In the Arms of the Angels. This old, cold motel room...

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	• Taming a Seahorse Robert Parker Dell, 1987 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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Even Hawk cannot bring back the Spenser wit

In this story, Spenser is once again on a noble mission and people are killed, but unlike other Spenser stories, the plot didn't grab me. Furthermore, the dialog lacked the wittiness found in the other Spenser stories. He was much more subdued, almost fatalistic. Even the scenes with Hawk lacked the dynamic and witty dialog that makes their relationship so unique.
April Kyle, the teenage prostitute Spenser saved in "Ceremony", has left the high-class brothel run by Patricia Utley and is now on the street for a man named Robert, who is a student at Juilliard. Spenser easily tracks her down and she tells him that her and Robert are in love and she is hooking in order to put him through school. Spenser investigates and learns that Robert is in love with many different girls and is in fact the pimp for a collection of hookers. Spenser spends some professional (his) time with Ginger Bucky, another girl in Robert's stable. He finally breaks into her hardened heart to learn that her father repeatedly raped her before he sold her to a brothel.
When April disappears and Ginger is murdered, Spenser investigates the seedy world of prostitution, where girls are sold and there are various levels of the trade. Along the way, Spenser makes a trip to Lindell, Maine to have a chat with Ginger's father and to prove to him that he is not the toughest man in Lindell. Other people are killed as Spenser follows the trail of Ginger in the hope that it will lead him to April. Eventually it does, as Spenser makes a deal with the head of a major prostitution ring to get her back.
Throughout the story, Spenser has his ego reinforced by Susan Silverman, as he questions what he is doing and his attempts to right some of the wrongs of the world. There is no great climactic ending, his meeting with the prostitution lord is little more than a swap of one person for another and a decision by Spenser to largely ignore Ginger's death. The book ends with April back in Spenser's arms and they start making simple plans as to what they will do next. Unlike other Spenser books, this one is dark and unsatisfying. The dialog and story line are weak, as they drag you from one slightly interesting situation to another.

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In the Arms of the Angels. This old, cold motel room...

I'm ashamed to admit this about my reading weakness. I did overcome it, given full use of the gift of Parker's skill as an author. The confession:

The first few paragraphs of TAMING A SEA-HORSE worked more as the wrong end of a magnet than a draw into the story. My immediate, automatic response was I didn't want to immerse my emotions again into the heartbreaking, depressing world of Patricia Utley and April Kyle.

And then the save:

Reading into the story a couple pages, I was hooked into Spenser's world and cares. I wanted to know why April had gone to the different call agency, and how Spenser might convince her to return to Utley's more realistic, kinder "retirement program." And, the conversation with Utley was engrossing, about the various angles of Call Girls' dreams, the sour and the creme.

I was also caught by Spenser's description of compulsions and controls (successes and failures) of his rampant appetites, in this case for martinis over lunch, through lunch, concluding with a healthy cherry cheesecake wallow.

Of course Spenser's first conversation with April over a noon lunch, which was breakfast for her, was full of reader bait, as was his first exchange with April's high-brow musician pimp. With Spenser's satiric takes on the seedy sides of NYC ambiance swirled into the mix, I willingly gave up any resistance to sinking into the unique plot mix in book # 13 in the series. Given the sensitive ending (and the increasingly engrossing ride to it, youthful shrugs included) I'm really glad that resistance would have been futile here.

Susan and Hawk didn't show up until about half through the plot, but their scenes were prime, especially if a reader has come upon them in sequence, through the storms of the previous novels. A special playful newness to Susan and Spenser's relationship had emerged, and I could feel the subtle pride and quiet warmth in Hawk, which had expanded due to the intense intimacy of soul ripping situations through which they had passed in absolute commitment to each other, in previous novels.

Due to the delay of entrance of Susan and Hawk, though, readers were again allowed the ambiance of the private eye walking alone, for another while. Instead of reeking of loneliness, though, this time disgust and frustration fumed in the solitary detective who realistically makes very little progress in his games, enduring endless hours and hour-packed days of tedious observation, and expensive exploration into seeming dead ends. Parker does Spenser's boredom shuffle to perfection.

The plot heat-up (from the appealing gumshoe dragging) was gradual in a satisfying way (with literary style and bits of great humor), and effective in easing me into reading a few hours in the middle of the night... thinking I would just read long enough to get sleepy and fall back asleep. Sure. Finished the book first, then went back to sleep, after another 30 minutes tumbling the story around in my mind, feeling a healing contentment about what Spenser accomplished in this one, even if it was just a novel.

I was haunted by knowing, first hand from my experiences in police work, about the young girls who would never have a Spenser to save them. Some of them would have someone; some of them would somehow save themselves.

Linda Shelnutt

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Looking for April Kyle . . . again . . .

In the 13th in the Spenser series, Patricia Utley - a high class madame with a call girl service in New York City - contacts Spenser because April Kyle - who we first met in Ceremony - has gone missing again. When Spenser begins to look for her, he runs straight into a brick wall of lies and threats that have him running from Maine to St. Thomas looking for clues when the one link he did find - another hooker who had apparently known April - ended up murdered, along with her pimp.

The action never lets up and we're treated to a lot of peeks into the world of the professional sex trade. It is frequently not very pretty.

A strong entry in the Spenser series. A recommend from me.

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The Greatest

Robert B Parker is the greatest author of all time as measured by quality and quantity. Hemingway, Dostoyevski, Faulkner, et. al. wrote 2 or 3 great books, each of which even Mr. Parker would acknowledge superior to any of his works. But no author has ever consistently produced high quality entertainment virtually every year for over 30 years! No one. This book is not his best, but it is a good example of how he can call upon old characters from former books and weave a new tale of humor, suspense and just plain entertainment. Raymond Chandler said his objective was to write mystery novels that readers could enjoy even if the last ten pages were missing. Parker has acheived that objective more than 30 times.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

In his latest highly acclaimed Spenser novel, Robert B. Parker takes readers into the murky big-city underground where Spenser undertakes an intense search for a beautiful, missing prostitute, and finds himself traveling amidst the sleaze of Times Square where sex is a commodity, and young girls are the currency. This phenomenal bestseller, with a million-copy paperback first printing is supported by national TV advertising and a 6-month backlist reissue program. HC:Delacorte.

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