Customer Reviews

The Judas Goat

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book shares equal-first placing with Small Vices as my favourite Spencer books, because Spencer is not the smartest, strongest, all-conquering hero. He makes mistakes and wears the consequences.

The Judas Goat is probably the least predictable of the Spencer books. Hawk and Susan are introduced to a large degree in this book, so they are fresh and unpredictable. Hawk is morally ambiguous and hasn't developed into a boy scout with a ghetto accent. Susan is quite intelligent and hasn't been reduced to alternating speeches of undying love for Spencer and self-righteous whinging about the unfairness of life.

As Australia is currently in the last stages of preparing for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the book's references to the 1976 Olympics are particularly interesting. Robert Parker wins a gold medal for this effort.

This is my favorite Spenser novel. It is action based and shows Spenser and Hawk at their best. This is the earlier Spencer who has little regard for the rules. Hawk has no regard for the rules. Spenser before he was civilized by Susan Silverman.

In The Judas Goat, Spenser takes a vacation from his usual Bostonian suspects and takes on a job in Europe hunting down terrorists who killed his latest client's family.

While certainly not reaching the complexity of the "great Spenser period" soon to come, the story advances some of the key elements that would later gel (and, ultimately ossify in some ways) in some ways. Although her role is peripheral here, Susan Silverman is a lot more likeable here than in previous books. And here Hawk finally emerges as his own character, finally becoming Spenser's true doppleganger.

The only flaws are a rather plastic set of villains, including an unfortunately portrayal of a seriously demented nymphomaniac terrorist. Clearly, Parker is still struggling with his tendencies to characterize the non-Silverman women as either good time girls or pyschotic whores.

But the action scenes here are among Parker's best, including an astonishing, multi-page set piece involving Spenser's attempt to lure a couple of assassins waiting to kill him.

This probably isn't the first Spenser you should read, but it's among the best of the earlier Spensers.

This is one of my favorites of the Spenser novels. Brisk pacing, realistic handling of weapons and tactics, and a very clear depiction of the difference between Hawk's and Spenser's approaches to difficult situations.

Bonus: Parker reveals Spenser's first name! I find it odd that few people seem to have noticed this. Pay close attention to Spenser's parting dinner conversation with Susan; she says his first name plain as day. (It's my brother's first name as well, so I approve).

Update: As a commenter pointed out, the sequence I thought revealed Spenser's first name was in fact a game in which Susan and Spenser banter as Marshal Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty. Chalk up my misunderstanding to a lifetime spent without watching a single episode of Gunsmoke.

I started at the beginning of the series and I like these books more and more as I read them. Spenser is funny and so cool. I find my self chuckling through out these books.

This one has Spenser trapsing around the world. Half way in, he has to pull Hawk in to help protect him from a gang of thugs. Spenser was highered by a man whose family was killed in a bombing in London. He wants Spenser to find the 9 people behind the bombing and either kill them or have them arrested. In true Spenser form, most of the group is terminated. Especially with Hawk in the picture.

The final scene occurs in Montreal during the Olympic games where Hawk and Spenser have to take down a mammouth body guard.

I really enjoy these books and can't wait to start the next one.

The first of the books to give Hawk real prominence in the story-line, this book really shines. Post 11 SEP this books also hold a resonance that it hadn't since it came out: Spenser and Hawk battle a group of nasty, deadly and fanatical terrorists bent of death and destruction.

With pithy prose and sparkling dialogue, the story also gives the extreme violence in the book a moral context that raises it above the usual actioner into the realm of literature.

A must read for the Spenser fan.

Although I'm one who doesn't mind a more cerebral book, typically, I found the first few books in the Spenser series to be a bit overfull of rhetoric and therefore lacking in the essential action necessary in a PI novel. Not "The Judas Goat." Here the action takes us across the pond to London, Holland and Amsterdam, then back to Montreal where Spenser - with the help of Hawk (I was so happy to see him again!) - foils an attempt to kill one or more participants in the Olympic games.

I have noticed a trend in the Spenser books so far; the descriptions on the back covers (at least on the newly released reprints in mass markets paperback) have very little to do with what actually goes on in the books. From the description on the back of this one, I expected there would be an affair between Spenser and the woman involved with the terrorists, but that wasn't the case (not that she didn't make a move). Although I am not one who likes stories spoiled by overly descriptive descriptions, I do like a small blurb on a book that is ACCURATE so I know basically what a story is about before I buy it. Just a thought in passing.

This was the first of the Spenser novels that I really could sink my teeth into; not that I didn't like the first few, but this was the first one I REALLY loved. I am going to enjoy getting through the rest of the massive pile I have awaiting my attention!

In Robert B. Parker's fifth book about the Boston sleuth Spenser, he sends Spenser through London, Amsterdam and Montreal in search of justice.

In an opening which almost exactly mirrors the start of The Big Sleep, Spenser heads out to rich-suburb Weston to meet with a sad family man in a wheelchair. In this case, the man's family has been blown up as 'collateral damage' by terrorists in London with unknown aims. The man hires Spenser to bring in the 9 responsible, dead or alive.

Off Spenser goes, telling his beloved Susan, who he was practically married to in the last book, that he might be gone for months or years. "See ya" says she. He puts out one ad and lounges for a full week before someone answers it. Two thugs try to kill him and he takes them out. When another pair try the following week, Spenser decides to trust his life to Hawk, who was just a casual acquaintance in the previous story. Some pretty strange relationship-altering substances must have been taken between these two stories.

On Spenser goes, from Denmark to Amsterdam to Montreal. He barely stops back in the Boston area to keep his benefactor informed and to pop in to see Susan. With an almost implausible twist of fate he tracks down and finds the final head terrorist at the Montreal Olympics and stop an assassination attempt. Oh, and he lets the sex-crazed-nympho female terrorist go, because, of course, she's female. She must not have known any better.

In a very unusual situation, there was a made-for-TV version of this which was FAR far better. The female terrorist is a much better character. The whole environment makes much more sense, and there are EXTRA twists that make the story even more interesting. It's pretty amazing when the movie version turns out much better than the book!

Let me just add the note that I'm a huge Spenser fan, that I did enjoy reading this as a "historical story" and have read it several times. So it's worth having if you enjoy Spenser. It's just clear that this is an early work of Parker's, before he really hit his stride.

I LOVE Robert B. Parker - with my favorite being the Spenser series.
His witty dialogue, the action, the humor, Susan and the other babes, Pearl the wonder dog - but before all that, looooong before comes Hawk. One man, one gun, a few words and a car. That's all there is to Spense's best friend. But whenever he turns up the action gets to be non stop with as an added bonus some of the funniest dialogue in crime writing.
Spense is tough. Hawk is tougher. Both box and both like babes. Spense has one (Susan), Hawk, well let's say he takes it as it comes.
In this story (fifth in the series and my favorite) it comes down hard and violent as Spense is asked to get a group of terrorists who bombed a restaurant in London. With a few exceptions most of the series' other books take place in or around Boston. This one takes Spense, Hawk and you around the world in a day (or how long it will take you to read the book).
Spensers are addictive and usually read in one session. You can't stop - they're that good. Just get it and enjoy the roller coaster ride.

This is the third Spenser book I've read and I imagine I'm hooked now and will be reading every Spenser book I get hold of.

A lot of readers compare the Spenser books to Dashell Hammett's, Raymond Chandler's and Ross McDonald's books, but I see, in addition, some of John D. McDonald's Travis McGee in the character of Spenser.

Whatever, this book is the best of the three I've read so far...they get progressively better, it seems. I imagine though that I'm close to the point where the stories start evening out. Anyway, this one has Spenser working for a man who suffered the horrible loss of his family and of the proper use of his body in a terrorist attack in England. The job is to find each of the nine terrorists involved and bring them in, dead or alive. The title comes from Spenser's plan to use one member of the group to catch the others and this does come about although in a somewhat unexpected manner.

The story has twists and turns enough to delight any mystery fan, along with the developing characters of Susan and Hawk. Most importantly, it has some food for deeper thought along with the action.