Double Play [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] (Audio CD)

~ (Author), Robert Forster (Performer)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in 1947, Parker's superb new novel imagines what it was like for Jackie Robinson, and more centrally for Robinson's (fictional) bodyguard, to see the color barrier broken in Major League baseball. This isn't Parker's first foray outside the mystery genre, though he remains best known for his Spenser PI series (this year's (Bad Business, etc.); in 2001 he dramatized Wyatt Earp in (Gunman's Rhapsody, and earlier he excelled with Perchance to Dream, Wilderness and Love and Glory. In an unusual gambit, however, this time he mixes his storytelling with his firsthand reminiscences (in chapters titled "Bobby") of growing up as a devoted Dodgers fan, a move that adds resonance and a sense of wonder to the taut narrative. The fiction, told in the third person, focuses on Joseph Burke, a WWII vet grievously wounded physically and emotionally by combat and its aftermath. Burke is a hired gun who allows himself no feelings, but when he signs on with Dodger owner Branch Rickey to protect Robinson from racist violence during the ballplayer's rookie season, he comes to respect, then love, the proud, controversial player. Burke also falls for Lauren, a self-destructive society girl with mob connections whom he worked for before Robinson, and it's from Lauren's troubles and the threat of violence surrounding Robinson that the novel's hard, smart action arises. Burke is a tough guy, and the narrative not set around baseball fields takes place in the white and black underworlds as Burke plays various gangsters against one another to protect both Lauren and Robinson. Parker, always a clean writer, has never written so spare and tight a book; this should be required reading for all aspiring storytellers. Parker fans will recognize with joy many of the author's lifelong themes (primarily, honor and the redemptive power of love), and in the Burke/Robinson dynamic, echoes of Spenser/Hawk (the PI's black colleague). Here they will treasure the very essence of Parker in a masterful recreation of a turbulent era that's not only a great and gripping crime novel but also one of the most evocative baseball novels ever written.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

The problem with this new novel from the creator of hard-boiled uber-hero Spenser is simple: this is a Spenser novel with new names. Burke is the Spenser clone. He's back from World War II after sustaining severe wounds. After his bride leaves him, he loses his emotional center. After his boxing career fizzles, he hires himself out as a tough guy. (Sound familiar Spenser fans?) A Mob guy refers Burke to Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who needs someone to protect Jackie Robinson, who is about to become baseball's first black player. Burke and Robinson swap lots of good-natured racial barbs (a la Spenser and Hawk), while Burke confronts the local Mob with the help of a gunsel named Cash (Vince Haller by another name). Interspersed among the mayhem are somewhat disconcerting (why here?) recollections (assumed to be Parker's) of trips to the ballpark in the forties. So is this book bad? No, it's quite good actually, but Parker is at a point in his career (he got there a long time ago) where great athletes sometimes find themselves: 50 more homers for Barry Bonds? Not as many as last year! Despite the similarities to his Spenser series, Parker's characterizations of Burke and Robinson will resonate with readers because, as always, Parker connects with the romantic tough guy residing in so many souls. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Phoenix Books; Unabridged edition (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597770140
• ISBN-13: 978-1597770149
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #740,285 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Working through the Pain, June 10, 2004

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Double Play (Hardcover)

Double Play introduces a new Parker hero, Joseph Burke, who barely survived a machine gun at Guadalcanal while serving as a Marine in World War II. Back in the states, he doesn't know where he is . . . but he's sure someone's out to get him. After a long physical recovery, his emotional recovery just begins as the story opens.

Burke is a tough guy, and (like Spenser) takes up boxing. But he's better at pounding away and surviving a punch than "floating like a bee" and he soon has to find another line of work. Having scruples makes him a poor enforcer, so he finds himself becoming a body guard. His first job is for a woman who needs to be protected from an abusive boyfriend who's connected . . . and her own bad habits. When that job ends, Burke finds himself in Brooklyn being asked to play the same role for Dodger rookie Jackie Robinson.

The book reminds me of Huckleberry Finn with Jim on the Mississippi in many ways, as Burke finds himself not fitting into either the African-American or the WASP communities as he does his bodyguard work. Burke's awareness of what Jackie Robinson is going through grows, and the reader finds himself taken back to a world that we are hopefully leaving behind as fast as possible where race counted rather than what you did.

Atop of this setting, Mr. Parker overlays gangland vendettas, a love story and his own perspective as a 15 year old on that fateful season in Brooklyn.

For secondary entertainment, you can match up each character in the story to a character from the Spenser books. Although I think Susan would be annoyed to be matched to many of these female characters.

The book has a weakness though that's annoying. It's a little too glib and easy about dealing with the racial hatred of the times. You end up feeling like you are reading about hazing rather than hate.

Any Spenser fan will enjoy seeing the variety of seeing the challenges of doing the right thing from the perspective of pain and numbness rather than from joy and happiness.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original tale by Robert B. Parker!, June 1, 2005

By	Blaine Greenfield "eclectic reader" (Belle Meade, NJ) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Double Play (Hardcover)

Heard DOUBLE PLAY by Robert B. Parker . . . it is not the typical mystery set in modern Boston that the author is famous for . . . rather, it is a tale of good guys and bad guys set in New York in the 1940s, and there's a fair amount of romance thrown in too.

But what made it so interesting for me was the fact that Parker also brought Jackie Robinson into the story . . . the color barrier-breaking baseball player is guarded by the book's
main character, Joseph Burke . . . their exchanges advance the plot in a believable fashion . . . in fact, it almost felt like I was listening to bits and pieces of an actual conversation
between Robinson and Burke.

My interest was maintained until the very end of DOUBLE PLAY . . . Robert Forster's excellent job of narration helped add to my enjoyment.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Double Play's a Hit!, July 24, 2004

By	G E. Learned "Denrael" (Brooklyn Center, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Double Play (Hardcover)

I love Robert Parker's writing. Spenser almost feels like a character I grew up with. Like many others however, I don't think Parker's writing has been as crisp in recent Spense novels as in the early ones. Almost as if he's grown too comfortable with the characters.

All that changes in Double Play. Spenser leaves the comfortable surroundings of Spenser's life and visit's Jackie Robinson and the world of baseball when the first black's were entering the game. Through a fictional character named Burke, Mr. Parker intruduces us to life as he was growing up; the strife in the world, the recovery fromt he war, the tension between races, and the hope that it would all work out. For anyone why likes Parker, baseball, or just a damn good read, this book is a must.