Customer Reviews

Promised Land

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you aren't familiar with the Spenser series, this is the fourth book. Not that you have to read them in any particular order--but it is interesting to follow the development of the series chronologically. In this tale, Spenser ends up involved in finding a runaway wife--and bailing out her husband from his own mess too. This being an earlier Spenser book gives us a glimpse at how Spenser's relationship with Susan Silverman evolves and a foreshadowing of events to come in the relationship's future. Most notable is the introduction of Hawk to the series (not necessarily as an ally!). Parker's excellent characterization of Spenser through the character's musings, witty remarks, and ethical action are as strong in this novel as any of the other Spenser books I've read thus far. The plot itself has an entertaining build up and even better conclusion--I'd definitely recommend Promised Land to anyone curious about the series.

I have read many books on my Kindle and have been pleased with the rendering of all of them, except for this one. I'm not sure how this book was transcribed to the Kindle, but the transcription is awful. Page after page of spelling errors, well, the words are real, but not the correct word. It passed the spell-check, but the sentence is nonsense. From the context you can generally figure out what word was intended, but it happens so often that it really detracts from the book. Read the book? Absolutely - it's a four star book, but get it in paperback.

If you are not familiar with this story by Robert B. Parker buy the actual book and not this kindle version. It reads like a combination pdf document and screen play. No dialogue designation at all. No 'Spenser said...' or 'Hawk replied' anywhere. To determine who said what one has to go back and find the quotation marks. Very disruptive to the flow of the story! The entire copy is left justified, really ruins an excellent Spenser novel.

The book has been fixed now and a new copy was provided, thanks.

This book is a turning point for Spenser. He is in love, the caring side of Spenser is really starting to show. In this book, Hawk is introduced. He kind of reminds me of Bubba in the Kenzie/Angela Gennaro series by Lehane.
Anyway, this book was about a missing wife, guns, burgulary, murder...all taking place outside of Boston in Cape Cod to New Bedford. Spenser is growing on me and I am looking forward to the next in the series.

This book is more than 20 years old, and it hasn't aged well. Spenser is flip and condescending as he deals with women in search of themselves in the long-ago days of Phil Donahue, Alan Alda and Patty Hearst. At times, he is so smug (Susan's word, by the way) that I was sorry I picked up the book. For diehard fans of the series, this edition is noteworthy for the introduction of Hawk. Now that gentleman has indeed aged well.

The prose is well-written, the characterizations are vivid and the whole story fits together like a hand in a glove. That said, much of the book is filled with rhetorical politicalization - which, admittedly, was much the topic of the day - that became a bit thick at times. I don't know many people who actually hold conversations like those held in the book. Again, although I lived through those times, I was very young - so maybe people DID talk like that back then. Anyway, the constant rhetoric rubbed me the wrong way after awhile, reducing my enjoyment of the story after awhile.

However, I love the way Robert Parker describes characters and actions, and I love Spenser's internal dialog. Hawk was an awesome new character and I hope we run into him again. Despite its faults, this was a book that I enjoyed reading overall, and recommend to anyone who enjoys PI novels with a bit of intelligence behind them.

*disclaimer* written in the middle of the night under the influence of medications that make me stupid dumb*

Over the years I've read all of the Spenser novels, but since I do not have a photographic memory I'm going back and listening to them as audiobooks during my commute.

"Promised Land" is a pivotal moment in the series because this is the moment in which we meet Hawk - Spenser's erstwhile partner in anti-crime in so many books in the series. Hawk is in his full glory here - a bad man who kills, roughs people up and intimidates, but still lives by his own code that Spenser somehow senses and respects.

It is also a pivotal moment because there is an incredible amount of conversational psychoanalysis throughout the book, a trait that most Spenser books feature (often to their detriment, in my opinion). Spenser's personality is discussed, male/female retlationships, what it means to be a man or a woman, responsibility and more. Out of these discussions come the foundation for the ongoing relationship between Spenser and Susan Silverman that continues throughout the series. Sometimes this is interesting but towards the end I wearied of it and it hurt the flow of the book and my enjoyment of it.

"Promised Land" is a wonderful artifact of the truly revolutionary nature of the 1970s (I've contended that the 1970s were more a decade of change than the 1960s for years). We meet revolutionaries who arm themselves to overthrow "phallic power", we see the changing nature of husband/wife relationships. We also see the reality that many women in the 1970s were interested in becoming more independent but were ill-equipped to take the steps necessary.

The audiobook edition I heard lasted about 6 hours and was unabridged.

PROMISED LAND is the fourth Spenser novel, and definitely one of the better ones. The plotline deals with Spenser trying to find a runaway wife, only to discover that the husband who hired him has some very serious problems of his own.

This novel is important for two reasons. First, it introduces the character of Hawk, who would later become a key figure in the series. Second, this is the first novel to fully define the parameters of Spenser's relationship with his girlfriend, Susan Silverman. This book is therefore a must read for fans of the Spenser series.

PROMISED LAND has a relatively strong plot with an exciting conclusion. But this is also the first Spenser novel with a big philosophical component. Many of the characters have long, thoughtful dialogues about the nature of love, commitment and marriage. While many of these exchanges are interesting, most of them are overlong and struck me as stilted and unrealistic. I knock off a star for this reason.

You can read the Spenser novels in any order, but I personally believe the earlier ones should be read first. So my advice is to read this novel, along with GOD SAVE THE CHILD as your first Spenser books.

Highly recommended.

Spenser and Susan are moving into his new office when a man comes by, wanting to find his wife. He lives out on the Cape with his kids; his wife has run off to New Bedford. It's the first time Hawk shows up in a book - he's just leaving (on a "visit") when Spenser arrives to talk the next day in Hyannis. He's working for Powers, a loan shark.

Turns out both the guy and his wife are in trouble; Spenser cooks up an elaborate plot to entrap the bad guys on each side and rescue the couple. He helps out Hawk, and Hawk helps out him, but they're very "adversarial" although friendly. The couple is very clueless and you have to wonder if they're worth saving -grin-.

My Notes: OK, so Spenser starts out talking deeply with Susan, but says he was on the Cape with "Brenda Loring" (what's with these full names?) a few months ago! He ogles the 16 yr old kid of his client. Hawk is a little too "jive" to be cool. But it's interesting to hear he fought along with Hawk 20 years ago and had met in gyms and such since them. They have "mutual respect". Note that if Spenser is therefore around 40 in this book, that makes him approaching 70 in current stories ... I suppose he has James Bond's immortal powers.

Spenser's growing towards suavehood, but isn't quite there yet. I mean, he talks about throwing the kid through the window for being surly! He's not exactly understanding of the women he meets. This is not the Spenser I love -grin-. He at LEAST is drinking Amstel Lights and Heinekens now.

Susan's more annoying than helpful; his comments about her are that she told him to sip his beer and such. She still guzzles food and drink. At the end he proposes marriage and she goes "Oh, jeez, I don't think so now. I just wanted you to ask". But now they're committed to each other forever even though a scant few months ago he was going for weekends with Brenda? Hmmmmm. And even though he's practically all over the woman in the story. True Love.

I wasn't crazy about this book for two reasons. While I'm a big Robert B. Parker fan, I've been late to the party and I've found his newer material to focus on plot first and insight second. Clearly his earlier work, or at least "Promised Land" blurs this distinction. Long passages on issues that are now somewhat dated sidetrack the predictable story line. This is interesting from a historical perspective but is not a real page turner like so many other Spoenser novels.

My other reason for the low rating is the pletora of typos in the Kindle edition. As "the leading publisher dedicated exclusively to electronic editions..." I was surprised at how poor the Rosetta Books quality was. I am not speaking to the quality of the content, but rather their half-hearted effort at putting it together.

As an avid reader (and professional writer for technical publications), I rarely notice any typos in printed material, particularly books. While you do see an occasional mistake, they are few and far between and my impression is that the quality is pretty high. Truth be told, there are likely more typos than are noticed by a casual reader, but the story you are reading may distract you enough to miss them as it commands your attention.

Not so with "Promised Land". This edition was so full of errors that it was a major barrier to enjoying the book. Clearly the firm employs OCR to convert books; equally clearly a human being never reads the book to proof it. While I'm not setting out to document the errors - "you re" instead of "you're", "not" instead of "that" - a quick read with a notepad would have uncovered them all. This may have taken a little extra time, but your electronic edition is the only one I have seen with more than one or two errors - and my guess is that there are at least thirty.

I will likely steer clear of Rosetta Books in the future. It's not that I don't appreciate the added information they provide - it's just that I buy a book to enjoy the story, not the trivia. As for Robert B. Parker, I'll definately get everything he writes today but may hold off on pursuing his back catalog.