Pale Kings and Princes (Spenser, No 14)

First few Spenser books were okay. This one and the last two in the series are full of psycho babble and juvenile dialogue. Raymond Chandler any day.

In this entry in the Spenser series, he is hired by a newspaper when an up-and-coming young reporter - Eric Valdez - is murdered while investigating the cocaine trade in Wheaton, Mass - a small town with a big reputation of being the Miami of the North. When Spenser starts asking around, he finds that no one knows nothing and that the police seem to be spectacularly unhelpful - and they, especially, seem to want him gone. They insist that Valdez's murder was due to his sexual peccadilloes and nothing else, pointing to the bodily mutilation as proof. Of course, when people want Spenser gone - or when they want him to quit asking questions - that just makes him stick around and ask more questions. When first the sheriff and then the sheriff's son are murdered - after Spenser catches the son smuggling cocaine, apparently for the town's biggest produce warehouser, named Felipe Esteva - the action begins to really heat up. Was Eric Valdez killed because he was getting too close to the truth about the drug trade in Wheaton? Or because he was having an affair with the wrong woman? Why were the sheriff and his son killed? This was a multi-layered and very satisfying book. Things that seem obvious turn out to be red herrings - things that appear to be obvious red herrings turn out to be truth. I loved it. Strong recommend from me!

There's no use trying to use a Spenser novel to conjure or cajole the sandman. Similar to TAMING A SEA-HORSE (#13 Spenser); PALE KINGS AND PRINCES (# 14) kept me up a couple hours in the middle of the night, beyond a silly hope of returning to sleepiness through a short time of reading. PALE KINGS opened again with the standard realism of the detective doing his walk-alone-deal, accompanied by shiftless boredom and justifiable frustration. In this case, since the food in the rural community in which Spenser was detecting was so limp, and the clue extraction so dentally daunting, the private eye was able to drag/push himself through his solitary shuffles for only 1/4 of the plot before he called in Susan for a weekend visit of Salmon Loaf or Polish Platter at the Reservoir Court motel in Wheaton, Mass. I was intrigued with Parker's feature in this one of how an individual gets himself seen as such, as a person instead of a thing. His technique of having Spenser gradually thaw out Wheaton's finest citizenry seemed similar to me to his methods of drawing readers into Spenser's games. This time, those games were a town's economic rooting into Columbian Coca/Cocaine, and the class spits accompanying the resulting population stew in Wheaton. As usual, I was mesmerized with Spenser's repartee with criminal codgers, which in this case were the top-of-the-food-chain of Colombian Drug Lords. I was especially impressed with the way the P. I. humanized these guys into seeing him as a worthy person, actually more easily than he set the standard-of-his-humanity with Wheaton's police presence, barkeeps, waitresses, librarians, and regular Joe's. I wondered if that humanizing ability might be one of the mesmerizing character traits which has kept Spenser cozied within the reading hearts of so many faithful fans. Spenser dedicates himself to making everyone see him as a warm-bodied person, instead of as a bloodless character-stick in a plot of a novel. Especially in the first scene with Esteva, the Columbian King Pin, PALE KINGS solidified for me one of the main reasons for Spenser's appeal. He's real. Duh? He works on each person in his presence (including the reader), until that person sees him that way. I've noticed several times in this series (and more so in PALE KINGS), that exchanges between Spenser and his dialogue collections had him describing a person looking away, purposely not looking at him, until he wormed that person into his scene. Now I recall how often Spenser has noted the "covert looks" which Hawk draws out of people. Hawk, too, is real; his essence demands to be experienced as a person of potence as well as presence. Is this part of what charisma is, a person who sees himself as significant, and therefore causes others to see him that way; a person who won't quit radiating and/or badgering, focusing on others until they LOOK at HIM and SEE him? Maybe, charisma also involves a person like Spenser or Hawk actually SEEING ev

An enterprising investigative reporter is killed in Wheaton, Massachusetts, a town known to many as the hub of cocaine traffic for the Northeast. The owner of the paper the reporter worked for hires Spenser to investigate the murder. He goes to Wheaton and gets nowhere at the start. Local police are obviously being bought off and when he asks questions the universal response is "nobody saw nothin." It is obvious who the drug lord is, so in an attempt to move his investigation forward, Spenser hijacks a major cocaine shipment. The son of the police chief was driving the rig, so his actions are of interest to more than just the drug dealers. Spenser then goes to the kingpin and offers to sell the cocaine back to him. After the police chief and his son are both killed, Spenser befriends the grieving widow and enlists Susan to help her cope with her losses. Hawk is also recruited to help even the odds against Spenser. There is a final battle with Spenser, Hawk and an honest state trooper on one side and the drug dealers with their corrupted cops on the other. In an interesting twist, Hawk has a battle with a man (Cesar) that clearly was his physical superior, had he not held a small gun inside a mitten on his hand and shot first, Cesar would have killed him with his bare hands. Once again, Spenser wisecracks his way through danger and remains noble in the completion of his job. When the drug lord kills the son of the police chief after Spenser hijacks the cocaine shipment, Spenser personally confronts his mother and only Susan can console him. She makes him understand that it truly was not his fault that the boy was involved in trafficking drugs and she will do what she can to help the woman. In terms of action and intrigue, this book doesn't have as many exciting moments as other Spenser novels. However, the dialog is excellent as always, which is why it still deserves four stars.

Spenser is hired to find out who killed reporter Eric Valdez. Valdez's assignment was to get to the bottom of the cocaine trade in Wheaton, Massachusetts, but the town is owned by the Columbians, including the police force. So Spenser does what he does best. He parks himself in town and asks questions until he annoys enough people and something shakes loose. I read this book years ago and just re-read it. I think it stands up well. I've always liked the Spenser series because of it's dialog between Spenser and Hawk. Actually the dialog between Spenser and whoever he's talking to always crackles. I also like the fact that the story makes sense. Many mystery/crime novels today depend on the serial killer schtick but to me Parker's mysteries are always grounded on something believable. Cocaine trade in Wheaton, Massachusetts? Might seem ridiculous at first but after it's explained it makes perfect sense. It could happen that way and the story that follows also could have happened that way. Anyway, like all of the Spenser series I enjoyed it and recommend it. It's not deep literature but it is a fast enjoyable read.

I thought this book, like other Spenser books I have read or listened to was well worth the time. Parker has a definite knack for keeping you entertained. Admittedly I liked Playmates and Widening Gyre a little better, I would not pass on this book at all. Having read the other reviews I am anxious to get into more Spenser novels because if this one is middle of the road, then I can't wait for the others. The story centers around the murder of a journalist investigating a small town in Massachussetts that seems to be the cocaine depot of the northeast. Parker's storytelling and Spenser's keen wit make it a quick read.