My favorite Robert B. Parker Spenser novels were those from the 1990s. By then the characters had been fleshed out and seemed like old friends. That made reading like sitting down with people you’ve known for years and catching up with the latest news. The difference, of course, is that Spenser and his inner circle got into some bizarre situations that often involved guns. Here are four I particularly like.
In an earlier piece I said that Senser doesn’t think he can save the world or pose as a social reformer. In Double Deuce (1992) he does the latter. More improbably, Hawk is the catalyst. Hawk maintains the exterior of an unsentimental guy, but when 15-year-old Devona and her 3-month-old daughter are gunned down because of a turf war, Hawk’s blood boils, and he makes a promise. The title references 22 Hobart Street where the murder took place. Hawk asks Spenser to help him pacify the area occupied by street gangs. For once, Hawk is on board with the idea of no shooting if it can be avoided. That’s a challenge. This is such a nasty section of black Boston that law enforcement keeps its distance. How are two guys–one of them white–going to clean it up by sitting in a car, watching, drinking coffee, and staring down threats. By Parker standards Double Deuce has less violence but is often more tense. The resolution is unlikely to become a model for community policing or urban renewal, but it’s unique and effective.
Susan is the fulcrum in Walking Shadow (1994). She’s on the board of the Port City Theatre Company, a hope-over-resources avantgarde outfit in a decaying fishing town. Its reminiscent of New Bedford, but Port City is close to Boston and has a large Chinese population, so perhaps it’s a composite of Revere and someplace like Quincy. Spenser is asked by its artistic director to investigate his sense that he is being stalked. Paranoia? When an actor is shot dead on stage–which puts a damper into everyone’s evening–there’s clearly something afoot. Another tipoff is the namesake shade that disappears from where the person making it should be. Spenser is thrown in the world of tong wars, kidnapping, unrequited love, and more murders. He senses extreme danger even though Hawk and semi-reformed hood Vinnie Morris have his back. Translator Mei Ling also assists, as Spenser is out of his depth in how the Chinese underworld world works. It has a twist I did not see coming.
In Thin Air (1995), Spenser is called upon to do a solid for a guy who has done many for him: Sgt. Frank Belson of the Boston Police Department. The divorced Belson hasn’t been the luckiest in love, but he seems to have the jackpot in the former Lisa St. Claire. They have been married for less than a year when Lisa disappears, and Frank asks Spenser to find her. He quickly discovers she has been kidnapped. Most Spenser novels have the man himself as the omniscient narrator, but Thin Air is also narrated by Lisa in captivity. (Her narrative is in italics in my copy of the book.) All signs point to a former partner from her days in which her life was, shall we say, less respectable than being a cop’s wife. Spenser will call upon gun-for-hire Chollo and Frank must reveal and hear things about Lisa that he’d rather not, especially events from her life in the Merrimack River town of Proctor. If that weren’t enough, Frank is hospitalized in an apparent assassination attempt. Chollo helps Spenser gain access to a Latino network, but can Chollo cool his jets and let Spenser call the metaphorical shots? This one has a fiery ending.
Potshot was published in 2001–the first year of the 21st century–but I’m sneaking it into this column on the 1990s. Spenser is so associated with Boston, the North Shore, and (occasionally) New York City that it’s easy to forget that Spenser’s bio has him born and raised in Laramie, Wyoming. As in Double Douce, Spenser is akin to a Wild West sheriff. A referral from the LAPD puts Spenser in contact with Mary Lou Buckman from the desert town of Potshot, Arizona. Her husband Steve has been murdered. She insists that the deed was done The Preacher, the head of a gang holed up in an old mine in the Sawtooth Mountain foothills. Local sheriff Dean Walker is clearly not up to the task of confronting The Preacher or stop him and his associates from extorting local businesses. Spenser is offered major cash to get rid of the gang anyway he can. To that end, he recruits a gang of his own–including Hawk, Chollo, and Vinnie. Spenser reckons his seven is plenty to eliminate their 40. The problem is that Spenser doubts that The Preacher killed Steve, Mary Lou is on the level, or that restoring civic pride is what his contract is all about.
Rob Weir
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