Crime writers and readers everywhere had occasion to mourn the loss of the deeply respected and highly popular crime novelist Robert B. Parker in January of this year. His passing has created a void in a genre where he is considered by many to be the dean of modern crime writing. While his passing is cause for regret, the massive body of work of more than 60 novels which Parker has left behind will be a cause for celebration for generations to come.

Parker received his doctorate in American Literature from Boston University after writing a thesis on the evolution of the American hero, which partly covered early Twentieth Century crime heroes as written by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross McDonald. In fact, Spenser is modeled after Philip Marlowe, a Chandler creation. Parker later completed "Poodle Springs" from an unfinished Chandler  manuscript, and then wrote "Perchance to Dream" as a sequel to Chandler's "The Big Sleep." Parker has received too many literary awards to mention, but in 2002 he was awarded the Edgar for Grand Master by his fellow Mystery Writers of America. 

Parker has been equally popular in Hollywood where many movies and television shows have been made based on his characters. "Spenser for Hire" was a notable television series back in the Eighties with 50 episodes made over its long run. Many other Parker novels have been made into movies, including the recent made for television series starring Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone. In addition, another television series that ran for a while during the late Eighties was "A Man Called Hawk," inspired by a formidable reoccurring character in the Spenser novels.

An interesting aside here concerns Parker's series of crime novels starring Sunny Randall (who is occasionally romantically involved with Jesse Stone). This character was created at the personal request of Hollywood actress Helen Hunt, who had wanted a Parker character to portray in the movies. Regrettably, that project has been in limbo for years, but the first Sunny Randall novel in 1999, "Family Honor," was so popular that his publisher encouraged him to write more of them.

This is the 36th outing for Spenser, no first name, please, Parker's beloved Boston private eye. Spenser is a college dropout, Harvard, no less, who turned to a career in the boxing ring before he moved on to other careers, eventually becoming a private eye. He is a large hulk of a man who intimidates others, and one might assume him to be a lug until he opens his mouth. Parker is a master of written dialogue, and Spenser as his creation is therefore a master at the spoken word. The dialogue here is some of the most entertaining to be found in modern literature, and this is one of the main reasons why reading a Spenser novel is such a pleasure.

Spenser loves a lot of things in life, including the Boston Red Sox, great food, and beautiful women. Many of them would love to bed him, but he has been resolutely faithful to "The One." She is Dr. Susan Silverman, a psychotherapist with a doctorate from Harvard who he also defines as being a "stunning Jewess." Go figure. A brute of a goyim involved with one of Harvard's elite. One wouldn't figure that they would get on as a team, short term or long term, but they do, and beautifully. These two really do love each other, and one of the main reasons is that Spenser is far more intelligent than his circumstances or his appearance would suggest. He is insatiably curious about many things in life as well as being an inveterate reader from the classics on down. 

If Spenser's chit chat and bon mots are entertaining, then the verbiage between him and anyone who is his intellectual equal like Susan rises to the next level with the quips and the sparring commentary lobbing back and forth like verbal rockets. As I have said, this makes for great reading.

In this novel, he tries his charm and bon mots on a wealthy woman he knows as Heidi Bradshaw, who wanders into his office because he has been recommended to her. Bradshaw is 40-ish and shapely and has every indication of being incredibly well-kept. What she wants now is security for the upcoming marriage of her only daughter. Since the wedding will be held on the family private island that boasts its own security detail, Spenser wonders why his services will be needed. 

Mrs. Bradshaw also invites "The One" to accompany him, and Susan readily agrees to join Spenser for what promises to be an interesting weekend of seeing how the other half lives. They don't realize how interesting, and how dangerous, the weekend will become until they see a known hired assassin show up as one of the wedding guests. Spenser has run across this deadly killer twice before, and he nearly died from one of the run-ins. 2008, Penguin Books, 304 pages.