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Family Honor (Sunny Randall)

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 110 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Sharp, witting and entertaining... 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Family Honor by Robert B. Parker is the first in his Sunny Randall series, and like all of Parker's books, it's sharp, witty and entertaining.

Sunny Randall is a young and pretty cop-turned-private eye who is just getting over a divorce. Her former husband, Richie Burke, comes from a Boston mob family. Although they still love each other, the cop-mob conflict got in the way (Sunny's cop father kept trying to put Richie's father in jail). Sunny is hired by a prominent Boston couple whose 15 year old daughter has run away. The father has political aspirations but when Sunny starts digging, it turns out that the daughter has many reasons to not wish to return home. Sunny finds herself in the middle of a mob war that involves the Italian Mafia trying to move in on the Irish Mob.

I don't think that anyone writes dialogue as sharp as Parker. Sunny is actually a female Spenser, and while Spenser has one sidekick (Hawk), Sunny is surrounded by a host of oddball characters. In addition to Richie, there is Spike (her gay bodybuilding friend), her therapist/friend Julie and her dog, Rosie. Sunny needs the assistant of all her friends while trying to solve this mystery and stay alive at the same time.

As a Spenser fan, I'm not sure how close Parker comes to the success of his Spenser series with Sunny Randall. However, I definitely plan to read more.

Editorial Review:

The author of the bestselling Spenser novels introduces a heroine unlike any other-private eye Sunny Randall. She's street-smart, sexy, and suddenly thrown into a Boston mob war where high-stakes politics and low-down killers conspire to make Sunny's first case her last.

"Robert B. Parker has another winner...Sunny can hold her own with Spenser."-Boston Globe "Sharp and funny." -Washington Post

"Sleek and seductive...one of the best."-Publishers Weekly

Taming a Sea-Horse (A Spenser Novel)

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

In the Arms of the Angels. This old, cold motel room... 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I'm ashamed to admit this about my reading weakness. I did overcome it, given full use of the gift of Parker's skill as an author. The confession:

The first few paragraphs of TAMING A SEA-HORSE worked more as the wrong end of a magnet than a draw into the story. My immediate, automatic response was I didn't want to immerse my emotions again into the heartbreaking, depressing world of Patricia Utley and April Kyle.

And then the save:

Reading into the story a couple pages, I was hooked into Spenser's world and cares. I wanted to know why April had gone to the different call agency, and how Spenser might convince her to return to Utley's more realistic, kinder "retirement program." And, the conversation with Utley was engrossing, about the various angles of Call Girls' dreams, the sour and the creme.

I was also caught by Spenser's description of compulsions and controls (successes and failures) of his rampant appetites, in this case for martinis over lunch, through lunch, concluding with a healthy cherry cheesecake wallow.

Of course Spenser's first conversation with April over a noon lunch, which was breakfast for her, was full of reader bait, as was his first exchange with April's high-brow musician pimp. With Spenser's satiric takes on the seedy sides of NYC ambiance swirled into the mix, I willingly gave up any resistance to sinking into the unique plot mix in book # 13 in the series. Given the sensitive ending (and the increasingly engrossing ride to it, youthful shrugs included) I'm really glad that resistance would have been futile here.

Susan and Hawk didn't show up until about half through the plot, but their scenes were prime, especially if a reader has come upon them in sequence, through the storms of the previous novels. A special playful newness to Susan and Spenser's relationship had emerged, and I could feel the subtle pride and quiet warmth in Hawk, which had expanded due to the intense intimacy of soul ripping situations through which they had passed in absolute commitment to each other, in previous novels.

Due to the delay of entrance of Susan and Hawk, though, readers were again allowed the ambiance of the private eye walking alone, for another while. Instead of reeking of loneliness, though, this time disgust and frustration fumed in the solitary detective who realistically makes very little progress in his games, enduring endless hours and hour-packed days of tedious observation, and expensive exploration into seeming dead ends. Parker does Spenser's boredom shuffle to perfection.

The plot heat-up (from the appealing gumshoe dragging) was gradual in a satisfying way (with literary style and bits of great humor), and effective in easing me into reading a few hours in the middle of the night... thinking I would just read long enough to get sleepy and fall back asleep. Sure. Finished the book first, then went back to sleep, after another 30 minutes tumbling the story around in my mind, feeling a healing contentment about what Spenser accomplished in this one, even if it was just a novel.

I was haunted by knowing, first hand from my experiences in police work, about the young girls who would never have a Spenser to save them. Some of them would have someone; some of them would somehow save themselves.

Linda Shelnutt

Editorial Review:

In his latest highly acclaimed Spenser novel, Robert B. Parker takes readers into the murky big-city underground where Spenser undertakes an intense search for a beautiful, missing prostitute, and finds himself traveling amidst the sleaze of Times Square where sex is a commodity, and young girls are the currency. This phenomenal bestseller, with a million-copy paperback first printing is supported by national TV advertising and a 6-month backlist reissue program. HC:Delacorte.

School Days (Spenser)

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 78 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Not as bad as Potshot - but that isn't saying much 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I've only read two Spenser novels and this one is only marginally better than the last one I read. Potshot (the other Spenser novel that I've read) was cartoonish; with a plot as sophisticated as an episode of `Scooby Doo Where Are You?' The criminals in that novel were trying to scare everyone out of town with a gang of bad men (rather than spooky phantoms) so they could secretly find water in the hills, buy the town up for a song and make a bundle. (And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that pesky Spenser)

The trouble with School Days is that Parker, who has been writing novels for 35 years and is well past 70 years old by now, clearly has no idea how teenagers think and talk and act. This is a problem because he has set this novel in a high school. I think Parker(who has churned out well over 50 novels in his career) thought that basing this novel on a school shooting would give the tried and true formula a bit of contemporary feel. The problem is, there is a huge disconnect between the emotional gravity of a school shooting, and the irreverent tone to Parker's novels. The snappy banter of a Spenser novel doesn't work well in this context.

School Days is not as terrible as Potshot, but there are too many other books out there to read to waste time on this sort of thing. Fans of Spenser may want to offer suggestions of a Spenser novel that would help me understand why so many people are fans of these novels. So far - I don't get it.

Editorial Review:

When a boy is accused of a shocking mass murder, only his grandmother is convinced of his innocence. When she hires Spenser to investigate, the inquiry grows more harrowing with every unexpected turn REVIEW; Spenser returns! A high point of the...classic series. (Booklist, starred review)

Crimson Joy

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

One of Parker's better Spenser books... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Robert Parker's Spenser series is always good, and Crimson Joy is even better than many of the Spenser books.

A serial killer has been targeting black woman. He ties up his victims, shots them, and leaves a red rose on each woman (thus he's been dubbed Red Rose by the press). Homicide detective Lt. Martin Quirk of the Boston Police Department brings private investigator Spenser in on the case. Red Rose wrote a letter to Quirk claiming that he's a cop, and Quirk wants at least one person on the investigation who is not associated with the BPD. Red Rose then starts leaving red roses for Spenser's girlfriend, psychologist Susan Silverman. Spenser suspects that Red Rose is one of Susan's patients, but Susan is reluctant to help because of patient confidentiality issues. In the meantime, Spenser and Hawk take turns guarding Susan while Spenser and the BPD investigate the murders. The race is on to catch Red Rose before he kills again--especially before Spenser and Silverman become victims.

I enjoyed Crimson Joy for a number of reasons. First, this becomes a psycho-thriller as Spenser matches wits with Red Rose. We even get to hear the voice of Red Rose as he struggles with his demons and his past. Then there is the conflict between Spenser and Silverman about what is more important---patient-doctor confidentiality or catching a killer. There is also a twist at the end. And then there is always the repartee between Spenser and Hawk. These all add up to a great book.

Hush Money (Spenser Mysteries)

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 76 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

hush money 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Typical Spenser. witty, hard nosed, careing, and plenty of other characters to play off of. Keeps you turning the pages

We learn some of the history of Hawk 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

While this Spenser novel follows the same formula as the others, there is one significant difference. In this one, we learn much more about the enigmatic Hawk. When he encounters a man that tried to sexually abuse him as a child, Hawk roughs him up, an action that puzzles Spenser. Hawk explains, describing some of the events of his youth and how he became a boxer. There is less wisecracking in this story as there is in some of the others, which is unfortunate. The best Spenser novels are those where he interacts with officers Quirk and Belsen, which seems to bring out the best in wisecracking repartee.
Spenser is once again the noble crusader, risking his life to help a friend, in this case Hawk. The man who took Hawk off the streets has a son who was denied tenure at a university. Believing it to have been unfair, the man denied tenure goes to Hawk, who goes to Spenser. This begins a trek into the undercurrents of gay life and the hypocrisy of so many of those who consider it a scourge of civilization. There is also a second plot line that has a woman very aggressively pursuing Spenser in an attempt to get him to engage in sex. Like the gallant man he is Spenser maneuvers the situation so that Susan is given the opportunity to deal with it. Which is does, in a manner that impresses Spenser.
This is not the best Spenser novel, parts of the plot are a bit too exaggerated. Nevertheless, it is very good, and is one that I will probably reread in a few years.

Editorial Review:

Spenser has his hands full when he takes on two cases at once. In the first, a high-minded university might be hiding a killer within a swamp of political correctness. And in the other, Spenser comes to the aid of a stalking victim, only to find himself the unwilling object of the woman's dangerous affection.

"One of the great series in the history of the American detective story!"--The New York Times

"Spenser can still punch, sleuth, and wisecrack with the best of them."--Publishers Weekly

Paper Doll (Spenser)

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Color Crayons & Paper Dolls. Tigers Beware. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Push a Pin into the perfection balloon. What is marriage ... what are styles of domesticity ... to a wealthy WASP, to a liberated couple like Spenser and Susan, to a good-guy gay cop, to a State Senator, to an aging wealthy southerner.

The concluding scene in DOUBLE DEUCE, # 19 in the Spenser series, catered a surprising twist to Susan and Spenser's attempts at traditional homemaking. That close was as refreshing to the double S as a storm-brought rainbow. The choice carried in DD's final chapter surfaced in silent style into the thematic structure of PAPER DOLL, # 20 in the Spenser series.

To Loudon Tripp seeking the private eye to find his wife's killer, Spenser answered the "small problem" of his having been dismissed from the police force:

"I am trustworthy, loyal, and helpful, but I struggle with obedient."

Who was Olivia Nelson?

She was Loudon Tripp's murdered wife. Was she Harriet to Ozzie, or did she have a small problem.

Spenser's gum shoe stuck in southern muck as he researched the past of a double identity with no indemnity. While thus stuck, the P.I. endured a dual whap to his knee caps by a fake constable. The gum was seared off by BAD-knight-Quirk to the rescue (YEA!), in a scene to write about to a homemaker or a troubleshooter, maybe even a troublemaker, whichever would apply, or lie right.

In the early 90's what did we cook, what did we say, what did we wear, what books did we read. See here. Hear ye. (...)

Readers have commented that they feel this series is anti-gay. One might not hold that opinion after reading PAPER DOLL, in which Lee Ferrell was introduced and featured with compassionate clarity, as a young gay cop working for Quirk. As would be expected, the repartee scenes between Ferrell and Spenser popped. The corn, no pron, was light, fresh, sensitive and free (relatively).

In Alton, South Carolina, 1948 a child was born, bearing a tale and a trail of a "sister" of doom. Was there room at the Inn? Spenser stayed there, and learned the song, "one way ... or the other."

The opening scene of chapter sixteen provided a collection of guffaws from the way Spenser dealt with an auto paused to tail his travels. If that passage doesn't do that, it's possible you've lost your Proof of Existence Papers. Would you then be a paper doll? I'd rather be me. Since the breakout of loveable dogs in DOUBLE DEUCE, Parker had been warmly elevating the dog's life, and I relish it that introduction to the series, but don't know if I'm ready to be one, if I have a choice!

In addition to dogs, another Spenser "signature" was continued and repeated from DOUBLE DEUCE, that of how a character holds a whiskey glass. Note an example of that on page 237 of the mass market paperback. Might this signature be a continued tribute to Erin Macklin (who held her whiskey glass "with both hands")? Also note how Lee Ferrell held his glass in a few spots in this one. That, possibly more than Spenser's "adoption" of the gay cop, was telling of Ferrel's status, as it developed through an amber-filled glass.

The conclusion of the murder in this one was a switch. For me, it worked, stretching contemplation space in the part of my brain which ruminates Parker's tweaking of what makes a good guy/gal good and a bad guy/gal bad.

Parker gave a perfect clue to the murderer, but I didn't get it until the plot told me.

"The words hung in the room, drifting like the dust of ruination."

That wasn't the clue, nor was it the preface to comeuppance for the killer. It was just a line I quite liked. As always, there were several.

Holding books with both hands,
Linda Shelnutt

Editorial Review:

When Boston aristocrat Loudon Tripp hires Spenser to investigate his wife's murder, Spenser uncovers high-class scandals and a corpse who might not be dead after all. Reprint. NYT. K.

Bad Business

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 69 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Light & Entertaining 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I enjoyed this mystery. It was fun. Spenser always has a wisecrack. The story is okay but I wasn't bored.

Many plots 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

First, I read a lot of mysteries and I'm a very strong, long term fan of the modern semi-hard-boiled, yet sensitive, Spenser series by Robert B. Parker.

But ... Bad Business is different from most of Parker's - it doesn't seem quite "fair" in the sense the reader could not have put it all together before the end (at least THIS reader certainly couldn't!). Spenser is fine, Susan is fine, Hawk is fine, just too many other characters, too many plots, too many hard-to-believe circumstances - the ending seems contrived ... one of numerous possible scenarios, most hard to believe.

Sorry, it was OK, but far from his best ... which are REALLY good!! If you're new to the series start with another one, i.e., better and more representative. If you're committed to reading them all, maybe you'll do better with this one than I did ... :>)

Editorial Review:

One of the great series in the history of the American detective story gets even better when Spenser is hired by a jilted bride to follow a cheating husband, only to cross paths with a detective hired to tail the two-timing wife. They aren't the most trusting couple in town, but as it turns out, they are the most dangerous.

Pale Kings And Princes

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Pillows Puffed for Wide-eyed Wallowing in Pages of a Plot 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

There's no use trying to use a Spenser novel to conjure or cajole the sandman. Similar to TAMING A SEA-HORSE (#13 Spenser); PALE KINGS AND PRINCES (# 14) kept me up a couple hours in the middle of the night, beyond a silly hope of returning to sleepiness through a short time of reading.

PALE KINGS opened again with the standard realism of the detective doing his walk-alone-deal, accompanied by shiftless boredom and justifiable frustration. In this case, since the food in the rural community in which Spenser was detecting was so limp, and the clue extraction so dentally daunting, the private eye was able to drag/push himself through his solitary shuffles for only 1/4 of the plot before he called in Susan for a weekend visit of Salmon Loaf or Polish Platter at the Reservoir Court motel in Wheaton, Mass.

I was intrigued with Parker's feature in this one of how an individual gets himself seen as such, as a person instead of a thing. His technique of having Spenser gradually thaw out Wheaton's finest citizenry seemed similar to me to his methods of drawing readers into Spenser's games. This time, those games were a town's economic rooting into Columbian Coca/Cocaine, and the class spits accompanying the resulting population stew in Wheaton. As usual, I was mesmerized with Spenser's repartee with criminal codgers, which in this case were the top-of-the-food-chain of Colombian Drug Lords. I was especially impressed with the way the P. I. humanized these guys into seeing him as a worthy person, actually more easily than he set the standard-of-his-humanity with Wheaton's police presence, barkeeps, waitresses, librarians, and regular Joe's.

I wondered if that humanizing ability might be one of the mesmerizing character traits which has kept Spenser cozied within the reading hearts of so many faithful fans. Spenser dedicates himself to making everyone see him as a warm-bodied person, instead of as a bloodless character-stick in a plot of a novel.

Especially in the first scene with Esteva, the Columbian King Pin, PALE KINGS solidified for me one of the main reasons for Spenser's appeal. He's real. Duh? He works on each person in his presence (including the reader), until that person sees him that way.

I've noticed several times in this series (and more so in PALE KINGS), that exchanges between Spenser and his dialogue collections had him describing a person looking away, purposely not looking at him, until he wormed that person into his scene. Now I recall how often Spenser has noted the "covert looks" which Hawk draws out of people. Hawk, too, is real; his essence demands to be experienced as a person of potence as well as presence.

Is this part of what charisma is, a person who sees himself as significant, and therefore causes others to see him that way; a person who won't quit radiating and/or badgering, focusing on others until they LOOK at HIM and SEE him? Maybe, charisma also involves a person like Spenser or Hawk actually SEEING everything they look at, which in turn causes the "objects" or persons of their observations to connect to them as human beings as well?

Reading this novel began to congeal some of the illusive reasons I've searched for to explain my addiction to this detective novel series, especially since I've rarely been drawn, by natural preference (in the past), to read even the best examples of seriously authentic, male private eyes. Along with the mutual-personalization-syndrome noted above, and the mesmerizing ability of the literary style and perfectly-paced-plot drivers which keep me reading in the middle of the night; my addiction seems to involve the philosophical strands of golden threads which labyrinth through Spenser's sensual, sensitive, poetic soul. Each book I read brings up the question, "What key about life's purpose might I be surprised by in this one."

Yet, thankfully, the philosophical, psychological tapestries in the series do not diminish the dedicated dramatization of the basic detecting lifestyle, with its normal daily routines which are often uncomfortable, deprivation-intense, soul-leechingly boring, and inconvenient ... 90% of the time ... with the other 10% being "hairy" with high risk of deadly harm. In this case, the snow-challenged, dangerous denouement scenes in PALE KINGS were unusually complex and hairy, with Hawk, Susan, Caroline, Juanita, and Lundquist (a fantasticly heroic character) adding race, gender, color, Cause, and Creed to Spenser's righting of wrongs, during which we're privy to mesmerizing details of the process of a psychologist (Susan) doing a therapy catharsis.

Another part of Spenser which I came to understand more precisely here (and which I usually welcome with a whoosh of relief) was Spenser's clean means of sidestepping any character's effort to draw him away from true issues in percolation, into potential-black-hole-passions of politically correct causes. As usual, he sidestepped abruptly and adeptly, without dismissing or undermining the actual values in those causes.

Yeah, I suppose Spenser has it all, at least all that I require to continue following a pair of footsteps, in a process somewhat like a P.I. trailing a suspect or a clue.

Sometimes, I do have one.

Linda Shelnutt

Editorial Review:

Wheaton is a typical New England small-college town, not the sort of place for drugs and murder. But when a reporter gets too inquisitive, he finds both -- the latter on his own.
Spenser's call comes when the local cops work a cover. He needs help to solve this one -- Hawk for back-up and Susan for insight on the basics of jealousy, passion and hate!
What the trio finds is a cutthroat cocaine ring, where drugs have value supreme and human life has none at all.

Potshot (Spenser)

Robert B. Parker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 115 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Parker gets worse as he gets older - zero stars 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is a zero star Spenser. The "good" bad gang VS the "bad" bad gang. Odds are 40 bad bads against 7 good bads. But the FBI and unknown spooks are FedEx'ing printouts of phone and bug taps of the "worst" bad guys. 40-7 ... we need this band of 7 in Iraq. This is more than childish leg-pulling by the author - it's actually disrespectful of Parker to serve out this as Spenser material to anyone who can read. Hawk personally bows his head in shame at being written into this dribble.

Wild, wild west 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

When a gang of thugs runs rough-shod over a town and a nice lady comes to Spenser to ask for help finding out who murdered her husband, Spenser finds himself in Potshot, a small town in the desert. It is never made really clear whether it is in California or Nevada or Arizona or where exactly in the desert it is, but apparently there is an abandoned mine nearby and a gang of thugs has taken over the mine as their base of operations (they call themselves the Dell) and now they own the town, selling "protection" to the businesses and using the services of the town as they wish. Spenser quickly realizes things are not as they seem; after bracing Preacher (the leader of the Dell), Spenser believes the Dell are not responsible for the murder, at least, and he heads to LA to try to find out more about the murder victim and his wife, as well as some of the other members of the community.

Spenser ends up gathering a few of his friends to join him back in Potshot, so we are treated to a rare gem when our old friends Hawk, Vinnie Morris, Chollo, Bobby Horse and Bernardo J. Fortunato as well as a new friend - Tedy Sapp - are all gathered together in one place. The witticisms are thick on the ground when everyone is in one place. I believe that alone makes this one of my favorites in the Spenser series. Not to be missed!

Editorial Review:

The town of Potshot, Arizona, is under siege by a band of murderous marauders, and the law is helpless to stop them. But now there's a new gun in town-Boston P.I. Spenser-and he's gathered a posse of the best and baddest to back him up.

"Parker still finds clever ways to invigorate his Spenser series." ( Entertainment Weekly)

Hugger Mugger (Spenser)

Robert B. Parker

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Total reviews: 94 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Charming An Asp in A Southern Mansion 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This # 27 in the Spenser series gave another easy in, opening with the journalistic, capital-letter "I" luxuriating in the prime narrative style for the private eye genre. In this First Person pose of panache, Spenser was lounging in his office chair, feet propped on the window sill, contemplating baseball. A potential client and his daughter interrupted the reverie by entering Spenser's domain, oozing varieties of slow southern charm. The father was one of Parker's perfect portrayals of the putrid-personal-quality of unfounded uppity (charm tarnished there). The daughter appeared to have the warmth of "Y'all come down he'ah" so well heeled, Spenser began believing it was the genuine asset.

Or, could a gorgeous young southern lady fool Spenser's radar-for-phoney, in a plot in which someone might have an opportunity to act in Clark Gable's role, concluding HUGGER MUGGER with the well used line from GONE WITH THE WIND, "Frankly, my lady, I don't give a ..."

I was surprised to discover from the opening scene that Hugger Mugger was the name of a highly prized race horse, but not surprised to discover that Spenser would be heading south to dig into down-home hospitality simultaneous to digging into dirty laundry and dark racing schemes. As usual, Parker perfected another geographic, sub-cultural ambiance, and had Spenser working up a sweat, worming his private-eye Boston-ways into a heatedly brewing situation.

I noticed Hawk's absence in this plot, but not until what was there had solidified my willing residence. I can see that what Parker was developing in Spenser and the series at the "Time of Hugger" wouldn't have been possible with Hawk's ebony perk included.

The ending in this one gave a couple delightfully subtle twists to revered old movies and recurring literary themes, in which one of the culprit's karma was paid with a panache of eyes, teeth, and irony... and another culprit got away with something in an unanticipated out-the-door scene.

Having reviewed all except the last few books in the Spenser series, I'm beginning to wonder if HUGGER MUGGER may have been the last of the breed of leisurely walks through other city ambiance complete with regular, detailed, and yummy weather reports? If so, it's going on my "relish the setting detail" list. POTSHOT (which was the first book in this series I read) had action and took place in Arizona, but the plot walk was not leisurely. (See my Listmania for Spenser entries in order, with blurbs.)

I've not read The Robert B. Parker Companion, but possibly it gives more detailed insight to some of the questions I and others have raised in reviews of this series.

Continuing to me to be the most awesome fact to me in on qualities and evolution of this series is that it can be read for pure entertainment, or with focused observation and appreciation of its layers of depth, in theme dramatized, and literary style applied. Of course, when a reader is seeking unadulterated entertainment he may be slightly disappointed at times when a book in the series slips off what might have been anticipated as a relished rut or beaten path, though most readers, myself included, seem to enjoy Parker's style sequencing and evolution in this series as absolutely accurate. On the other hand, if a reader becomes involved in the series as a fascinating study, most content and style shifts will be felt as refreshment and intrigue, cherished collections of red flags to observe gleefully through a magnifying glass.

Spenser's charm remains and regenerates,
Linda Shelnutt

Editorial Review:

Someone's making death threats in Dixie - against a thoroughbred horse destined to be the next Secretariat. At the owner's request, Boston P.I. Spenser hoofs it down South - where the lies are buzzing...and the dying is easy.

Brisk...crackling...Hugger Mugger finishes strong, just like a thoroughbred should. (Entertainment Weekly)

A winner...the famous dialogue is polished to a high shine...terrific. (Kirkus Reviews)

Snappy. (Chicago Tribune)

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