27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If Robert B. Parker wrote a Dick Francis mystery..., April 3, 2000
Who else but Robert Parker could tackle three different mystery characters in three different novels a year and still be one of the most consistently entertaining writers in the mystery field? But (with apologies to Jesse Stone and Helen H...er, sorry, Sunny Randall), it's Spenser we love the best. My two favorite mystery novelists are Robert B. Parker and Dick Francis, and this mystery, set in Georgia horse country, is the best of both worlds: Spenser must track down the murderer of horses at a training farm, populated by (as Spenser says) the cast of a Tennessee Williams play. As always, much of the fun is the dialogue--no one's better than Spenser taking the wind out of a pompous twit's sails, and no one's better at writing that wise-guy with an intellectual edge than Parker. Any complaints? Well, sure, there's a big one. No Hawk! Luckily, Susan's around, and so is Pearl the Wonder Dog. Spenser's sidekick in this book, a gay ex-cop named Tedy Sapp, is interesting enough, but Mr. Sapp, you're *no* Hawk! (But who is?) My other quibble is a broader one. This is a fine standard Spenser mystery, but it's nothing more than that--Spenser gets a client, scouts the case, matches wits with the suspects, flirts a bit (but stays loyal to Susan, of course) and cracks the solution. But a truly exceptional Spenser book, while it contains all these elements, can be so much more. I've been reading Spenser's adventures for nearly 20 years, and the ones that make the most impression on me--those I consider the best, in which Parker transcends the normal mystery novel--are the books in which Spenser as a character moves forward dramatically, in which something major happens to Spenser *personally* to change or influence his life. Don't get me wrong--that kind of approach would not be welcome in every book...but after nearly 30 Spenser books the ones that stand out in my mind are "Early Autumn"..."A Catskill Eagle"..."Small Vices"...Spenser adventures that bring us more into the personal life of Parker's hero than the others. That Parker is capable of such sublime heights between the more-standard Spenser (and Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall) mysteries is the most important reason I keep reading him.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better Than Some, Not the Best, Though, April 5, 2000
This is an interesting departure for Spenser -- Parker has apparently decided to see if he can still get a handle on the character without the "furniture" that has accumulated in the series over the years.
Thus, Hawk is nowhere to be seen, Vinnie Morris and Martin Quirk are voices on telephones doing favours for Spenser, and Spenser isn't even in Boston.
Beyond that, Parker rings variations on some of his own cliches -- the thuggish character whom Spenser has to humiliate turns out to be one of the Good Guys in the end, the local Top Cop not only likes Spenser, he's ahppy to have him stirring up trouble on the local scene that, for political reasons, the local law can't get into... and other somewhat off-center takes.
Parker has either visited Atlanta recently or done his research well -- when Spenser comes to Atlanta from (fictitious) Lamarr, he speaks of the local geography and business with a quiet assurance -- and accuracy.
Another departure for Spenser is the ending -- about which all i can say is just that -- that it's not a usual-type Spenser ending. I'll even go so far as to say that some readers (of whom i'm not one) may feel that he really hjasn't completed the story. But he has -- the solution is complete and elegant in Spenser's head, and he knows the guilty will sooner or later suffer...
One odd element in this book is that a completely-unrelated short story (set in Boston), with unrelated characters, is spliced into the middle of the book.
Parker has Susan refer to the events in this short story in a rather forced-sounding attempt to make it fit in by having her explain something about the main story by referring to the events of the interlude... But it really doesn't work.
OTOH, it's a neat little vignette of Spenser at work, deciding where justice lies and then going ahead and facilitating Justice with little regard for law, legality or the feelings of his client.
One minor gripe -- As in "Paper Doll" (set in an equally fictitious South Carolina county that Spenser briefly visits again in "Hugger Mugger"), Parker has missed a minor piece of Southrun talk -- we don't, generally, refer to Interstate highways as, say, "Route 20" -- such a reference is usually reserved for some piddly little State Highway; two-lane blacktop winding thru god-knows-where in the less-populated end of the county.
Don't know why that bothers me, except it's so obvious, as if Spenser were in Louisiana and referred to the "County Jail"...
Highly recommended, despite my personal dialog twitches.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Parker's Best Spenser novels!, April 14, 2000
By A Customer
This is Parker's best Speser novel in recent years. Over time the character and his relationship with Susan Silverman and Hawk has grown quite matter of fact. Lost was the essence of the main character that was in the earlier books. I can only guess but I think Parker has had a good strategy the last few years. He wrote a couple of novels with a different male character (vasty different from Spenser) and one with a female character (but much like Spenser). Returning in Hugger Mugger, parker takes Spenser out of all the "normal" settings - away from Boston, away from Hawk (no "jive-talk" bantering)and leaves Susan Silverman and Pearl the Wonderdog as supporting characters.
By doing this the author has forced himself to concentrate on Spenser - the character and by doing that has succeeded in bringing back the "something" that makes this character work.
The plot itself is quite good, but the character (and the supporting "cast") is what makes this work. My only complaint (minor) is how it ended -I felt there was a "wrap up" chapter missing, but all in all a great mystery and a fabulously great Spenser novel!
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