Now and Then

I am so tired of Susan Silverman, what she's wearing, how her hair looks, her makeup, what she eats, etc ad infinitum. Surely there's something else that can be used as page filler.

Robert B. Parker's latest Spenser novel, Now and Then, has all of the literary DNA that the grandmaster has slathered over, around and through all of his books, be they Spenser, Jesse Stone, Sunny Randall or any of the fine stand alones. It is welcomed like an old friend. The banter, the toughness and the tenderness from all in Spenser's world coats the landscape like ortho-grow in Central Park. He once said that the tv/movie versions of his characters would not affect how he portrayed them in the books. He has been true to his word. Without giving away the ending, I found it not up to his usual standard. The ending in Hundred Dollar Baby was much more exciting and ultimately satisfying. Susan was servicable. Hawk was steady and all of the other characters played their parts to perfection. I do wish that there was more Quirk and Belson and less Ives. If he calls Spenser, "young lochinvar" one more time, I think I would have to go to the extra strength pain reliever. In any case, Spenser in this novel is still the Knight Errant and thankfully so. Having read the book, I will now tackle the audio.

Robert B. Parker remains the only author that preorder all of his books. Simply put, it's because I have never been disappointed, and Now & Then continues his entertaining string of Spenser novels. As much and anything, I always look forward to spending a couple of evenings with the characters who feel like old friends. Now & Then includes the regulars, Hawk and Susan, and also brings back Chollo and Vinnie from past books. The story also weaves in the old relationship struggles between Spencer and Susan that were the centerpiece of an earlier novel. A witty, fun, fast read.

The last couple of Spenser novels written by Robert B. Parker focus on old issues that the private eye and author have stepped around for years. Now both are getting enmeshed in events that bring those old troubles and insecurities to the forefront so that Spenser finally has to lay them to rest. Last year's Hundred Dollar Baby is the final tale in the April Kyle saga. She was the young prostitute Spenser saved, sort of, in the series' ninth book, Ceremony. Fans, especially women readers, got split over the resolution in that novel. This year's offering, Now & Then, is going to unite all the fans and leave them waiting with baited breath for next year's entry. Ah, but the good Dr. Parker has learned how to unleash the power of the soap opera endings. He's doing the same in the Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone series as well. In the opening pages of Now & Then, Spenser is approached by, and eventually hired by, Dennis Doherty. Doherty is a cagy customer and doesn't act like he really wants to know if his wife is cheating on him. Before he knows it, Spenser finds himself relating to Doherty because of the breakup he had with Susan Silverman all those years ago (Valediction and A Catskill Eagle for series purists). It takes Spenser little time at all to confirm that Doherty's wife is indeed cheating. Spenser enlists the help of Hawk, his darker side, to track down the answer. Hawk is the first to advance the notion that Spenser is getting too personally involved. It's this interplay of these two characters that I've come to love so much. Getting to peer inside of male bonding at work is awesome, and no one does it better than Parker. Spenser struggles over how much to tell Doherty. While dealing with that, he talks with Susan and it dredges up all the old hurts he'd covered over after she left him. He finally says that telling Doherty is the right thing to do. By that time, he's also figured out that Doherty is an FBI agent, which is going to cause even more problems for his client. Old readers are going to feel the resonance of this case to the pain Spenser was going through when Susan left him. We can see what bothers Spenser so much, and it's great. I hadn't thought of Parker dealing with this unresolved issue, but - all of a sudden - here it is. After he tells Doherty and gives the client a copy of the tape that reveals Jordan Richmond's affair, Jordan shows up in Spenser's office. At first the blusters and threatens, then she offers sex in exchange for the copy of the tape that he has. Spenser says no. Bothered by the woman's desperation, especially since her husband already knows her husband is aware of her infidelity, Spenser has Vinnie Morris (a longtime character in the series) and Hawk stay on the straying wife and her lover. In short time, Doherty announces that he's thrown Jordan out. That night, a man ambushes Jordan and kills her. Vinnie, being Vinnie, kills the killer. Spenser knows someone has raised th

Who would have thought Spenser would allow his past romantic frustration over the temporary separation from his long-time paramour, Susan, to influence his decisions on a case? But faced with a client's adulterous situation, the hard-boiled Boston PI finds himself in exactly that position. Retained by an FBI agent to learn whether his wife is having an affair, Spencer discovers the truth. When both the client and the wife are found murdered, Spenser can't let go, remembering when Susan left him many years before to be with another man and the pain it caused him. So he pursues the case to find the killer--even at the expense of endangering Susan. To protect her, we are entertained by his bringing in the troops--Hawk (of course), Vinnie and Cholo. This novel is Parker (and Spenser) at their accustomed best. No more has to be said. The wisecracks flow, the plot flies and the dialogue is witty and poignant.

Just a nicely solid Spenser novel, with the Boston PI doing what he does best: being a chivalrous thug righting wrongs. And loving Susan Silverman. This time, it's about avenging the deaths of two people, one of them a client, while contending with some ghosts of the past. Along for the ride are the usual cast: Susan, of course, and Hawk and Vinnie and Chollo and some other familiar faces. And there is even some genuine detecting going on as Spenser investigates the past of the prime suspect. Spenser is wise-cracking and tough, everything he should be. And a nice bonus in the book is the endpaper map of "Spenser's Boston" showing the locations of various significant spots, including Spenser's apartment and his office, enjoyable for those of us who know Boston reasonably well and for those who have never been there. The scale is very manageable in "Now & Then", with the villains not too super-sized for credibility. And the somewhat uneasy alliances between Spenser and the Boston cops and the FBI are enjoyable and believable.