Paper Doll

I have read many, many of the Spencer books. Some I liked better than others. I rank this one close to the top. Spencer is hired to find out who killed Olivia Nelson. She was killed with many blows to the head with a hammer. The police have done all they can to find the killer but had no success. Spencer is hired by Olivia's husband. A trip is made back to a town in South Carolina, where Olivia Nelson came from. But is her real name Olivia Nelson? Yes, there is a person by that name but where is she? Why would a Senator want to keep Spencer from finding out anything? Spencer in jail?????? Many, many twists and turns. The ending is very good, really two endings, finding the killer and finding out about the senator. A good Spencer read! The only thing that would make it better, for me, would be less Susan and more Hawk.

I have read all the Parker books more than once, and this one is my favorite. You shouldn't start with it - it would be better to be familiar with the character first - but if you're going to pick and choose, choose this one. The mystery is top-shelf, the supporting characters are carefully drawn, there isn't too much of the adorably annoying Susan, and Spenser is at his wise-cracking best. He really hit his stride with this book.

Robert B. Parker does a marvelous job in this book of interweaving southern culture into the story. He certainly did his homework, and I respect that. If it is formulaic, it is an excellent formula that works for me.

I bought this book to give to someone else and read it myself only because I had run out of books of my own. I was hooked. By the time the summer was over, I had read 4 more Spenser novels and now have my name on our local library's waiting list for the new novels. I have read all the Spenser novels now and love them. I never did get a chance to watch the TV series but have seen a couple of TV movies. I like the books better.

As with all his Spenser books, Parker's writing in this is so smooth, so witty, with so much descriptive power, that I enjoy reading it even without the nicely-progressing plot. Maybe it's because I feel that I know Spenser and Quirk pretty well, but, whatever the reason, I find the part where Spenser is being brutalized in a Southern jail and Quirk walks in and walks him out, followed by their bracing of the two instigators (not Southerners, by the way) to be the scene I enjoy reading again and again.