Customer Reviews

Double Play

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Double Play introduces a new Parker hero, Joseph Burke, who barely survived a machine gun at Guadalcanal while serving as a Marine in World War II. Back in the states, he doesn't know where he is . . . but he's sure someone's out to get him. After a long physical recovery, his emotional recovery just begins as the story opens.

Burke is a tough guy, and (like Spenser) takes up boxing. But he's better at pounding away and surviving a punch than "floating like a bee" and he soon has to find another line of work. Having scruples makes him a poor enforcer, so he finds himself becoming a body guard. His first job is for a woman who needs to be protected from an abusive boyfriend who's connected . . . and her own bad habits. When that job ends, Burke finds himself in Brooklyn being asked to play the same role for Dodger rookie Jackie Robinson.

The book reminds me of Huckleberry Finn with Jim on the Mississippi in many ways, as Burke finds himself not fitting into either the African-American or the WASP communities as he does his bodyguard work. Burke's awareness of what Jackie Robinson is going through grows, and the reader finds himself taken back to a world that we are hopefully leaving behind as fast as possible where race counted rather than what you did.

Atop of this setting, Mr. Parker overlays gangland vendettas, a love story and his own perspective as a 15 year old on that fateful season in Brooklyn.

For secondary entertainment, you can match up each character in the story to a character from the Spenser books. Although I think Susan would be annoyed to be matched to many of these female characters.

The book has a weakness though that's annoying. It's a little too glib and easy about dealing with the racial hatred of the times. You end up feeling like you are reading about hazing rather than hate.

Any Spenser fan will enjoy seeing the variety of seeing the challenges of doing the right thing from the perspective of pain and numbness rather than from joy and happiness.

This is Parker on the stretch, away from his favorite characters, away from his Boston setting, plunged into the past. When he's stretched he's at the top of his form and demonstrates his moves on every page.

Most of all, the Jackie Robinson story is a story about a time and the first third of the book is background. Parker does the postwar period masterfully and the interspersed personal chapters are a nice, innovative touch. They've drawn some criticism, unwarranted in my opinion.

The characters are fresh, the plotting and dialogue as economical as the best Parker, the resolution touching. I read it straight through, disrupting all of my prior plans for the day, and not regretting a moment of it.

I loved "Double Play." It's been a long time since a book has so resonated in my consciousness. Let me tell you why.

Robert B. Parker and I are about the same age. We were both 14 in the summer of 1947 when most of his book takes place. Like Mr. Parker, I spent my youth listening to ballgames on the radio. I, too, had been a Brooklyn Dodgers fan (until the summer of 1946 when they were supplanted in my affections by the St. Louis Cardinals - but that's a story for another time). I, too, listened to all the wonderful old radio shows of the day, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, and on and on that Mr. Parker discusses in his "Bobby" sequences. I saw Jackie Robinson play against the Cardinals in St Louis in that summer of his rookie year, 1947 - I wonder where Burke was? Mr. Parker's mother, a spirited woman who he describes as, "often wrong, but never in doubt," and his father, who dealt with his wife's bossiness with slightly bemused tolerance, reminded me of my own parents' personalities and relationship. Even the unconscious racism of 1940s Springfield, Mass. was reminiscent of the racism that prevailed in Oklahoma City at the time.

The exciting story of the developing respect between Burke, the tough WW-II combat veteran, failed boxer, and body guard; and Jackie Robinson is well told and a lot of fun. Sure their relationship has overtones of Spencer and Hawk but, what the heck, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." And we can always count on a Robert B. Parker novel to give us three dimensional characters and smart, endlessly entertaining dialog. For example, Burke, although only about 22 in 1947, is older than his time on earth would indicate - and infinitely sadder, too. I think I would have liked "Double Play" a lot, even without its connections to my own childhood but the combination of Mr. Parker's formidable storytelling talent and the time in which his book is set served to make it doubly rewarding for me.

I read this book several years ago when I first began my "Robert Parker Phase." I'm a baseball fan, so I of course enjoyed the book but it wasn't really a WOW or "this is a great book" kind of book. And I am a huge Robert Parker fan.

Robert Forster's narration absolutely makes this book both wow and great. He catches the malaise of the character in just the right way. There is almost a delayed reaction in the reading, just as if Burke was too tired and too unattached to answer. Parker's books are 99% dialogue, with a lot of he saids and she saids. You don't even notice them in the audio version because the narrator does such a fine job of dropping his voice down after he says the meat of the sentence, and often even attaches emotions to the he saids and she saids.

I grew up in Mississippi before civil rights. It was very painful to hear some of the language spoken because my father talked like that as a matter of course. He was born in Selma, Alabama in 1918 and I like to think he didn't know any better, but that's no excuse. I cannot imagine the confidence and security Robinson must have possessed to put himself through what this books hints at were his experiences.

This book is not even five hours, and it was over way too quick. I plan to listen to it many times.

This is a character study of two very different people, but both with an honor that can't be disputed.

Five stars, yes, five.

Heard DOUBLE PLAY by Robert B. Parker . . . it is not the typical mystery set in modern Boston that the author is famous for . . . rather, it is a tale of good guys and bad guys set in New York in the 1940s, and there's a fair amount of romance thrown in too.

But what made it so interesting for me was the fact that Parker also brought Jackie Robinson into the story . . . the color barrier-breaking baseball player is guarded by the book's
main character, Joseph Burke . . . their exchanges advance the plot in a believable fashion . . . in fact, it almost felt like I was listening to bits and pieces of an actual conversation
between Robinson and Burke.

My interest was maintained until the very end of DOUBLE PLAY . . . Robert Forster's excellent job of narration helped add to my enjoyment.

Why?

He mixes together so many things that he is passionate about in his other books - baseball, the tough guy persona, relationships between men and women, the mafia. It's all here and it's all wrapped up in the compelling story of Jackie Robinson.

Parker also includes a number of autobiographical sections in the novel in the form of the memories of "Bobby", a young boy who listens to the Dodgers games on the radio. At first, I thought the Bobby character was unnecessary fluff, but he is used quite effectively to showcase the general sentiment of the baseball fans toward race.

Well done. A good bit of writing.

A couple of the most recent Spenser books were, to me, short of the mark, as if Parker were a bit tired of the character. And his constant repetition of key phrases said by characters in his three series was more than annoying. ("We'd be fools not to" being the worst. There are others. Parker's publishers/editors fall down on their job here.)

Double Play was like a breath of fresh air. How a reviewer can simply say Burke is a Spenser clone is quite beyond me. He's a *very* different character, a most interesting and subtley complex one.

Robinson is black. Hawk is black. And there any comparison ends. Robinson is a very well developed character, in my estimation, and rings true as the man we came to know in history.

Bringing together both the criminal elements and the extreme racism of those times I thought an excellent tool as well as being true to life. Those who weren't alive back then simply don't understand how much a part of daily life these things were, even though submerged in "good company." (Unfortunately, they're both with us still.)

I was also impressed by Parker's grasp of the effects of war on the Burke character, how he retreated inward emotionally, the building of his need and desire to expand again as a human being.

I'd recommend this one to anyone.

A great book by Robert B. Parker, who's new hero, Burke, is just as gritty as Spenser. This book takes place during the 1940's when baseball is about to integrate with Jackie Robinson. Burke is hired to protect Robinson at any cost. The real greatness in the book is the relationship that Burke and Robinson develop over the course of the story. A really good book and I highly recommend it.

I'm one hard core Spenser junkie. I've read all of Mr. Parkers books, including the Sunny Randall and Chief Stone novels. I wasnt happy to read them all, but I did it anyway. So when another book without Spenser was comming out, I waited until I could find it used.
I've read all of the Spenser novels multiable times, but my patience is wearing thin for the non-spenser novels. The Jessie Stone novels are O.K., but the Randall novels I've read before in earlier Spenser books, and I'm not exaxtly a western fan. So here comes another one, this about baseball. Oh boy...
How wrong I was. The book was Mr. Parkers normal sparce writing style, lots of action, and I even liked the autobiographal BOBBY sections. If you want a recap of the story, read one of the other reviews, but I can say this. This multi-layerd, thin, quick action novel with a big heart was... well, a pleasant suprise. This book reminds me of how excieted I was about ALL OUR YESTERDAYS when I first read it. Well done Mr. Parker, you hit another one out of the park.

I love Robert Parker's writing. Spenser almost feels like a character I grew up with. Like many others however, I don't think Parker's writing has been as crisp in recent Spense novels as in the early ones. Almost as if he's grown too comfortable with the characters.

All that changes in Double Play. Spenser leaves the comfortable surroundings of Spenser's life and visit's Jackie Robinson and the world of baseball when the first black's were entering the game. Through a fictional character named Burke, Mr. Parker intruduces us to life as he was growing up; the strife in the world, the recovery fromt he war, the tension between races, and the hope that it would all work out. For anyone why likes Parker, baseball, or just a damn good read, this book is a must.