Customer Reviews

Now & Then (Spenser Mysteries)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The last couple of Spenser novels written by Robert B. Parker focus on old issues that the private eye and author have stepped around for years. Now both are getting enmeshed in events that bring those old troubles and insecurities to the forefront so that Spenser finally has to lay them to rest.

Last year's Hundred Dollar Baby is the final tale in the April Kyle saga. She was the young prostitute Spenser saved, sort of, in the series' ninth book, Ceremony. Fans, especially women readers, got split over the resolution in that novel.

This year's offering, Now & Then, is going to unite all the fans and leave them waiting with baited breath for next year's entry. Ah, but the good Dr. Parker has learned how to unleash the power of the soap opera endings. He's doing the same in the Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series as well.

In the opening pages of Now & Then, Spenser is approached by, and eventually hired by, Dennis Doherty. Doherty is a cagy customer and doesn't act like he really wants to know if his wife is cheating on him. Before he knows it, Spenser finds himself relating to Doherty because of the breakup he had with Susan Silverman all those years ago (Valediction and A Catskill Eagle for series purists).

It takes Spenser little time at all to confirm that Doherty's wife is indeed cheating. Spenser enlists the help of Hawk, his darker side, to track down the answer. Hawk is the first to advance the notion that Spenser is getting too personally involved. It's this interplay of these two characters that I've come to love so much. Getting to peer inside of male bonding at work is awesome, and no one does it better than Parker.

Spenser struggles over how much to tell Doherty. While dealing with that, he talks with Susan and it dredges up all the old hurts he'd covered over after she left him. He finally says that telling Doherty is the right thing to do. By that time, he's also figured out that Doherty is an FBI agent, which is going to cause even more problems for his client.

Old readers are going to feel the resonance of this case to the pain Spenser was going through when Susan left him. We can see what bothers Spenser so much, and it's great. I hadn't thought of Parker dealing with this unresolved issue, but - all of a sudden - here it is.

After he tells Doherty and gives the client a copy of the tape that reveals Jordan Richmond's affair, Jordan shows up in Spenser's office. At first the blusters and threatens, then she offers sex in exchange for the copy of the tape that he has. Spenser says no.

Bothered by the woman's desperation, especially since her husband already knows her husband is aware of her infidelity, Spenser has Vinnie Morris (a longtime character in the series) and Hawk stay on the straying wife and her lover. In short time, Doherty announces that he's thrown Jordan out. That night, a man ambushes Jordan and kills her. Vinnie, being Vinnie, kills the killer.

Spenser knows someone has raised the stakes, but he doesn't know who. Doherty has gone missing and the police suspect he killed his wife. Spenser doesn't. He knows from personal experience that you don't kill those you really love - no matter how badly they hurt you.

That's just one of the lessons I've paid attention to as I've read the Spenser books. Parker is a keen observer of the human condition and how people's minds and motivations work.

Susan Silverman usually splits the audience for these books as well. She's modeled on Parker's real-life wife, Joan. Most of the time I can't stand Susan because she always seems to have the answers, while at the same time exhibiting neuroses that drive me - and a great many other readers - crazy. In this book, though, she really comes across as a great person and a great character.

Then Doherty turns up dead. When his body washes up in the river, people think he killed himself. Spenser doesn't buy that for a moment, pointing out several inconsistencies to the homicide people as well as an FBI liaison he's working with.

In order to lay to rest his own demons from the breakup all those years ago, Spenser has to figure out what really happened to these two people. And fans get one of the best Spenser novels we've had in a long time.

In addition to Hawk and Vinnie, we also get to see more of Chollo, the L. A. gunner Spenser has crossed paths with and aligned himself with on other cases. This book sparkles with deep emotions, witty dialogue, and an insight into the best private eye to hit fiction in decades. This is a must-read for long-time fans, and a good place to start for those who haven't read Parker before.

Just a nicely solid Spenser novel, with the Boston PI doing what he does best: being a chivalrous thug righting wrongs. And loving Susan Silverman. This time, it's about avenging the deaths of two people, one of them a client, while contending with some ghosts of the past. Along for the ride are the usual cast: Susan, of course, and Hawk and Vinnie and Chollo and some other familiar faces. And there is even some genuine detecting going on as Spenser investigates the past of the prime suspect. Spenser is wise-cracking and tough, everything he should be. And a nice bonus in the book is the endpaper map of "Spenser's Boston" showing the locations of various significant spots, including Spenser's apartment and his office, enjoyable for those of us who know Boston reasonably well and for those who have never been there.

The scale is very manageable in "Now & Then", with the villains not too super-sized for credibility. And the somewhat uneasy alliances between Spenser and the Boston cops and the FBI are enjoyable and believable.

Now & Then is an extremely weak and shallow current outing by Robert B. Parker, in which little happens, save for a rehashing of whether or not Spenser and his longtime lady friend should marry. Years ago, Susan Silverman ran off with another man, leaving a void in both Spenser's life and the once-shared life of Susan and Spenser. In this novel, the attempt to close the latter void comes up again and again, with the repetition tedious and quite boring. When that void arises the first time, both Susan and Spenser are good with it; they state that they have gotten past it and have built a much stronge life together, than the one before Susan left. Yet, they rehash that issue, ad nauseum.

Equally tedious is that, while there is an implied terrorist threat, the tension levels are so low concerning such a possibility, that the reader's interest is nil. All we see is a handful of people who might be part of some terrorist plot, showing nothing to that effect, thus eliminating dramatic tension. There is no abreviated timetable that is controlling the action, no recognizable and deadly threat, no real danger. As to the supposed leader of the plot, the only time he shows any action is when he is seducing women--(two that we see)...and that action is extremely low. Even when he attempts to seduce Susan, we only have her word to that effect.

Indeed that is what is wrong with this novel: Mostly talk and little action. Even Hawk, who is the epitome of action versus talk, is relegated to a positon of a bodyguard. None of his celebrated pent-up and explosive energy is there. Even Spenser only throws one punch, yet he is supposedly dealing with demons that have been eating at his sense of "Right" ever since Susan left. And, there is the obligatory and minimal--one page--shootout in Susan's office. Then, it is back to rehashing the past. This dramatic question was stated early on in the novel; there is no need for Mr. Parker to continually repeat it.

What this reader missed the most was the witty repartee among Hawk, Susan and Spenser, three wonderful creations who appear to be escaping from Mr. Parker's literary world.

One wonders is it might be time for Susan and Spenser to marry and move off to some secluded Vermont smalltown where they both can retire, leaving Hawk to do what he does best. Susan and Spenser could continually rehash the singular mistakes in their lives: Susan leaving and Spenser not destroying the man who took her away, without readers having to suffer through such incarnations.

Now & Then leaves this reader asking Why? Why bother, why waste money on the book, why not just rent it from the local library?

Robert B. Parker's latest Spenser novel, Now and Then, has all of the literary DNA that the grandmaster has slathered over, around and through all of his books, be they Spenser, Jesse Stone, Sunny Randall or any of the fine stand alones. It is welcomed like an old friend. The banter, the toughness and the tenderness from all in Spenser's world coats the landscape like ortho-grow in Central Park. He once said that the tv/movie versions of his characters would not affect how he portrayed them in the books. He has been true to his word.

Without giving away the ending, I found it not up to his usual standard. The ending in Hundred Dollar Baby was much more exciting and ultimately satisfying. Susan was servicable. Hawk was steady and all of the other characters played their parts to perfection.

I do wish that there was more Quirk and Belson and less Ives. If he calls Spenser, "young lochinvar" one more time, I think I would have to go to the extra strength pain reliever. In any case, Spenser in this novel is still the Knight Errant and thankfully so. Having read the book, I will now tackle the audio.

This book is very weak in terms of plot. Over and over we get to hear how Spenser loves Susan. OK, Spenser loves Susan. I get it. Lot's of repeats from earlier works. Parker may have automated this book's production.

Robert B. Parker's Spenser and Hawk and the streets of Boston have been wonderful companions on long airplane flights over the years. Recently I spent 20 hours traveling and read a biography of Cleopatra, a history of Google, and a fable about an Alchemist. Each took a bit of concentrated reading, but the short punchy sections in Now and Then were perfect for those short waits while boarding, taking off and landing.

Spenser still has good punches -- albeit most of them in this novel on the punching bag -- and I found the novel well below Parker's average. Spenser's motivation in seeking revenge for a killing of a client revolves around Susan's affair years before while they were married, but even Hawk can't work out Spenser's real motivation. The joke about a "village" in California gets a real workout. It may be time for Spenser to retire and leave the streets of Boston to Hawk.

There are moments the dialog sparkles:

"[t]he fact you talk funny, it is good now and then to be reminded you are not just another jerk from Yale. ...

"Dear boy," he said. "There are no jerks from Yale."

"Never?" I said.

Ives continued to smile.

"Well," he said, "Hardly ever."

And, I liked the recipe for pasta:

"I mixed bread crumbs and pignolia nuts with a little olive oil and began to toast them in a fry pan on low. ... I took the fry pan off the fire and emptied the toasted bread crumbs into a bowl. I had a large pot of water boiling on the stove. I put some whole-wheat linguine in it and set my timer. ... After the pasta had cooked for three minutes I added slices of yellow squash and zucchini. ... The timer sounded. I poured the pasta and vegetables into a colander and let them drain for a moment. ... I put the pasta and vegetables in a bowl, added the toasted crumbs, pignolias, and some grated cheese. I tossed it all with a splash of olive oil."

While he's cooking Spenser and Susan discuss his motivation for seeking revenge for the umpteenth time. I could taste the pasta and the sauvignon blanc that went with the dinner. Frankly, that imagined meal was the best part of the book for me.

Robert C. Ross 2008

I haven't read a Spenser book in a few years. This novel was not of the high quality that I remembered from past Spenser stories. It was light weight as far as the actual story and also with regard to the physical book itself.

The story had a promising start. A client comes into the office and it looks like it could be a good mystery. But, the story veers away from the mystery/detective work all too frequently. There is so much space/dialog/pages devoted to Spenser and Susan reminiscing, talking about the past over and over again, long passages trying to decide if marriage is necessary and shadowy, rambling discussions about things that happened to them years ago. A few mentions of Susan and Spenser's relationship if fine. But, I didn't buy this book to read a memoir - I wanted a detective story that would hold my interest.

The parts of the book that involved the mystery were good. Unfortunately, there were not enough words written about the situation and crime solving. Just when I felt that I was getting more into the police FBI crime scenario, there would be 3 pages of strange abstract Susan/Spenser dialogue trying to convince themselves that they were happy with things the way they were.

The book was also light weight as far as the physcial book itself. The print was quite large and many chapters only took up a few pages. There were many pages that had just a sentence or two on them with the majority of the page left blank. Books printed like this make me feel that the author had agreed to write a book containing X number of pages. Then the story was printed in such a way to stretch the story out to fill the required amount of pages.

Not the worst book ever, but so unsatisfying compared to the Spenser books of old.

This Spenser starts out well.

It takes an abrupt turn, does a couple of unexpected things, and is intriguingly puzzling.

But.

But then it goes off the shallow end. It becomes just another pointless revenge drama--revenge at second hand.

Worse still, it dredges up the absolute worst of Spenser: the time when Spenser and Hawk went to rescue the improbably kidnapped Susan Silverman in the 80s.

There are many Spenser novels, some good, some bad. In fact there are SO many that there are now subcategories of bad.

There are the simply Dull Bad--Double Deuce, Cold Service.

And then there are the Aggressively Bad: anything with more than a little Silverman, and especially the ridiculous ones about Spenser's and Susan's infidelities.

One would have to have a heart of stone to read these and not laugh--or puke.

And this one, Now and Then, keeps referring back to those horrid abominations, as though they were milestones of literature or life.

They're not. They are simply undigested chunks of Spenser's (or Parker's????) neuroses.

Susan is simply a ghastly creation. Arrogant, self-centered, shallow, not very smart, selfish, trivial, and worst of all, dull.

There has never been any evidence for why anyone should like her, and abundant evidence why no one can.

She should have been killed off years ago. After all, she's not a real person, not even a real character, merely a cardboard projection.

Whenever she's not around, Spenser, and the novels, instantly perk up.

Alas, that doesn't happen here. She's on horrid view all too much.

I am a huge fan of the Spenser books and for the most part they have been solid and hugely entertaining. But lately, Robert Parker has seemed to focus more and more on creating lame works of mystery where he can show off his witty circus of characters at the expense of plot and development. This work fails miserably at any semblance of plot of character resolution. There is no real resolution for pete's sake.

Robert Parker is like a lot of writers in that he's become as much an industry as he is a writer so he's only interested in cranking out another blurb which can then be marketed. I keep hoping the next Spenser novel will be more like the old ones!

I started out giving this book 2 stars, but for all the good times Parker has given I added a third. And thats probably the way this one hit me. Yes, almost everything the other reviewers said is true. It is his old form, and we do get plenty of interaction with Hawk and Susan, and even Chollo, and some good stuff about Vinnie;but, ... I guess I get a bit tired of endless musing over the "RELATIONSHIP !!" with Susan. Don't get me wrong, I love them both, but I love my wife also and if I want relationship stuff, I guess I'd rather deal with my own, which seem to be going much better than these two free spirits.
And , the big gripe: He just doesn't end the damn thing. We spend half the book hearing everyone tell Spenser that his quest to get the bad guy is some sort of mental jumpback to the guy who took Susan. And he demures( sorry but thats what it sounds like) then after some great writing about Spenser tracking the guy down and getting all ( or almost all) the goods on the guy.... he gives it all to the C.I.A.,or F.B.I. or some other organization, and walks away. What is this!!!!! The contract I have with Parker is that Spenser will face it all out to the end and walk away having been true to himself. Quite a letdown ... but not the first. I seem to remember Parker doing this once or twice before and each time II was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. and thats the way it feels here: like he just got tired of the whole thing and ended it quickly so that he could have a good closing relationship-affirming conversation with Susan. I've got probably one more of these things in me and then I'm through with the whole thing.