Customer Reviews

Sixkill (Spenser Mystery)

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The 39th Spenser mystery, SIXKILL, is a good one. Our hero investigates a rape/murder case on a Boston film location, and the suspect is the star of the movie, a monstrously spoiled matinee idol named Jumbo Nelson. Jumbo's outrageous antics always create headlines, not to mention headaches for his employers (sound familiar?). Spenser also gets to know Jumbo's bodyguard, Zeb Sixkill, an interesting young man who soon bonds with our hero. By the time they get to the bottom of the mystery, we've learned a lot about the Hollywood studio system, modern-day celebrity, and our own fascination with all things famous and/or notorious. And we get a lot of wisecracks from Spenser, whose observations are always hilarious.

As much as SIXKILL entertained me, it also made me a little sad. We lost Robert B. Parker last year, and this is his last completed Spenser novel. Last week his publishers announced that his detectives, including Spenser, will continue in stories written by other authors. I hope those books are half as good as Parker's. I've been reading this series all my life, and Spenser, Hawk, and Susan are almost like family. It takes a great artist to create fictional people who can seem so real, and I'm grateful for all the wonderful books he gave us. He will be missed.

A lot of stuff happens in Sixkill. It's a fairly action-packed and standard chapter of clearly the greatest series in the history of the genre. And it's also impossible, at this point, to talk about without the context of the author's passing early last year.

Sixkill is described on the flap as "the last Spenser novel completed by Robert B. Parker". A reasonable mind could take that to mean there will be more, perhaps, and that it will completed by someone else. Amazon is already taking pre-orders on a Jesse Stone novel written by the guy that does the Selleck TV-movies. So clearly there are plans. But, well, you know. Not the same.(UPDATED 10/4/11--Ace Atkins has been hired to continue the Spenser Series)

Point being, we should take no finality poignance from the events in Sixkill, as it was clearly not meant to provide any. But poignant is exactly what Sixkill becomes. Its' point is redemption/renewal and it's made in classic Parker style, going back to Early Autumn in more than one way in telling the story of one Zebulon Sixkill.

Z, as he comes to be called, is a Cree Indian bodyguard that Spenser puts a beat-down on while commencing the novel's case: the death of a young girl in Z's client's hotel room. Spenser is brought into the case by Capt. Martin Quirk, whom you've met.

Quirk is pretty sure that one Jumbo Nelson, Hollywood Miscreant/Icon, is being railroaded for murder, so he asks Spens to sniff around and see what stinks. Enter Rita Fiore, who happens to be defending Jumbo, and the stage is set for what Parker did better than just about anyone.

After Z gets canned by Jumbo for getting whupped, he consults Spenser, who agrees to help train him as a mechanism to among other things, get his help solving the case. Parker inserts episodes from Z's early years as Z and Spenser start training at Henry Cimoli's gym, among other locations. Of course, it's all about Z finding himself. And in Zebulon Sixkill, Parker creates a fascinating character, walled-off like a supermax prison. The fun in watching Spenser, with help from Susan Silverman, of course, re-introduce Z with his real self carries its own thrills.

There's plenty of regular thrills here as well. Parker stages a couple of great fist-fights and brings in some other new creepy dudes as well. Lots of cameos by the dangerous types who have helped Spens out in the past....except for, well, Hawk. Yeah, he's still in East Somewhere, so folks looking for those two hamming it up will have to look elsewhere. (Try A Catskill Eagle.) The last act moves really fast, with a gut-wrenching final showdown that's among Parker's best.

With Sixkill, Parker provides another solid chapter in the saga. Better than some, worse than others. No earth-shattering changes, and lots of Spenser/Susan navel-gazing. But it still feels great to read.

We miss him already.

Happily got this book downloaded as soon as it was available. While I did enjoy the story, I could not rid myself of the sadness of knowing that Mr. Parker's last Spenser novel left us wanting one more adventure with Hawk. It seemed apparent to me that Sixkill was written to become a continuing character for future novels. As other have mentioned, there were visits from many of the familiar friends (Tony Marcus and T Bop and Junior, Victor Del Rio, Chollo, Bobby Horse, along with Lt Samuelson and Cpt Quirk) but I doubt that this is the book that Mr. Parker would have wanted as his final chapter. As so many have said in the past, it is a sad good bye to all of the characters we loved like family, particularly knowing that Spenser's last two cases were accomplished without benefit of Hawk by his side.

Robert B. Parker has carved written monuments and he gave them names like Spenser and Hawk. He created his Rushmore out of hope for the human race, and he did it with humor and style. My son didn't want to read some "old dude's" books. One day he was bored enough to pick one of mine up. He read every Spenser novel one after another until he had read them all. Every day he read, every free moment. When he had finished the series, he looked up said "what could I read now that would be that much fun? I feel lost." When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to read Mike Royko's column in the paper. I still wonder what Mike would say if he was still around when I read the news out of Chicago. So it will be with Mr. Parker. He has carved an enduring monument that is as solid as the rules his beloved characters lived by. Sixkill was a good book, but Parker/Spenser could make the most mundane things fun or interesting. Ahhh Parker...he had the talent of 10 men because he was pure of heart.

This is a sad book. Like many who have posted reviews, I've read every one of the Spenser novels. Some are better than others, but it is always fun to spend several hours with the Spenser character and the world he lived in. Reading this I kept realizing this was the last new one ever. It's decent Spenser, some good action scenes, some sparkling Spenser wisecracking and repartee - but I thought it had an unfinished quality to it. Especially the stuff with Sixkill which Parker goes to great lengths to set up - but then concludes rather quickly. Maybe he hadn't completely finished the book before he died. If you're a Spenser fan, definitely read this book. If not, go back to the beginning and read them all!

It's not the worst Spenser book Parker ever wrote, but its certainly among the dullest, shortest, and most uninspired. All the Spenser cliches (and most of the Parker cliches in general) are here in an unengaging story without a single plot twist. Once again, a killer touted as super professional and ultra deadly adversary for our hero turns out to be a total dimwit. I'm a huge Spenser fan, but this book represents a sad end to a great career. He should have stopped writing Spenser books years ago. And while I'm on the subject, what was Parker's pre-occupation lately with Native American tough guys? First there was the guy in the last Stone novel, then the one in the last western novel, and now Sixkill. The only one of those Native American characters that was half-interesting was the guy in the Stone novel...but even that was just another uninspired variation on Hawk.

I wish this had not been the last Spenser. I wish this had not been the last Parker.

I wish I didn't have to not give the last of one of the all-time best less than five stars.

Fans will read it, and love it.

Non-fans will wonder why we've all been so gaga, and why we knew the world would never be the same once Robert B. Parker stopped sharing his words with us.

(And don't get me started on the fact that others will be writing his characters under his name - Oy! Perhaps a Bourne-Spenser cross-over is in the works?)

Anyway - a fairly typical Spenser, with most of our favorite characters either in the novel or referenced.

Hawk was missed, but he had to be missing so that Spenser could take a young man under his wing (my goodness, we'll never really see Paul again!) --- and turn him into another one of those types, of which Spenser, Hawk, and a select (but ever-growing as of late) few are....

Spenser has a mystery to solve, not so much a "who-dun-nit" but more a "was it murder, or something else?" A question asked of him by one of his "We do the right thing regardless" friends of his.

Nobody can turn him away from his task, because of course he does the right thing regardless, and Susan is right there, helping him along as only Susan is able.) She also does the right thing regardless, just in a different manner.

The story was a bit lacking in depth, and was much less satisfying than last year's entry, and more reminiscent of those few years when it seemed that Parker was concentrating more on the TV series than on the novels upon which it was based.

But, it was still Parker. And still Spenser.

I'll miss his cooking.

I'll miss Pearl.

(I didn't miss a slightly veiled homage to another wordsmith - Sondheim - hidden in plain sight in the pages of this book.)

I'll miss the excitement of a new Spenser.

I'm glad I had one more chance to read one I'd never read before.

I'll miss that too.

Four stars instead of five for the flaws above. (Anybody else would have received three stars - but this is Parker's last, darn it!)

I almost did something with Sixkill I've never done before when reading the other 38 Spenser novels: put it down and stop reading.

In this and the other posthumous Spenser, Painted Ladies, Parker goes to the edge of saccharine in his Susan-Spenser dialogues and here slipped over the edge into sugary whoopie pies, Velveeta and Cool Whip. Yes, it got to me, as did Parker's use of flashbacks in italics to give us the maudlin life story of Sixkill, a technique Parker has used before but never so badly.

Zebulon Sixkill himself is hardly more than Hawk redux, drawn with a touch of his Young Adult books style,with wincingly bad kemo sabe humor replacing embarrassingly adolescent black-and-white humor. Then I had to put up with Parker's endless musings on alcoholism and on why Spenser Has to Do What Spenser Has to Do. On top of all that, Parker introduces one of his creepiest characters ever in Jumbo, the 400-pound blubbering movie star (why would anyone watch HIM?) with supersized appetites for booze, food and equal opportunity sex.

So, I almost put down the last Spenser, but Parker's unsurpassed mastery of moving a crime novel along with almost nothing but dialogue kept me hooked, and before long Spenser gets into a satisfying fist fight with four local hoods and then, with Sixkill, in two exciting scenes kills six bad guys including one very, very bad guy.

Kills six? Hmmmm.

Yes, the Spenser series is an amazing piece of work, a chef-d'oeuvre that I've enjoyed more than any other in crime fiction. But that doesn't mean that every book is up to the same high form, and some of Parker's skills seemed to be failing as he approached the top of the mountain. Happily, though, even in Sixkill he managed to pull it off in the end.

It's impossible for me to review this book objectively, since it is the last Spenser book ever by Robert B Parker. Was it his best? No. The books have been getting thinner as Mr. Parker got older. But much like Spenser's donuts, and now turnovers, even the worst Spenser book is still pretty wonderful.

I do wonder where the editor was, since Parker does repeat a block of dialogue, almost word-for-word, in two chapters.

But it's a good read for Parker fans and a pretty nice last book written by the author. Sorry Hawk was not in the story since he and Spenser,to me, had the original "Bromance" and I love their relationship even more than Spenser's and Susan's.

Wish we'd learned Spenser's first name.

I don't know if I want another author to continue this series. It's just too much in Parker's voice and I don't think it's possible. Farewell my friends.

The poignancy of knowing that SIXKILL by Robert B. Parker is his last completed Spenser novel added a lot of emotion to the reading of it for me. I devoured every word but begrudgingly reading the next one knowing that there were precious few left. To say he left much too soon is an understatement for me. But to the book, I enjoyed the formula approach to SIXKILL. To me, that's why one reads a series character, be it Harry Potter or Anne of Green Gables. The continuity of byplay between Susan and Spenser never gets old. There was a lot more Henry Cimoli at the Harbor Health Club than ever before. But there was Rita and Quirk, no Belson, but Pearl. No Lee Farrell but Chollo, Bobby Horse and Victor Del Rio. Mentions of Vinnie Morris, Tedy Sapp, Tony Marcus, Ty Bop and the rest. The new character, Zebulon Sixkill might have been Parker's way of introducing a new character whom he might spin off. The case was typical Spenser; a client he doesn't like and that bulldog tendency to finish what he starts. If this is to be the last true RBP Spenser so be it. He stayed true to form. The only thing that I didn't like was the lack of Hawk beyond a brief mention of his being in Central Asia. Perhaps he might have been in Southeast Asia? Perhaps doing contract work for a Navy Seal team? Wait,that's Tom Clancy's bailiwick. I highly recommend SIXKILL.