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76 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spenser's First Farewell..., October 5, 2010
This review is from: Painted Ladies (Spenser Mysteries, No. 39) (Hardcover)
...is not what I would have hoped for from the first of the impromptu trilogy of Spenser's final adventures. But Robert B. Parker wasn't planning on the heart attack that took him away.
The primary hole in this book is: no Hawk. He's said to be in Central Asia (presumably Afghanistan though it isn't stated) working for the CIA. As a result, the dialogue suffers from a lack of Parker's trademark repartee. There's also at least one minor continuity breach but nothing that mars the book. It's reminiscent of the earliest books were Spenser referred to the mother who had, in the later books, died while giving him birth.
The plot also, at least in the first 2/3rds of the book, almost reads like a re-write of the previous Spenser novel, "Rough Weather": really bad guy reappears to reclaim a long-lost daughter. But the two novels are alike only in bare outline. The villain is one of Parker's weaker ones. Unlike Rugar, or Joe Broz or Marty Anaheim, there's almost nothing to distinguish him from The Generic Standard Bad Guy from Central Casting. He's not painted with the complex palette that Parker's best villains and anti-heroes usually have. Instead he's essentially one color and a drab one at that.
As I said, tho' it resembles "Rough Weather" it takes a sharp turn, presenting Spenser with one of his trademark dilemmas. The solution, however, is not.
While, to reiterate, I would have preferred a stronger book, this one, despite the flaws listed above, meets all, if not exceeds, the standards we've come to expect from Parker. The crisp, crackling writing; the colorful names (although, thankfully, he doesn't push this to the point of parody as did Lawrence Sanders) and many of the usual cast of characters that have populated Spenser's Boston for the past 25 years.
If you're a dedicated Spenser fan like I am (been reading the novels for 24 years), then I think you'll be filled if not full. If you've never read one of the books before, I highly suggest you either start at the beginning, "The Godwulf Manuscript" or plunge in, mid-stream, with the best of the novels, A Catskill Eagle (Spenser Novels (Dell)).
What maybe the last full-length Spenser novel will be published next May called Sixkill (Spenser Mystery)
Before "Sixkill" there is an "Untitled Spenser Holiday Story" scheduled for publication next month. Whether this is another full length novel or the last one of the "young adult" books that began with "Chasing the Bear" isn't made clear. I certainly hope it's the former and not the latter.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smooth, October 11, 2010
This review is from: Painted Ladies (Spenser Mysteries, No. 39) (Hardcover)
Robert B. Parker's Spenser has been my favorite tough guy private eye for decades. Based in Boston, the ex-boxer has faced several rounds with bad guys of every stripe, and confronted all the moral ills of our society. I love Parker's dialogue in the books, and I love the cast of characters that have become part of my extended family.
Painted Ladies starts off with a bang - literally. The art professor Spenser agrees to bodyguard during a buyback from art thieves gets blown to smithereens in Robert B. Parker's latest (and sadly, one of his last) novels. Of course, Spenser being Spenser, the detective needs to do something to square the balance. He sets off to figure out who killed Ashton Prince, and that's going to require finding out why and what the stakes are.
The novel doesn't really introduce anything new into Spenser's world, or into the reading experience of a long-time reader. There are a lot of good one-liners, but fans have come to expect them, and there are the relationship discussions with Susan, and fans have come to expect those as well.
Spenser does his sleuthing in a round-about fashion, something the series has become known for, and gradually steps on the toes of the menacing killer waiting in the wings. There's even some gunplay, which is over entirely too quickly for my tastes, and a boxing sequence that is well done.
I enjoyed seeing Quirk and Belson, seeing how Spenser shared points of view with both men, and I enjoyed seeing Rita Fiore again, though the comparison Susan did with Rita was a bit off-putting. I don't know where that came from and it went on too long and lingered more than it probably should have.
Parker introduces a lot of material in the book regarding painting and the Holocaust, though I'd thought that bit of dark history a bit too far back. He does a good enough job with it, but the exposure is mostly cursory and only tooled to serve the plot.
I sat and read the book in a single sitting, which is what happens when I usually sit down with a Spenser novel, and I was aware of how quickly the pages turned. I wasn't let down by the reading experience, but I was grimly aware that there will be no more Parker novels in the very near future.
As of this writing, I know that Sixkill is coming next year. If something isn't done, if some long-buried Spenser novel isn't uncovered, the fortieth book in the long-running series is destined to be the last.
I lament, but Philip Marlowe didn't have the literary run that Spenser did. Neither did Travis McGee or Lew Archer or Sam Spade. But I'm going to miss new Spenser books. They've been a part of my life since I found my first one in 1978.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Spotting the Fakes, October 29, 2010
This review is from: Painted Ladies (Spenser Mysteries, No. 39) (Hardcover)
The plot of Parker's latest novel, Painted Ladies, which centres on the theft of a Dutch masterpiece, is handled with all of Parker's customary deftness, tautly maintaining the tension and interspersing typically sharp Spenserian dialogue with scenes of sudden, shocking violence. But is the new novel a success? Would we pay much attention to it if it had appeared without the context of the preceding series? The two great strengths of the earlier Spenser books - that delving into Spenser's own persona and also into the layers of American society - are largely missing. Despite its Jewish elements the novel makes no real attempt to penetrate the cultural and moral maze of Jewish America. And perhaps it would be unrealistic and over-demanding to expect it.
However there are characteristic and welcome Parker touches, such as his sympathy for the young and vulnerable, which typically even extends as far as the villains. Even the bad guy Herzberg started out with good intentions and, as Susan points out in the closing pages, his descent into crime was in part driven by the historical damage inflicted on him and his family.
Also characteristic is Parker's merciless skewering of the phoneyness and pomposity of academe. What the novel does succeed in doing is to explore and link various kinds of deception and bad faith. Its dominant theme is fraudulence and inauthenticity, themes that perhaps spoke particularly to Parker in age. The `painted ladies' are not just the figures in the genuine and fake paintings but false-seeming characters. No-one is as they seem. Set against their falseness is Spenser's gritty integrity - but even Spenser's occasional attempts to masquerade as a cop in order to get information is emphasised in order to underscore the central theme.
In this new novel Spenser stands somewhat apart as a character. He makes clear his determination to solve the mystery entirely through his own efforts in an attempt to prove and justify himself. Those familiar cops, Quirk , Belson and Healy, put in an appearance, but not Hawk, apparently undertaking a CIA mission in central Asia, and other `friendly' villains - Vinnie, Chollo, etc - are similarly absent. Susan lends emotional and analytical support but is also much more unobtrusive than usual.
Not only does Spenser stand in greater isolation but also in a more retrospective light. It may be the effect of hindsight in the wake of Parker's death, but there seems something nostalgic and, one might add, almost terminal, about the figure of Spenser in this novel. Did Parker, one wonders, have the sense of an ending for Spenser and perhaps also for himself? Apparently there are two more works in the posthumous pipeline - an as yet untitled `Spenser holiday' novel due shortly, and finally Sixkill, scheduled for May next year. It will be interesting to see what further they can add to Parker's notable canon.
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