Color Crayons & Paper Dolls. Tigers Beware.

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	• Paper Doll (Spenser) Robert B. Parker Berkley, 1994 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of the Better Spensers

I've read most of the Spenser novels, and I find them great entertainment. The problem, however, is that most of the later ones pretty much follow the same formula, and ultimately end up being quite predictable. Still, Robert Parker is a good enough writer that I enjoy nearly all of his books, even though I find them pretty much by-the-numbers at this point.

PAPER DOLL is a murder mystery that has a couple of decent twists, and I was genuinely surprised by the identity of the culprit. Some of the characters, such as the corrupt U.S. Senator, are on the cartoonish side, but that's a minor complaint. The dialogue and descriptions are top notch, and you can finish this novel in one or two sittings.

In short, PAPER DOLL is a fun diversion, although not a spectacular effort. If you want a great Spenser book, you may want to try one of Parker's earlier novels, such as GOD SAVE THE CHILD, EARLY AUTUMN, or THE JUDAS GOAT.

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Overblown a bit

For the most part I liked this detective novel from the Spenser series very much. It has a good plot, which both Amazon and other reviewers have hashed and rehashed. The characters are good, as is the atmosphere. Perhaps the best element is the dialogue. Parker writes good dialogue, in the line of Westlake or Block.

What I didn't like was the fact that Parker feels compelled to stop all action dead to lay in what every character was wearing, even though most of the details have nothing to do with the action. Some of this is necessary, I suppose, but it should be part of the flow. Ditto for house furnishings and paintings on the wall. Ditto for drinks and food. I should add that too many writers have this same flaw. Prune, Ernest, prune, as Gertrude Stein advised Hemingway upon reading one of his early stories.

Mystery writers would do well to study the prose of Agatha Christie, Rex Stout and a few other masters of the genre. The reason we read mysteries is the plot, the puzzle, the atmosphere, not to know what color necktie a man is wearing, or what brand of scotch he drinks, or what furniture company made the couch in a room where nothing of significance happens.

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Boston favorite

The answers to Boston murders aren't always in Boston. When Spenser identifies an Emerson quotation, Loudon Tripp decides that he would be an appropriate investigator. Tripp's wife, Olivia Nelson, had been murdered at Louisburg Square, not an ordinary address for a crime scene. Grief causes a kind of denial to set in. Tripp claims that everything in the family's life was perfect. Having no leads, Spenser decides to go to the victim's hometown. He learns that her father is still alive. The private investigator's relationship to the police officer assigned to the murder case is complex and interesting.

Spenser's travels, his way of putting together clues are of substantial interest to the reader. Parker's description of the actors is apt. The change of scene is fun. This is more intricately plotted than many Parker books and the care taken is all to the good.

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Another winner in the Spenser series

When a prominent member of the community is murdered, Spenser is hired by her husband when he feels the police are not making headway quickly enough. Spenser quickly discovers that there is very little to discover (the police are leaning toward the "random psycho" theory), so he begins to do research into her past, finding there a tangled web of lies. He grabs an end of the web and starts to pull.

Like usual, this does not earn him any friends.

What he finds out is by turns shocking and tragic. This was a great book with a terrific twist to it that I just did not see coming at all and I can't even begin to give any more details about the plot without spoiling it. A strong recommend from me.

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Color Crayons & Paper Dolls. Tigers Beware.

Push a Pin into the perfection balloon. What is marriage ... what are styles of domesticity ... to a wealthy WASP, to a liberated couple like Spenser and Susan, to a good-guy gay cop, to a State Senator, to an aging wealthy southerner.

The concluding scene in DOUBLE DEUCE, # 19 in the Spenser series, catered a surprising twist to Susan and Spenser's attempts at traditional homemaking. That close was as refreshing to the double S as a storm-brought rainbow. The choice carried in DD's final chapter surfaced in silent style into the thematic structure of PAPER DOLL, # 20 in the Spenser series.

To Loudon Tripp seeking the private eye to find his wife's killer, Spenser answered the "small problem" of his having been dismissed from the police force:

"I am trustworthy, loyal, and helpful, but I struggle with obedient."

Who was Olivia Nelson?

She was Loudon Tripp's murdered wife. Was she Harriet to Ozzie, or did she have a small problem.

Spenser's gum shoe stuck in southern muck as he researched the past of a double identity with no indemnity. While thus stuck, the P.I. endured a dual whap to his knee caps by a fake constable. The gum was seared off by BAD-knight-Quirk to the rescue (YEA!), in a scene to write about to a homemaker or a troubleshooter, maybe even a troublemaker, whichever would apply, or lie right.

In the early 90's what did we cook, what did we say, what did we wear, what books did we read. See here. Hear ye. (...)

Readers have commented that they feel this series is anti-gay. One might not hold that opinion after reading PAPER DOLL, in which Lee Ferrell was introduced and featured with compassionate clarity, as a young gay cop working for Quirk. As would be expected, the repartee scenes between Ferrell and Spenser popped. The corn, no pron, was light, fresh, sensitive and free (relatively).

In Alton, South Carolina, 1948 a child was born, bearing a tale and a trail of a "sister" of doom. Was there room at the Inn? Spenser stayed there, and learned the song, "one way ... or the other."

The opening scene of chapter sixteen provided a collection of guffaws from the way Spenser dealt with an auto paused to tail his travels. If that passage doesn't do that, it's possible you've lost your Proof of Existence Papers. Would you then be a paper doll? I'd rather be me. Since the breakout of loveable dogs in DOUBLE DEUCE, Parker had been warmly elevating the dog's life, and I relish it that introduction to the series, but don't know if I'm ready to be one, if I have a choice!

In addition to dogs, another Spenser "signature" was continued and repeated from DOUBLE DEUCE, that of how a character holds a whiskey glass. Note an example of that on page 237 of the mass market paperback. Might this signature be a continued tribute to Erin Macklin (who held her whiskey glass "with both hands")? Also note how Lee Ferrell held his glass in a few spots in this one. That, possibly more than Spenser's "adoption" of the gay cop, was telling of Ferrel's status, as it developed through an amber-filled glass.

The conclusion of the murder in this one was a switch. For me, it worked, stretching contemplation space in the part of my brain which ruminates Parker's tweaking of what makes a good guy/gal good and a bad guy/gal bad.

Parker gave a perfect clue to the murderer, but I didn't get it until the plot told me.

"The words hung in the room, drifting like the dust of ruination."

That wasn't the clue, nor was it the preface to comeuppance for the killer. It was just a line I quite liked. As always, there were several.

Holding books with both hands,
Linda Shelnutt

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