Taming a Seahorse [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert B. Parker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1987

In his latest highly acclaimed Spenser novel, Robert B. Parker takes readers into the murky big-city underground where Spenser undertakes an intense search for a beautiful, missing prostitute, and finds himself traveling amidst the sleaze of Times Square where sex is a commodity, and young girls are the currency. This phenomenal bestseller, with a million-copy paperback first printing is supported by national TV advertising and a 6-month backlist reissue program. HC:Delacorte.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The TV series Spenser: For Hire is adding to the fame of Parker's Boston private eye, star of 12 book thrillers. The witty, tough, idealistic Spenser recounts his latest exploits in this 13th tale, starting when he meets April Kyle again. The young prostitute settled in a safe New York City bordello at the end of the novel Ceremony, April leaves to hook for Rambeaux. She refuses to believe the man who "loves her" is a pimp supported by sad girls Spenser finds walking the streets. One of these victims and Rambeaux himself are murdered. At the same time, April vanishes, involving the detective in a search that takes him to Maine (where the dead girl was first sold), to St. Thomas and finally to a playboy-type mansion in Boston. Spenser's lover Susan and their intrepid friend Hawke team up against a virtual army of hitmen ordered to protect the profits from prostitution, among other lucrative operations run by mobsters through hirelings fronting for them in legal enterprises. The suspense never slackens in the swift, eventful novel until its surprisingly touching close. Mystery Guild main selection; Literary Guild alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

5 1-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dell (May 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440188415
• ISBN-13: 978-0440188414
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( P ) > Parker, Robert B.
  • #43 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Hard-Boiled

More About the Author

Robert B. Parker (1932-2010) has long been acknowledged as the dean of American crime fiction. His novel featuring the wise-cracking, street-smart Boston private-eye Spenser earned him a devoted following and reams of critical acclaim, typified by R.W.B. Lewis' comment, "We are witnessing one of the great series in the history of the American detective story" (The New York Times Book Review). In June and October of 2005, Parker had national bestsellers with APPALOOSA and SCHOOL DAYS, and continued his winning streak in February of 2006 with his latest Jesse Stone novel, SEA CHANGE.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded Pearl Productions, a Boston-based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in many of Parker's novels.

Parker began writing his Spenser novels in 1971 while teaching at Boston's Northeastern University. Little did he suspect then that his witty, literate prose and psychological insights would make him keeper-of-the-flame of America's rich tradition of detective fiction. Parker's fictional Spenser inspired the ABC-TV series Spenser: For Hire. In February 2005, CBS-TV broadcast its highly-rated adaptation of the Jesse Stone novel Stone Cold, which featured Tom Selleck in the lead role as Parker's small-town police chief. The second CBS movie, Night Passage, also scored high ratings, and the third, Death in Paradise, aired on April 30, 2006.

Parker was named Grand Master of the 2002 Edgar Awards by the Mystery Writers of America, an honor shared with earlier masters such as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen.

Parker died on January 19, 2010, at the age of 77.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Once again April Kyle complicates live for Spenser, February 17, 2001

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Taming a Seahorse (Mass Market Paperback)

"Taming a Sea-Horse" finds Spenser returning to simpler pursuits after the imitation James Bond heights of our hero's previous story, "A Catskill Eagle." Susan Silverman is back in Spenser's life with minimal mention of the hell she put him through in the last couple of books when she was off in California. But they are very happy together, although they now find very little time to do any real cooking. The problem this time around is an old one revisited: April Kyle, the teenage prostitute Spenser saved in "Ceremony" has left the call girl service of Patricia Utley and has started turning tricks for Robert Rambeaux, the man she supposedly loves. Spenser does a little investigating but before he gets too deep into the matter April disappears, Rambeaux is beaten up by somebody other than Spenser, and one of the hookers our hero intereviewed is murdered. Once again, there is much more to the case than meets the eye.

This is an intimate Spenser novel, which was certainly a wise move on Robert B. Parker's part after the epic scale of its predecessor. At the end of "Ceremony," Spencer and Susan were planning on taking April to meet Mrs. Utley because they could not come up with a better solution and we could only guess at what would become of the young girl. Now the gap of the last four years has been filed in and our hero has another chance to help the young girl, whom I suspect might be on her way to being the surrogate daughter in Spenser's growing symbolic family unit. While "Taming a Sea-Horse" might seem to cover some of the ground Robert B. Parker has covered before, there is always some sort of twist, and it is not understatement to say that this time around the story ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Run-of-the-mill Spenser, April 23, 2002

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Taming a Seahorse (Mass Market Paperback)

Robert B. Parker, Taming a Sea-Horse (Delacorte, 1986)

One of the fun things about Robert Parker's Spenser novels is that way folks keep popping up and making Spenser's life miserable. In this case, the poppee is April Kyle, a prostitute Spenser encountered a few years before. That story didn't end to anyone's satisfaction, least of all Spenser's. Now it's time for him to find out why. April has left the employ of the madam with whom Spenser set her up to turn tricks for her new boyfriend, a woodwind player struggling through Julliard. Or so everyone's been told. Spenser starts asking around, and the more he asks, the less he finds out. Typical, huh?

In no time, one of April's associates who Spenser talked to is dead, and the pimp has had his face rearranged. There's more to this than a runaway streetwalker. Enough "more," at least, for another Spenser novel.

This isn't one of Parker's more elegant works, but then, a bad Spenser is still better than most anything else. It has all the hallmarks of Robert Parker. There's some cooking, some literature, a lot of snappy one-liners, and inherent readability. What's missing is the necessity to down the whole thing in one long swallow that pervades such Spenser gems as A Catskill Eagle and Early Autumn. But that's comparable to a pizza with one slice gone; the rest will still taste good. ***

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Spenser's hooker fetish, October 25, 2001

By 

Larry Eischen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taming a Sea-Horse (Hardcover)

Is Susan the only woman in Spenser's life who isn't a hooker? I know I'm reading the books out of order, but just in grabbing them off the shelves randomly-Ceremony, Mortal Stakes, Thin Air, Taming a Seahorse all feature Spenser riding to the rescue of once or current hookers. Oh well, in this one April Kyle, the teenage girl that Spenser and Susan thought would have a nice life as a prostitute disappears from the fancy upscale house they put her in and is doomed to work the streets. While searching for her, Spenser meets ***gasp in amazement*** another young hooker. Naturally she's not a coked-up, used up street walker, she's another in Spenser's long line of beautiful street corner girls. The girl ends up dead which leads to Spenser beating up her father, tracking her to a Hefner/Flynt clone whose men's clubs are actually highclass whorehouses, and to the club's Caribbean resort which leads to another gorgeous hooker and so on. Who killed the hooker and her pimp? Don't know, April, I assume, will go back to hooking in a manner Spenser prefers. I found the ending very puzzling-almost like Parker had to maintain a page count and he had to finish it up with no time for tying things up. There were about 20 more pages of story could have been wrung out of this one.