I know that Robert B. Parker is not generally held in the
highest respect in these parts, but I've just finished his
two latest Spenser novels, and thought a brief comment might
be in order. Also, I've been tagged by The Gale Group to
write up _Potshot_ for
_Beacham's Popular Fiction_ Volume 17, so I thought this
might be a good forum to get some of my thoughts
together.
Robert B. Parker has written twenty-nine Spenser novels, and
I would imagine that there's a number thirty in manuscript
form at Putnam by now. There is certainly nothing wrong with
such prolific writing in and of itself, but the problem is
that Spenser is an interesting character worth, say, 12
books, and maybe a "Return of Spenser" 13th novel about
fifteen years after #12 was published. My own opinion is that
the first three Spenser novels were quite good, the next
three were as good as anything Chandler wrote, and the third
three were not bad. _Valediction_, the tenth, was melodrama.
_Catskill Eagle_, his eleventh, was melo without any drama.
Since then, Parker has published the occasional readable
Spenser novel, but none has matched the quality of his
earliest work.
Which is a shame, I think, because Parker still has it. Read
either of the Jesse Stone novels, for example. They are both
quite good--and relatively dark, as well.
Okay...I said I was going to write about _Potshot_; please
excuse the venting.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
If _Potshot_ were that 13th book mentioned earlier, it would
be pretty good. It's highly derivative, but it's mostly
derivative of early Robert B. Parker. If you've read _Walking
Shadow_, you'll know whodunit in this one. The attractive
manipulative woman hires Spenser, but it turns out she's the
bad guy, and the local police chief, infatuated with her, has
moved to Potshot, AZ, because she did first. In the end, he
makes a bad decision because of his love for her. I hope
Parker owns a word processor, because it would make the
cutting and pasting from _Walking Shadow_ much easier.
I was afraid that _Potshot_ would be another re-telling of
Hammett's _Red Harvest_; oh, if only it were! Instead, it's a
re-telling of The Three Amigos, which is a re-telling of the
pilot episode of The A-Team, which is a re-telling of The
Magnificent Seven, which is a re-telling of Seven Samuri,
which is a re-telling (according to Frasier, anyway) of the
Grail Knight legend. Spenser and six of his macho
cronies--you can do the math--clear out a town bothered by a
gang of bandits numbering "thirty or forty." Is my memory
bad, or does Eli Wallach claim to have at his disposal "forty
guns" in Magnificent Seven? To his credit, Parker
acknowledges his debt, having one of Spenser's gang turn to
another and state
"We deal in lead, friend."
It has been mentioned here recently, in reference to Amos
Walker, I think, that Spenser does not seem to age as the
novels progress. He was, I believe, 38 in
_Godwulf Manuscript_, making him something close to 70 now.
When I was 16 and reading the early novels, I used to think,
"how can you be in your forties and still be so tough?" Well,
I know the answer to that question now, but that doesn't stop
me from wondering how he does it at 70. Interestingly, though
neither Susan nor Hawk age either, Pearl the Wonderdog
does.
One thing I will Parker, though--at least the attractive
women who throw themselves at Spenser have to get drunk first
now. In both _Hugger Mugger_ and
_Potshot_, a younger woman actually passes out drunk in the
process of attempting to seduce the protagonist. It was
unbelievable once; it was ridiculous twice.
Still, if read on its own, _Potshot_ might work. The
relationships between the seven gunmen are sometimes
interesting, and the plotting and criminal activity Spenser
uncovers might be interesting if I hadn't read all about it
several Spenser books ago. (I actually predicted a line of
dialogue in _Hugger Mugger_ about three pages before it came
out of Spenser's mouth.)
One last note on _Hugger-Mugger_: the action in the novel
takes place over two brief spans, with a period of roughly a
month in between them. To cover the month, Parker includes
what is for all practical purposes the only Spenser short
story (that I know of, anyway) smack-dab into the middle of
the novel. The short story is worth reading. So, my advice
is: buy a used copy of the paperback or get _Hugger Mugger_
from the library, read chapters 21-26 (only about 25 pages in
the hardcover), and don't bother with the rest.
Okay--thanks for letting me vent. I feel much better
now.
G.
__________________________________________________ Do You
Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 16 Jul 2001 EDT