Henry Cimoli has known Hawk
and Spenser for years. He has never once asked for a favor and certainly wouldn't
now if he wasn't being squeezed. He might have even tolerated being squeezed a little
bit, but, when three thugs showed up at his fourth floor condo things got
serious. The thugs threatened to throw him out his own window if he didn’t shut
up about not wanting to move. Somebody wants to buy the condo building for a
project and hired thugs are now visiting the mostly elderly holdouts and making
threats.
Even if Spenser didn't owe
Henry whatever he asked he would look into things just because this sort of deal
ticks him off. His initial goal is to stop the threats and to find out who the
buyer is that wants the property. Once that is done, maybe some common sense
will prevail, and then a fair price for all can be found. With Hawk out of
town, Spenser enlists the aid of his protégé in training, Zebulon Sixkill, who
also figures he owes Henry.
Before long things in the
case start going sideways in Robert B.
Parker's Wonderland: A Spenser Novel by Ace Atkins. Not just in the case,
but in the book itself. Unfortunately, while all the familiar names and
locations are present in this series and doing all the usual things one
expects, the books no longer read like Spenser novels. As always the scenic
descriptions and narration are very limited, the chapters are as short as ever,
the witty (or not depending on your perspective) dialogue between Spenser and
everyone else still exists--in fact every single character engages in witty
repartee with every other character. All
the usual elements are firmly in place and the tagline A Spenser Novel is still
on the cover.
But, where it truly matters,
in the hard to pin down and define it style of voice, the distinctive Spenser
voice is now gone. It is not just because Sixkill plays a prominent role, or
that Hawk never makes an appearance, or that Susan has been regulated to a
cupboard above the stove (she doesn't even get a back burner role here to the ecstatic
joy of many according to reviews seen elsewhere. This is a different and often
harder edged Spenser in terms of thought and action.
On its own a harder edged
Spenser is not necessarily a bad thing. But, that harder edge Spenser doesn’t
go far enough when it happens and often flips back to a far weaker Spenser. Clearly
author Ace Atkins had a nearly insurmountable task in taking over for the late
Robert B. Parker to keep the series going. Every now and then one gets the
sense that if he could take the hobbles off he would shove Spenser hard and fast
in a new direction that could easily lose those who insist on Spenser never
changing. At the same time, he is losing readers like me who recognize he is
sitting on the fence with his version of Spenser.
For more on how Joan dealt
with the situation regarding the death of her husband, Robert B. Parker and continuing
the various series, see the recent interesting article in the Boston Globe on
the matter online here.
Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland: A
Spenser Novel
Ace Atkins
G.P. Putnam’s Sons (Penguin Group)
May 2013
ISBN# 978-0-399-16157-5
Hardback (also available as e-book
and audio book)
$26.95
306 Pages
Material supplied by the
good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System. If you are in the area
and would like more information about Plano libraries go here.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2013
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2 comments:
I agree with you on the Spencer books. No one wrote it like Robert Parker, and no one ever will. They should have let them end when he did.
I think they should have let it end as well.
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