All Our Yesterdays

Boring, Boring Boring!

What a sneaky great book. For me it started a bit slow (2 chapters) but, thereafter it started to jump off the pages. Parker is now one of my favorites.

Surprise! Surprise! This Robert B. Parker novel is not only not about Spenser and Hawk foiling the bad guys by playing the game just a little close (or even just over) to the line of legal behavior. It isn't even about a private detective. Parker's All Our Yesterdays (as in Macbeth's "have lighted fools their way to dusty death." is a generational saga reminiscent of Jeffrey Archer--and at least as good. The setting is still the Boston of Spenser, Hawk, and Susan, but not the trendy, yuppie Boston they frequent. Instead we are in Charlestown, the lace-curtain Irish district, and following the lives of three Boston cops. The first, Conn Sheridan, was a sixteen year old sniper during the Easter Rebellion in Dublin. Later, after breaking out of a British jail just before his hanging, he immigrated to Boston where he joined the police. Conn was involved with the young wife of an American industrialist, a Boston Brahmin, in Dublin. Conn's son, Gus, inherits his father's secrets and rises to power in Boston Homicide, while connections to the underworld enable him to send his son, Chris, to Harvard Law. Eventually Chris, who is unknowingly involved with the granddaughter of his grandfather's lover, is appointed special investigator to stop a gang war and catch a serial killer of teenaged girls. Gus, however, already knows about the killer--his father caught him and let him go years before. After everything comes apart, Chris goes to Dublin to find his roots and understand the story his father has finally told him. The book is Chris telling the story in flashbacks to Grace as they try to reconcile their life together. It is a well-told story, with love, hate, war, revolution, cops and robbers, and some interesting twists and turns. It is much more complex than Spenser and Hawk shooting down the bad guys while Susan worries and supports. All Our Yesterdays is a good read.

I am a Parker fan and had a hard time getting into this book. It took me several days to read the first hundred pages but after that I read the rest of the book in two days. This is a nice departure from the Spenser novels, with none of the characters seeming like the Spenser characters, so it has a flavor all its own. In his dedecation Parker says this story is about fathers and sons and while this is true it is about so much more. This novel has so many layers to it and will make an impact on you for days after you finish it.

Pobert Parker hooked this reviewer ages ago with Spenser and Hawk. All Our Yesterdays was picked off the bargain shelf solely on the strength of the Spenser/Hawk series. This three-generational novel extends from 1920's Dublin to modern day Boston, with a combination of first-person flashbacks of the grandson and conventional third-person narration.Yesterdays has a skillfully crafted plot, and character development often lacking in the Spenser novels. Parker treats the reader to a father-son-grandson who meet problems with realistic reactions, if not always solutions. Conn's gradual change from idealistic Irish rebel to cynical Boston cop seems perfectly reasonable. Gus's change from timid, fearing child to hard-bitten Boston cop does not surprise. Chris's movement--if there is one--from insecure child, fearfully watching his parents fight,to respected scholar does not come off as a contrived plot gimmick.Throughout, Parker reveals the cynical Conn and the hard-bitten Gus as caring but decidedly unndemonstrable parents. "Sonva bitch," Conn thinks, on the verge of a fight with Gus, "You ARE a good kid." "Damn," Gus thinks at a meeting being chaired by Chris, "He's pretty good." Neither, of course, would convey that feeling to his son verbally. Yet this father-son relationship is warm, genuine, honest. Parker makes the unspoken love manifest. A Spenser-less Parker? Believe it! Read it! Love it

I It covedred the lives of three familes and covered two countries, Ireland and the USA. I was particulary impressed by the way the author tied every together in a facinating way. I couldn' put the book down. Sincerely, Harolec