Spare Change

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Sunny Randall is Robert B. Parker's female version of Spenser who comes complete with her own version of Hawk, a gay behemoth named Spike. Sunny has lots of ties to other Parker characters as well. She is seeing Susan Silverman for counseling related to her breakup with Jesse Stone, Parker's third series character. Quirk and Belson pop in and out of the plot. So what we have in Spare Change is Spenser in a dress, right? Well in a sense, but Sunny has her own voice and her own problems. Spenser himself is not very internalized. Sunny is. As most know every Parker book has been dedicated to his wife Joan. One senses that Parker has relied heavily on Joan for the character development of Sunny Randall. At first glance Spare Change would have been an excellent vehicle for Spenser. It concerns the reappearance of a serial killer after twenty years. Sunny, a Boston PI is enlisted to help her dad Phil, the lead detective in the old investigation. It might seem to be a second banana posting However, as the plot begins to focus on one suspect, you begin to realize that Sunny is the perfect detective to catch the guy. Spenser never could push this guy's buttons the way Sunny does. Parker's reputation as a master storyteller is enhanced by this wonderfully crafted summer read. Enjoy it.

This is the perfect summer read. Pure old-smoothie Parker. The plot is linear. There is no real mystery beyond the serial killer's motivation. That leaves plenty of time for Parker to explore Sunny's character and the people she cares about. Sunny's family is an exquisite creation, particularly mom and dad, and her sister's boyfriend is familiarly academic. My only reservation is the constant adulation for Susan Silverman, who I could do without, and the fact that we never quite see enough of Rosie, Sunny's delightful mini bull terrier. The perp is suitably creepy and the revelation of his motivation very nicely done. Nobody does this sort of thing better than Parker. And always remember--making it look easy is not. Memo to Bob: let's see more of Phil Randall. Sandra Scoppettone, writing as Jack Early, did a nice job with father/daughter investigation in Donato and Daughter. Spare Change is a worthy rival. Bring back Phil--early and often.

Spare Change, the latest entry in the Sunny Randall private detective series by MWA Grandmaster Robert B. Parker (Spenser, Jesse Stone, Burke), delivers on almost every level. In baseball vernacular, Parker no longer needs to throw high heat as in the early Spenser novels where the body count exceeded the psychological insights. Like a veteran fastball pitcher who can no longer "bring it", he knows how to use the tools of his writing trade to entertain primarily, and toss in some thoughts on family dynamics and the like. He can throw a change up (e.g. the relationship between Sunny and Richie), high heat (Sunny and Julie and dates from hell), and mix in the occasional curve (Spare Change killer's identity). The minute you sit on the fastball, he paints the outside corner. Looking on the outside corner, and it's up and under your chin. Don't get comfortable because that isn't part of the game plan for this book. While there are two anomalies in the book that stick out to me like a sore thumb (one, concerning a possible murder weapon and the other, regarding the status between Richie and Sunny), I thoroughly enjoyed yet another page turner by someone so proficient in turning a phrase as to make William Shakespeare envious. Spare Changeonce again returns the reader to the world of female Boston P.I. Sonya Randall. Characters from the world of Robert B. Parker pass through all of the series books with ease and they are welcome indeed. He also has a flair for names as in the aptly monikered, "Ghost Garrity." The ending of the search for a serial killer did not disappoint. One major trouble with a book like Spare Changeis that in being a page turner and can't put down read, the thrill ride is all too brief. I recommend that after a few days you pick up the unabridged audio version of this book and enjoy it all over again. Now only four or five months until the next Spenser book? Far too long, I think.

This is the sixth novel in Robert Parker's series featuring Boston P.I. Sunny Randall. While it is another police procedural in the Parker tradition, the case involved is used as the springboard for Sunny to closely examine some of the elements in her life which have caused her such distress in the previous installments of the series - especially her ambivalence regarding her former husband Richie and her relationship with her mother Emma and sister Elizabeth. In addition, the characters Spike, Quirk and of course Rosie the terrier, all familiar to series readers, play small but meaningful roles; they are joined in cameo appearances by such Parker stalwarts from the Spenser series as Belson and Healey and Richie's Uncle Felix is important even in absentia. Finally, the insights developed during her bi-weekly analysis sessions with Susan Silverman are essential not only to Sunny's continued attempts to understand her own ambivalent emotions, but also because Susan serves as a sounding board to discuss Sunny's intuition regarding the identity of a serial killer who is terrorizing Boston. The novel begins with Sunny and her father Phil, examining twenty-year-old crime-scene photos (not thirty-year-old as the dust jacket erroneously claims) from a series of seemingly identical but totally random murders performed twenty years ago. The murderer was dubbed the Spare Change Killer by the press because three random coins were always left next to the victims as a signature. Phil Randall was the lead Homicide Investigator at the time; the murders abruptly stopped and the case was never solved. Now Phil, who retired years ago, has been asked to act as a consultant to the Boston PD when a new murder occurs which involves al the elements of those murders twenty years ago, including a taunting letter addressed to Phil by "Spare Change". He immediately asks Sunny to join his efforts, and, as both a former Boston cop and a daughter anxious to be the #1iobject of her father's affection, she enthusiastically accepts. Further murders soon ensue; and very early in the story a combination of good police work and luck lead to a potential suspect who Sunny's intuition convinces her is the killer. However, first convincing the task force of the accuracy of her identification and then assembling the evidence necessary to convict and arrest him leads to both the use of questionable tactics and then to Sunny deliberately deciding to put herself in potential danger in repeated attempts to goad him into making a mistake. Thus, the story gradually becomes not a whodunit but rather a why-did-he-do-it and how-do-they-entrap-him. It is a trademark Parker story, fast moving and hard to put down but short enough so that isn't necessary - I finished it in two sittings just over twenty-four hours after I had started it. In summary, THIS IS ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE STORY OF SUNNY RANDALL'S LIFE , BUT AN ESPECIALLY SIGNIFICANT ONE. Working so closely with her father on such a psycho