Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Trading Energy and Partners, November 8, 2005
Robert Parker has a certain love for ironic plots. Bad Business, with its cluster of detectives following various spouses to determine who is cheating whom, is full of irony and misdirection. Spenser is hired by the wife of one executive to follow her husbands who seems to have hired another detective to... Well, you get the idea - open marriages gone psychotic.
Or so it would seem. But when murder begins to become a part of the shenanigans Spenser realizes that something more important is at stake in a story that picks up on the Enron scandals and then stands loyalty and faithfulness on its head. Kinergy has its own variations on corporate corruption, and layered on top of this is a talk show host who wants to maximize bed sharing.
Of course, Susan Silverman, Pearl the Wonder Dog II, and Hawk put in regular appearances so that us Spenser junkies will get our filp of flip and sarcastic dialog. After all, it is Parker's wizardry with dialog that keeps us coming back. Even if the story is a bit frail, the players make up for it time and again.
Spenser is the last true knight of Boston. He still compulsively comes to the rescue and can't stand to see a woman cry. The times change in these novels, but the main characters remain stable and attractive as if they lived in a time line all there own. And frankly, I can never resist them.
My one complaint with any Spenser novel is that it is too short. Parker's writing ability draws the reader through the book at lightning speed, and it's all too easy to finish them in one or two sittings. On the other hand, they never cloy, and are often just the right length to refresh one after reading too many serious stories.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dialogue makes the book..., February 28, 2005
When an author is as prolific as Robert B. Parker, some books are going to be better than others. Bad Business, the 31st book in his Spenser series, is better than many of his later efforts.
Marlene Rowley hires Spenser to tail her husband, who she suspects of having an affair. Husband, Trent, is a big executive at an energy company called Kinergy (think Enron). It quickly becomes apparent that Spenser isn't the only PI following people around, and when Trent ends up murdered (in his Kinergy office no less), Marlene then engages Spenser to find the killer. Marlene is totally obnoxious and self-centered, and is not an easy person to work for. Spenser encountered lots of twists and turns, and not only is there the business angle, but there are also sex seminars, wife-swapping, an escort service, missing PI's, another murder and a host of other possible motives.
But what makes Parker so much fun to read is his witty, snappy, first-rate dialogue. Spenser interviewing possible suspects is a hoot. The conversation between Spenser and Hawk is even better. So even though this book could have been a bit longer, it was definitely worth reading. Too bad they stopped filming the Spenser television series, as Bad Business would have made one dandy episode.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spenser investigates Enron and marital infidelity, January 19, 2006
The Spenser novels of Robert Parker are characterized by witty, sarcastic dialog between the characters. Even when the plot line is weak, the way they speak to each other always delivers a high level of entertainment. In this story, Marlene Crowley hires Spenser to follow her husband to determine if he is cheating on her. His name is Trent Crowley and he is Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Kinergy, one of the most dynamic companies around. It is an energy trading company and rose from very small beginnings to an apparent powerhouse. Robert Cooper, the CEO of Kinergy and an expert glad-hander, has designs on a run for the U. S. Senate, so he wants to keep his image as clean as possible.
When Trent Crowley is murdered on the Kinergy premises, things change. Furthermore, Spenser finds a veritable daisy chain of wife swapping and private detectives following husbands and wives. As usual, Spenser makes enemies, one of which is the Gavin, the chief of security at Kinergy. When Gavin is killed, there seems to be no reason for the murders. However, Spenser eventually determines the identity of the murderers, amid the additional discovery that Kinergy is a house of cards. The higher executives have been gradually selling off their stock in anticipation that it will quickly become nearly worthless. The ending is not a great dramatic one, as there is no shootout, just Spenser punching a man.
This story is taken directly from the events surrounding the collapse of Enron, with the exception of the internal mate-swapping and the murders, you could replace Kinergy with Enron and most of the story would be factual. I don't consider it one of Parker's best Spenser novels, but once again the quality of the dialog makes it very entertaining. Hawk and Vinnie Morris appear, but are not heavily involved, which is a disappointment. In my opinion, the conversations between Spenser and Hawk are the best dialog in the Spenser series.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
