โ Scribed by Parker, Robert B.
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Organized crime in Parker's fictional Boston has provided protein-rich fodder for most of the Spenser novels (recently, Thin Air and Walking Shadow). Parker sticks to the tried and true here, as his burly and literate PI untangles the knotted power schemes of the four putative heirs-and a brash newcomer-to old Joe Broz's domain. A second-echelon hoodlum, Julius Ventura, hires Spenser and his partner/sidekick Hawk to find his daughter's missing husband, a middle-management criminal named Anthony Meeker, who, it turns out, had money-handling responsibilities. Speedily determining that Meeker liked to gamble, Spenser and his lover, psychiatrist Susan Silverman, and Hawk depart for Las Vegas. They find their quarry, discover the complicating identity of his female companion and are joined by assorted other players, including one of Ventura's nastier fellow crimesters and Meeker's wife. A murder follows, sending Spenser back to Boston to determine who has betrayed whom and to try to smooth the way out for one of the women involved in the mess. This is vintage Parker, replete with the expected black/white repartee between Spenser and Hawk and the archly crude dialogue he carries on with Susan. ("Had I been a lascivious Irish shrink, would you have loved me anyway?" she asks. Spenser replies affirmatively and adds, "But I think you've just coined a tripartite oxymoron.") Despite a mid-course swerve in the plot, the action rings true, especially the machinations among the crime bosses, as Spenser proves himself once more a modern-day knight in shining armor. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Julius Ventura is a big-time Boston thug. He doesn't want to hire Spenser, but he does because his daughter is crying, and what dad--even a thug--can say no to a crying daughter? Shirley is crying because her husband, Anthony Meeker, has disappeared, and she wants him back. Anthony did some work for his father-in-law, and Spenser suspects there was a cash shortfall about the time Anthony disappeared. Soon Spenser discovers that Anthony was skimming from Julius and had an unwelcome partner, namely Marty Anaheim, a leg breaker in another branch of the organization. And just to add some spice to the mix, Anaheim's wife, Bibi, ran off with Meeker. Spenser and erstwhile pal Hawk move to and fro between Boston and Las Vegas, where they find Henry and Bibi, decide to help the pair escape the murderous Anaheim, and then get stopped cold by the murder of Shirley, Meeker's estranged wife. Toss in a power struggle among Boston's criminal elite, and you've got the most densely plotted Spenser novel in years. The unexpectedly complex machinations of the case complement the always stellar dialogue, the palpable sense of potential violence, and the bantering relationship between Spenser and longtime lover Susan Silverman. The Spenser series has had its ups and downs over more than 20 years, but this twenty-fifth entry finds the quick-witted sleuth and company to be in remarkably good health. Wonderfully entertaining reading. Wes Lukowsky
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