Hugger Mugger

I'm not sure what all the other reviewers missed, but in my mind, this book ranks at the top of the Spenser series. Spenser's wisecracking humor is superb. Hired to find a horse killer, Spenser soon finds the crime spreads to include a human victim. Abruptly, he is dismissed from the case, leaving him to wonder why. Hawk stays home during Spenser's southern sojourn, but Susan makes plenty of appearances, analyzing the psychosis of a disfunctional family of rich misfits. Overall, I would say this book reminds me of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, which I love.

Although I love Parker's work, his characters, and his stories, since Thin Air I have been less satisfied, feeling that maybe time was running out for Spenser and his cohorts. Hugger Mugger was the best Spenser novel in years, combining wit with Parker's classic descriptions of characters and places (who else could perfectly summarize a person in three words?). The plot removes Spenser from his native Boston and subtracts many of my favorite supporting characters, leaving Parker room to come up with a whole new rogues gallery. The plot, while at times meandering, is fresh, and the ending is a real shocker. With renewed faith in the Spenser books, I look forward to the next one.

I have read all the Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker, and I feel this is one of his best efforts. Even though Susan appears only briefly and Hawk is in France, a strong plot and believable characters make this an excellent addition to an excellent series. Someone is shooting horses at the Three Fillies Stables in Lamarr, Georgia. Walter Clive and his daughter Penny hire Spenser to find out who is shooting the horses. They are concerned about their prized 2-year-old, Hugger Mugger who has a chance to become a Triple Crown Horse. Spenser encounters some strange characters who aren't what they appear on the surface. When Walter Clive is murdered, Spenser is fired by Clive's daughter, Penny. Later a new client hires Spenser to find out who killed Walter Clive. There are many twists, and the reader doesn't know the whole story until the last page. A real winner!

This is Parker's best Speser novel in recent years. Over time the character and his relationship with Susan Silverman and Hawk has grown quite matter of fact. Lost was the essence of the main character that was in the earlier books. I can only guess but I think Parker has had a good strategy the last few years. He wrote a couple of novels with a different male character (vasty different from Spenser) and one with a female character (but much like Spenser). Returning in Hugger Mugger, parker takes Spenser out of all the "normal" settings - away from Boston, away from Hawk (no "jive-talk" bantering)and leaves Susan Silverman and Pearl the Wonderdog as supporting characters. By doing this the author has forced himself to concentrate on Spenser - the character and by doing that has succeeded in bringing back the "something" that makes this character work.The plot itself is quite good, but the character (and the supporting "cast") is what makes this work. My only complaint (minor) is how it ended -I felt there was a "wrap up" chapter missing, but all in all a great mystery and a fabulously great Spenser novel!

Who else but Robert Parker could tackle three different mystery characters in three different novels a year and still be one of the most consistently entertaining writers in the mystery field? But (with apologies to Jesse Stone and Helen H...er, sorry, Sunny Randall), it's Spenser we love the best. My two favorite mystery novelists are Robert B. Parker and Dick Francis, and this mystery, set in Georgia horse country, is the best of both worlds: Spenser must track down the murderer of horses at a training farm, populated by (as Spenser says) the cast of a Tennessee Williams play. As always, much of the fun is the dialogue--no one's better than Spenser taking the wind out of a pompous twit's sails, and no one's better at writing that wise-guy with an intellectual edge than Parker. Any complaints? Well, sure, there's a big one. No Hawk! Luckily, Susan's around, and so is Pearl the Wonder Dog. Spenser's sidekick in this book, a gay ex-cop named Tedy Sapp, is interesting enough, but Mr. Sapp, you're *no* Hawk! (But who is?) My other quibble is a broader one. This is a fine standard Spenser mystery, but it's nothing more than that--Spenser gets a client, scouts the case, matches wits with the suspects, flirts a bit (but stays loyal to Susan, of course) and cracks the solution. But a truly exceptional Spenser book, while it contains all these elements, can be so much more. I've been reading Spenser's adventures for nearly 20 years, and the ones that make the most impression on me--those I consider the best, in which Parker transcends the normal mystery novel--are the books in which Spenser as a character moves forward dramatically, in which something major happens to Spenser *personally* to change or influence his life. Don't get me wrong--that kind of approach would not be welcome in every book...but after nearly 30 Spenser books the ones that stand out in my mind are "Early Autumn"..."A Catskill Eagle"..."Small Vices"...Spenser adventures that bring us more into the personal life of Parker's hero than the others. That Parker is capable of such sublime heights between the more-standard Spenser (and Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall) mysteries is the most important reason I keep reading him.