston, Spenser and Z find themselves in the middle of a mess that involves gangsters, politicians and a Las Vegas gaming tycoon.
In the first Spenser novel that Atkins wrote after taking over for the late Robert B. Parker, he took the character back to basics and proved that he could write a compelling story that wasn’t imitation but rather a new phase that kept familiar elements. In Wonderland, Atkins shows that he isn’t content to just keep Spenser in the same familiar cocoon that RBP had put him in during the later years of his career.
One sign that Atkins isn’t playing it safe is that in only his second book on this series is how he strips away two of the main supporting characters for most of the book. Hawk is off on his own mysterious mission in Miami, and Susan spends a lot of the book out of town for work. This means that Atkins has to make Spenser work without his trusty cohort and with minimal conversations with his girlfriend. Like many long-time Spenser fans, I believe that the less Susan, the better, but I still think that limiting their interactions was a brave choice because it means that Atkins deliberately put himself in a position where Spenser has to carry the book without two of the biggest RBP crutches.
It also allows the development of the Z character that RBP had introduced in his final book. Spenser took Z under his wing and the young man is showing a lot of potential as a tough guy detective, but he still has things to learn. There’s a nice sub-plot with Z trying to deal with an incident where he feels he didn’t meet expectations, and his disappointment in himself threatens to undo the progress he’s made.
If there’s anything unsatisfying in the book, it’s that it almost seems like a set-up for future stories in some ways. However, that’s not entirely a bad thing. RBP had Spenser in such a state of stasis for so long that getting some plot that may carry over to another book is welcome at this point. Plus, (view spoiler)[the idea that Spenser and Vinnie Morris are now at odds has a lot of potential. RBP threatened a confrontation between the two a couple of times but never paid it off. Now with Atkins at the wheel, it actually seems like we could finally get some intriguing drama and real conflict because of this. The idea that a long time Spenser relationship could actually end or change is one of the things that make this feel fresh again. (hide spoiler)]
Ace Atkins shows again that he was the right writer for the job to continue the Spenser stories.
Over the years, several bad guys have tried to stop Spenser by going after his girlfriend, Susan. Somehow not one of them managed to even seriously inOver the years, several bad guys have tried to stop Spenser by going after his girlfriend, Susan. Somehow not one of them managed to even seriously injure her. It makes one wish that Boston had more competent criminals.
Spenser gets hired by Dennis Doherty to find out if his wife is cheating on him. Following adulterous spouses isn’t Spenser’s favorite part of the detective business, but he takes the job and quickly finds out that the missus is indeed stepping out on Dennis. What should be a routine gig takes a violent turn with people getting dead, and Spenser is likely the next target. Fearing for Susan’s safety, Spenser whistles up some of his favorite thugs to protect her while he tries to put a stop to it.
Spenser’s experience with Susan cheating on him before their temporary separation way back when has him relating to Dennis to an extreme degree so that he seems to go above and beyond to stand up for the guy. Because the threat to Susan is a part of this, she’s in the book even more than usual, and that ain’t a good thing. Although Spenser does get fed up with her at one point and yells at her a little. Which was fun, but I wanted more. At this point, anything less than Spenser giving her a brutal pistol whipping wouldn’t be enough to make me happy.
This one again shows that RBP had run out of gas with the repeating of the same observations, themes and dialogue. The jokes about Susan being a Harvard graduate were tired many books ago, but it’s still used at least four times in this one. The rest of it is all too familiar to any long time Spenser reader. It’s not bad. It’s just been done before.
Once upon a time, Spenser tracked down a young runaway prostitute named April Kyle in Ceremony and had to save her again in Taming A Sea-Horse. Now ApOnce upon a time, Spenser tracked down a young runaway prostitute named April Kyle in Ceremony and had to save her again in Taming A Sea-Horse. Now April is back and in need of his help. Hopefully the third time’s the charm.
April is now a polished veteran of the world of high class prostitution, and she’s graduated to madam status by setting up a classy brothel in Boston. Someone is trying to muscle into her business so she turns to Spenser for help.
Spenser has always felt responsible and guilty for April ending up as a professional sex worker even though he did the best he could for her. Despite seeming like a relatively well-adjusted business woman, Spenser can’t help but feel that the life he couldn’t entirely save April from has taken a toll on her. It’s that dynamic that adds some extra depth to this one. April represents a failure at some level to Spenser, and he’s never really come to terms with that.
This is a pretty solid late entry in the series although once again the book gets weaker when it moves from Spenser trying to protect April’s business from thugs to Spenser trying to delve into April’s psychological well-being. There’s a fair amount of Susan, but she’s only moderately annoying.
What really sets this one apart is the ending. (view spoiler)[Spenser learning how damaged and murderous April has become, and then her subsequent suicide in front of him is one of the darkest and most powerful moments in the series. I especially liked Hawk’s conversation with Spenser leading up to it in which it’s evident that they both know that April is bad news. Hawk’s effort to gently push Spenser into facing up to the truth shows just how well the two men know each other. (hide spoiler)]
Next up: Susan’s life is threatened but unfortunately Spenser’s enemy doesn’t get the job done in Now & Then....more
I figured a book of essays from mystery writers about Spenser could consist of repeated analysis of why Susan sucks so much, but they took the high roI figured a book of essays from mystery writers about Spenser could consist of repeated analysis of why Susan sucks so much, but they took the high road and covered other subjects, too.
As a long time Spenser fan and fairly vocal critic of Robert B. Parker in his later years, I got a lot out of this. I tend to get wrapped up in the negative, (I know you’re shocked.) so it was good to read writers like Lawrence Block, Loren Estleman, Ace Atkins, Dennis Lehane and others explain just how groundbreaking and influential Spenser was because it reminded me of the many positive aspects of the series.
They bring up things I hadn’t considered, like Spenser was really the first modern tough guy detective where readers didn’t have to overlook racism as in the Philip Marlow books or sexism like Travis McGee regularly dispensed. There’s also several personal and funny stories about the writers interacting with RBP.
I enjoyed getting validation on several things I think about Spenser. For example, Dennis Lehane and I agree about what were the best books of the series. (He also admitted to something I’ve long suspected, his first chapter of A Drink Before the War was a complete rip-off of Parker.)
In addition to discussing Spenser’s place in crime fiction and RBP’s writing, the essays cover a wide variety of Spenser related topics ranging from his sense of humor, his love of food, his friend Hawk, the Spenser For Hire series and more. Plus, S.J. Rozan delivers a write-up that starts, “Ah, Susan Silverman. The girlfriend we all love to hate.” (Although she does go on to point out that while Susan was often irritating, just the notion of Spenser having a steady independent girlfriend was important for the genre.)
There’s even a nice examination of Spenser’s character from RBP himself in the form of a story where the detective is interviewed by an academic doing a paper on people in dangerous professions.
It does seem like there’s a missed opportunity because while many mention the influence of Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald on RBP, there’s no essay examining that while there are two about Spenser’s love of gourmet food which seemed a bit much.
The collection is a great tribute to RBP, and a must-read for Spenser fans....more
Robert B. Parker is dead! Long live Robert B. Parker!
Here we have the first Spenser novel done by Ace Atkins who was chosen to take over the series afRobert B. Parker is dead! Long live Robert B. Parker!
Here we have the first Spenser novel done by Ace Atkins who was chosen to take over the series after RBP shuffled off this mortal coil. How did Atkins do? Pretty damn well. In fact, he outshines a lot of the later RBP books.
Spenser gets hired by a 14 year old girl named Mattie whose mother was killed when she was 10. Mattie saw her mother pushed into a car by a couple of local thugs, but since her mom was a drug addicted barfly and the cops caught and convicted another likely suspect, no one was interested in listening to her. Spenser is impressed with the tough and stubborn Mattie who is driven to get justice for her mother even as she takes care of her twin younger sisters while living with her drunken grandma so he agrees to help for the princely fee of a dozen doughnuts. Investigating the case puts Spenser up against some old enemies as well as pissing off a volatile FBI agent.
I’m on record with numerous complaints about the Spenser franchise in the latter part of RBP’s career. The guy had gotten pretty lazy with repeated themes and characters types, and it often seemed that even Spenser was bored as he worked through his cases. Atkins does an impressive job of delivering all the familiar Spenser elements while injecting some fresh life into the series.
Spenser is more lively and engaged. Hawk comes across as slightly edgier and angrier, much like his earlier incarnation. Susan seems like a decent girlfriend instead of a bitchy goddess to be worshipped and obeyed, and Atkins wisely limits the amount of time she and Spenser spend together. That alone would probably make most long-time Spenser readers rejoice.
It’s obvious that Atkins was a fan of this series and probably had a helluva lot of fun writing this while adding a few winks-n-nods to Spenser’s past. I had been hoping that we’d get a James Bond Casino Royale style reboot for the series, but Atkins picks up where the last book left off yet still manages to signal that this Spenser reborn.
One tiny tidbit really caught my notice. Very early in the series, RBP had Spenser doing wood carvings as a hobby, but just dropped that with no explanation. Atkins does a nice scene where Spenser is thinking deeply about the case when he notices an old half finished carving on a shelf that he hasn‘t touched in years. He dusts it off and begins working on it again. It was a nice little statement that Atkins is taking the series back to it’s roots without dumping Spenser‘s long history.
And I guess just trying to launch a new phase of a classic detective character wasn’t enough of a challenge for Atkins. He also works in a sly homage to the western True Grit in this. Spenser is helping a spirited young girl named Mattie find the murderer of a parent, and Susan is reading a Charles Portis novel at one point. Plus, there’s a recreation of one of the key scenes from the book and films with a Spenser and Hawk twist to it.
I’m impressed with what Atkins delivered here and excited to see where he takes it next. Spenser appears to be in very good hands.
Next up: Spenser doesn't have much fun even though the case involves an amusement park in Wonderland....more
“Have you wanted to become a professional tough guy but lacked the experience to make your dream come true? Thanks to the Spenser Training Academy you“Have you wanted to become a professional tough guy but lacked the experience to make your dream come true? Thanks to the Spenser Training Academy you can be trading punches and bullets with thugs in no time.
Mr. Spenser is a private investigator with almost 40 years of experience. His personal classes include:
* Weight training * Boxing lessons * Firearms instruction * Gourmet cooking * Smart ass quip improvisation * Angering dangerous criminals * Making others ill by engaging in smug lovey-dovey conversation with your significant other
In addition to preparing you for an exciting life of adventure and violence, Mr. Spenser will also allow trainees to shadow him as he works on his cases. Potential candidates should be physically fit and preferably had their hearts broken by a woman unworthy of their love. Sign up now and receive a free blackjack!”
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So here we are at the last Spenser book written by Robert B. Parker before his death. RBP’s family has already hired another author to carry on the series, but reading this did sadden me. I’ve been a fan of this series since I was a teenager in the ‘80s and while I’ve done more than my share of complaining about most of the later books, I still always eventually read them. This is the series that led me to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and became the yardstick by which I measured any other detective fiction.
I wish I could say that Spenser went out on a high note, but…. Well, it’s a cut above many of the later books, but RBP couldn’t stay away from the same old song-and-dance.
Jumbo Nelson is a Chris Farley-style Hollywood star whose enormous appetite for food, booze, drugs and sex are only tolerated because of his big box office grosses. Jumbo is in Boston filming a movie and a young girl is found dead in his bed under suspicious circumstances. The media wants to burn Jumbo at the stake and since he’s a world class asshole, no one is rushing to his defense. Police captain Quirk has a suspicion that Jumbo is being railroaded but he can’t actively work to clear him because the public is baying for celebrity blood and politics won’t allow him to dig too deeply.
Quirk asks Spenser to check into it, and the private detective soon clashes with Jumbo’s bodyguard, a former college football star and Native American named Zebulon (Z) Sixkill. After Spenser handily defeats Z, Jumbo fires the bodyguard. Z later finds Spenser and asks for his help in learning how to really fight. Spenser takes Z under his wing and is soon showing the budding tough guy the ins-and-outs of the detective business. It’s a good thing that Z is a quick learner because Spenser uncovers mob connections to Jumbo’s movie deals, and he'll need help to fight off the thugs they send after him.
We’ve seen Spenser play mentor before in Early Autumn when he helped young Paul gain confidence and independence, but this was an interesting twist on that premise. Spenser has a long history of meeting and befriending a variety of professional tough guys ranging from Hawk, Vinnie Morris, Chollo, Bobby Horse, Quirk, Belson, Lee Farrell and Teddy Sapp. RBP loved writing about the macho code that these types recognized in each other whether they were cops, criminals or something in between. With Z Sixkill, RBP took a stab at showing us the creation of one of these guys. Z has the raw materials, but he hasn’t had a role model.
Unfortunately, the rest of the book is less interesting and all of it seems like rehashed Spenser. We’ve had plenty of books with Spenser trying to get to the truth despite his client being a douche bag. There are long discussions with Susan about the nature of Spenser’s character, which has been done about a bazillion times. Plus, the Susan and Spenser interactions in this one are once again smug and self-satisfied in their awesomeness as a couple
Worst of all, there’s no Hawk who is still supposed to be in Central Asia where he's been since the last book, the much better Painted Ladies. No Hawk in the final two RBP Spenser novels is a cruel joke.
Still, there’s some enjoyment to be had in this one with some good smart ass dialogue and some quality dust-ups with the bad guys. The last brief scene in the book also acts as a nice final word from RBP’s Spenser.
Next up: Ace Atkins takes over the Spenser novels in Lullaby. I wish him the best of luck. ...more
Robert B. Parker died almost a year ago, but from what I’ve read Painted Ladies is the first of two unpublished Spenser novels that he had completed. Robert B. Parker died almost a year ago, but from what I’ve read Painted Ladies is the first of two unpublished Spenser novels that he had completed. Plus, considering Parker’s output, who knows how many books from his other three series may come out? It seems like Parker’s literary ghost will be with us for some time to come. Considering how much bitching I’ve done about his later work, I was a bit conflicted over whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. However, I was pleasantly surprised that Painted Ladies is one of the better Spenser novels to come out in years.
Ashton Prince is an art expert who has been hired by a museum to help arrange the return of a priceless painting that was stolen. Prince has set up a ransom exchange to get the painting back and hires Spenser for protection during the meeting. As with most of his clients, Spenser doesn’t like Prince much and thinks something smells rotten about the whole set-up, but he takes the job. When the exchange goes badly, Spenser feels responsible and tries to untangle a mystery that involves stolen art that goes back to World War II.
While I long ago accepted that Parker would never match his earlier books in the Spenser series in terms of quality, this one marks a vast improvement over the later books that had gotten repetitive and bogged down with the dreaded S+S=S (Spenser+Susan=Smug) factor that had dominated the stories for years.
Parker had shown signs of trying to mix things up with the last couple of Spenser books, but hadn’t entirely gotten free of his bad habits. In this one, with an interesting mystery and worthy adversaries that take the tension level up a notch, Spenser breaks out of the rut he’d been stuck in .
There’s still a bit too much of the cutsie-pie Susan stuff, but this finally felt like Spenser was really engaged in a case instead of just going through the motions until he could meet her for dinner. Sadly, Hawk doesn’t make an appearance in this one since he’s up to some kind of mischief in Central Asia, but his absence doesn’t hurt the overall story at all.
Hopefully, Parker kept this trend going for the final book and fans will get to end the series on a high note.
Next up: Robert B. Parker writes his last Spenser story in Sixkill. ...more
The books where Spenser has to deal with prostitution are always depressing because Parker accurately portrayed it as a nasty and degrading business. The books where Spenser has to deal with prostitution are always depressing because Parker accurately portrayed it as a nasty and degrading business. But then Spenser usually beats up some pimps so it’s not all bad.
Four years earlier, Spenser went looking for April Kyle in Ceremony and rescued her from a life of prostitution. Sort of. When April falls in love with a music student who just needs her to turn a few tricks to pay his way through school, she leaves a safe situation for her new man. Spenser still feels responsible for her so he makes a trip to New York to prove to April that her new fella is just another pimp. Since love makes you blind (and apparently very, very stupid), April doesn’t listen. Spenser is going to drop the whole thing until someone gets killed and April disappears. Why would anyone go to so much trouble just because Spenser is trying to get a hooker away from a small-time pimp?
I consider this the first book in the third phase of the Spenser series. First was Early Spenser, then came Classic Spenser. Now we’re beginning the Pretty Good But Past His Prime Spenser. (The dreaded Sad Decline of Spenser is still several books away.) Now that Spenser and Susan are reunited in Boston, Parker seems to be trying really hard to get back to the way things were. But it’s a little odd after all the craziness of A Catskill Eagle that it’s just business as usual and Susan and Spenser are lovebirds again. There’s a few lines referencing the bad shit that just happened, but it‘s weird that there wasn‘t a larger impact to the characters‘ lives.
Although this is still a good Spenser book with lots of smart ass dialogue and action, it was a bad omen that Parker brought back April Kyle because it was a warning that the books would begin repeating themselves.
*I wrote this long review where I indulged in some Parker bashing a few weeks back. I just read that he died today. Yes, I do feel like a jackass.*
Onc*I wrote this long review where I indulged in some Parker bashing a few weeks back. I just read that he died today. Yes, I do feel like a jackass.*
Once upon a time there was a crime writer named Robert B. Parker, and in the early ‘70s, he started a line of books about a P.I. named Spenser. The books were good and the critics loved him and deemed him the heir to Raymond Chandler. He wrote about a dozen of these books and everything was great for him and his readers.
Then disaster struck. His wife had an affair, and they almost divorced. Depressed, Parker integrated the story into the books with Spenser and his long-time girlfriend Susan having a break-up. Eventually Parker and his wife reconciled, and he again worked this into his fiction by having Spenser and Susan reunite in one of the best storylines of the Spenser series.
Parker and his wife may be together, but he’s been writing about her affair for roughly the last twenty years. Book after book has revolved around a rugged main character who loves a woman who is flawed and not faithful, but he stands by her no matter what she does. This has been repeated in not just the Spenser books, but in other ones that Parker has written.
Even worse, Parker has fallen so in love with the hero he created that he can’t bear to show him as anything less than perfect. While the Spenser of the early books was definitely a ‘good guy’, he was also human. He was capable of feeling emotions like anger and guilt, and did things he wasn’t proud of. But since the mid-’80s, Spenser has become a self-contained model of stoic individualism who cares about nothing but his love for Susan. His cases are just something to do when he can’t be with her. And that has made him boring and repetitive. He’s also been doing the same jokes and lovey-dovey talk for years now.
Why do I keep reading? Because I loved the early Spenser books, and I keep hoping against hope that Parker has a few good ones left in him if he’ll drop some of the baggage that’s turned a once great fictional detective into a bore. And actually, the last couple of Spenser books have been an improvement.
This time out, Spenser is hired by a lawyer representing four women being blackmailed by a man they all had affairs with named Gary Eisenhower. Eisenhower is a charming rogue and even Spenser kind of likes the guy. He tries to break up the scheme and limit the damage to all parties. But things get complicated and then people get dead.
Parker made some improvements in dropping some of the old themes, but he still can’t resist including at least one ‘good’ man who loves a ‘bad’ woman. There’s also the usual jokes between Spenser and other professional tough guys about how good they are at what they do in addition to the same awful banter between Susan and Spenser about how precious they are and how much they love each other. (Excuse me. I just threw up in my mouth a little.) And of course, there had to be a scene where Spenser tries to interview an unhappy woman who gets drunk and hits on him. I think that makes about the 3000th time this has occurred.
But overall, this was better than the other recent Spenser novels or other books that Parker has done so I’ll still keep reading in the hopes that he’ll manage a return to greatness some day.
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