Robert B. Parker, who died in January 18, 2010, used to write one of the best private eye / detective series featuring Boston gumshoe Spenser. Unfortunately the good Spenser books stopped abo
ut fifteen years before Parker died. And the latest, The Professional, is no exception. What happened to the Spenser series has to qualify as one of the greatest literary drops in modern fiction (if you ignore Norman Mailer.)
When Spenser premiered in 1973 (The Godwulf Manuscript) it was standard P.I. fare - wise cracking detective who used to be former cop, you know the drill. Starting with the second novel, God Save the Child, you could see that Parker and Spenser were atypical. Spenser is hired to find a missing teenage boy, Kevin, but when he understands why the kid ran away (a family that was, at best, ambivalent) Spenser creates an unusual solution. That set the stage for the next dozen Spenser novels - he is often less concerned with solving a crime than seeing that some kind of justice served, be it criminal, emotional or both. Spenser has his own code and he often makes seat-of-the-pants decisions about what is right and wrong.
Unfortunately, God Save The Child also introduced a character, Susan Silverman, who was to become the
ultimate downfall of the series. Silverman is the school counselor and during the course of the novel, she and Spenser work together to salvage Kevin and his family. Through the next series of books Susan becomes a minor recurring character (she goes to Harvard and gets her Ph.D) and slowly she and Spenser become a committed couple, culminating in A Catskill Eagle (1985.)
But leading up to Eagle, Parker and Spenser re-defined modern crime fiction in those ten novels. We get to meet a black hired gun/enforcer named Hawk who becomes an uneasy collaborator with Spenser. Hawk is the darker side of Spenser's character, the flip side of the same coin. Hawk is one of the all-time great characters in modern crime fiction - flippant, sarcastic, brilliantly observant and a stone cold killer. Whenever Hawk is on-stage, the Spenser books take a sharp turn toward greatness. Gradually, Spenser and Hawk realize their ethics code is similar, separated by a small gray area. Tracing the development of their relationship through violence, humor and ruminations on good and evil, is one of the joys of the early Spenser novels.
But all that changed in A Catskill Eagle, a disturbing book. In an effort to find herself (oh god!) Susan feels she must separate from Spenser and moves to the West Coast. Then, Spenser receives an enigmatic letter from Susan that she is in trouble. Her lover is a powerful, possessive man whose father is an illegal weapons manufacturer. Susan is being held in the family compound. Hawk and Spenser race to her rescue which results in the men being hired by the U.S. government as contract killers. Susan needs to find her self but instead, gets involved with a control freak and needs Spenser to save her. What a brilliant woman! The Spenser series goes downhill quickly after this book.
In his quest to re-define the genre, Parker pushed the envelope too much and by the mid-1990s, the books had become self-parody. As Spenser and Susan become more intimately intertwined each Spenser book is little more than a exercise in sophomoric psychobabble. A typical novel goes like this: Spenser gets hired for a case; at the end of each day of collecting information and bashing heads, he and Susan will discuss what he has uncovered and analyze his feelings. "How did you feel when you were beating shit out of the hoodlum?" Susan will ask. "I felt like shit," Spenser will answer. "Why do you think you felt like shit while you beating the shit out of him?" Susan will brilliantly ask. So much for the prestige of a Harvard degree!
And then, there's Pearl the Wonder dog, the annoying pooch that Susan and Spenser share custody of. Reading a Spenser book became a sado-masochistic experience ... like listening to Genesis after Peter Gabriel left - you know how good it used to be and now you're stuck with this drivel!
The Professional is just the most recent Spenser exercise in self-parody (and almost the last unless the estate goes the V.C. Andrews route - God help us). The story is more flimsy than a wet Kleenex. Susan and Spenser's so-called sexy repartee does not even reach the level of a middle-of-the-road TV sitcom. Hawk appears in the book because that is now his role in the Spenser books - give Spenser advise on his current case, drop some witty observations and flirt with whatever woman happens to be in the scene. Hawk has become nothing more than window dressing. What a shame!
You may be asking ... why the hell do you keep reading these books? Good question. Answer is: I'm still hoping that Parker has that last great Spenser book in him. Same reason I listened to Genesis for a while in 1980s until they did that Michelob commercial which convinced me it was never going to happen. Same with Parker's death. There will never be another great Spenser novel, but we do have the first eleven still in print.
BIBLIO SAYS: Ignore The Professional.
Instead, go read the first eleven Spenser novels, and enjoy: (my favorites in red)
The Godwulf Manuscipt, God Save The Child, Mortal Stakes, Promised Land, The Judas Goat, Looking For Rachel Wallace, Early Autumn, A Savage Place, The Widening Gyre, Valediction.
ut fifteen years before Parker died. And the latest, The Professional, is no exception. What happened to the Spenser series has to qualify as one of the greatest literary drops in modern fiction (if you ignore Norman Mailer.)When Spenser premiered in 1973 (The Godwulf Manuscript) it was standard P.I. fare - wise cracking detective who used to be former cop, you know the drill. Starting with the second novel, God Save the Child, you could see that Parker and Spenser were atypical. Spenser is hired to find a missing teenage boy, Kevin, but when he understands why the kid ran away (a family that was, at best, ambivalent) Spenser creates an unusual solution. That set the stage for the next dozen Spenser novels - he is often less concerned with solving a crime than seeing that some kind of justice served, be it criminal, emotional or both. Spenser has his own code and he often makes seat-of-the-pants decisions about what is right and wrong.
Unfortunately, God Save The Child also introduced a character, Susan Silverman, who was to become the
ultimate downfall of the series. Silverman is the school counselor and during the course of the novel, she and Spenser work together to salvage Kevin and his family. Through the next series of books Susan becomes a minor recurring character (she goes to Harvard and gets her Ph.D) and slowly she and Spenser become a committed couple, culminating in A Catskill Eagle (1985.)But leading up to Eagle, Parker and Spenser re-defined modern crime fiction in those ten novels. We get to meet a black hired gun/enforcer named Hawk who becomes an uneasy collaborator with Spenser. Hawk is the darker side of Spenser's character, the flip side of the same coin. Hawk is one of the all-time great characters in modern crime fiction - flippant, sarcastic, brilliantly observant and a stone cold killer. Whenever Hawk is on-stage, the Spenser books take a sharp turn toward greatness. Gradually, Spenser and Hawk realize their ethics code is similar, separated by a small gray area. Tracing the development of their relationship through violence, humor and ruminations on good and evil, is one of the joys of the early Spenser novels.
But all that changed in A Catskill Eagle, a disturbing book. In an effort to find herself (oh god!) Susan feels she must separate from Spenser and moves to the West Coast. Then, Spenser receives an enigmatic letter from Susan that she is in trouble. Her lover is a powerful, possessive man whose father is an illegal weapons manufacturer. Susan is being held in the family compound. Hawk and Spenser race to her rescue which results in the men being hired by the U.S. government as contract killers. Susan needs to find her self but instead, gets involved with a control freak and needs Spenser to save her. What a brilliant woman! The Spenser series goes downhill quickly after this book.
In his quest to re-define the genre, Parker pushed the envelope too much and by the mid-1990s, the books had become self-parody. As Spenser and Susan become more intimately intertwined each Spenser book is little more than a exercise in sophomoric psychobabble. A typical novel goes like this: Spenser gets hired for a case; at the end of each day of collecting information and bashing heads, he and Susan will discuss what he has uncovered and analyze his feelings. "How did you feel when you were beating shit out of the hoodlum?" Susan will ask. "I felt like shit," Spenser will answer. "Why do you think you felt like shit while you beating the shit out of him?" Susan will brilliantly ask. So much for the prestige of a Harvard degree!
And then, there's Pearl the Wonder dog, the annoying pooch that Susan and Spenser share custody of. Reading a Spenser book became a sado-masochistic experience ... like listening to Genesis after Peter Gabriel left - you know how good it used to be and now you're stuck with this drivel!
The Professional is just the most recent Spenser exercise in self-parody (and almost the last unless the estate goes the V.C. Andrews route - God help us). The story is more flimsy than a wet Kleenex. Susan and Spenser's so-called sexy repartee does not even reach the level of a middle-of-the-road TV sitcom. Hawk appears in the book because that is now his role in the Spenser books - give Spenser advise on his current case, drop some witty observations and flirt with whatever woman happens to be in the scene. Hawk has become nothing more than window dressing. What a shame!
You may be asking ... why the hell do you keep reading these books? Good question. Answer is: I'm still hoping that Parker has that last great Spenser book in him. Same reason I listened to Genesis for a while in 1980s until they did that Michelob commercial which convinced me it was never going to happen. Same with Parker's death. There will never be another great Spenser novel, but we do have the first eleven still in print.
BIBLIO SAYS: Ignore The Professional.
Instead, go read the first eleven Spenser novels, and enjoy: (my favorites in red)
The Godwulf Manuscipt, God Save The Child, Mortal Stakes, Promised Land, The Judas Goat, Looking For Rachel Wallace, Early Autumn, A Savage Place, The Widening Gyre, Valediction.
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