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Title: The Judas Goat by Robert Parker ISBN: 0-440-14196-6 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 01 June, 1992 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Spenser Reviews: This Won't Betray Your Time
Comment: In The Judas Goat, Spenser takes a vacation from his usual Bostonian suspects and takes on a job in Europe hunting down terrorists who killed his latest client's family.
While certainly not reaching the complexity of the "great Spenser period" soon to come, the story advances some of the key elements that would later gel (and, ultimately ossify in some ways) in some ways. Although her role is peripheral here, Susan Silverman is a lot more likeable here than in previous books. And here Hawk finally emerges as his own character, finally becoming Spenser's true doppleganger.
The only flaws are a rather plastic set of villains, including an unfortunately portrayal of a seriously demented nymphomaniac terrorist. Clearly, Parker is still struggling with his tendencies to characterize the non-Silverman women as either good time girls or pyschotic whores.
But the action scenes here are among Parker's best, including an astonishing, multi-page set piece involving Spenser's attempt to lure a couple of assassins waiting to kill him.
This probably isn't the first Spenser you should read, but it's among the best of the earlier Spensers.
Rating: 4
Summary: Early Parker, Rough but Enjoyable
Comment: In Robert B. Parker's fifth book about the Boston sleuth Spenser, he sends Spenser through London, Amsterdam and Montreal in search of justice.
In an opening which almost exactly mirrors the start of The Big Sleep, Spenser heads out to rich-suburb Weston to meet with a sad family man in a wheelchair. In this case, the man's family has been blown up as 'collateral damage' by terrorists in London with unknown aims. The man hires Spenser to bring in the 9 responsible, dead or alive.
Off Spenser goes, telling his beloved Susan, who he was practically married to in the last book, that he might be gone for months or years. "See ya" says she. He puts out one ad and lounges for a full week before someone answers it. Two thugs try to kill him and he takes them out. When another pair try the following week, Spenser decides to trust his life to Hawk, who was just a casual acquaintance in the previous story. Some pretty strange relationship-altering substances must have been taken between these two stories.
On Spenser goes, from Denmark to Amsterdam to Montreal. He barely stops back in the Boston area to keep his benefactor informed and to pop in to see Susan. With an almost implausible twist of fate he tracks down and finds the final head terrorist at the Montreal Olympics and stop an assassination attempt. Oh, and he lets the sex-crazed-nympho female terrorist go, because, of course, she's female. She must not have known any better.
In a very unusual situation, there was a made-for-TV version of this which was FAR far better. The female terrorist is a much better character. The whole environment makes much more sense, and there are EXTRA twists that make the story even more interesting. It's pretty amazing when the movie version turns out much better than the book!
Let me just add the note that I'm a huge Spenser fan, that I did enjoy reading this as a "historical story" and have read it several times. So it's worth having if you enjoy Spenser. It's just clear that this is an early work of Parker's, before he really hit his stride.
Rating: 5
Summary: Okay, I'm hooked!
Comment: This is the third Spenser book I've read and I imagine I'm hooked now and will be reading every Spenser book I get hold of.
A lot of readers compare the Spenser books to Dashell Hammett's, Raymond Chandler's and Ross McDonald's books, but I see, in addition, some of John D. McDonald's Travis McGee in the character of Spenser.
Whatever, this book is the best of the three I've read so far...they get progressively better, it seems. I imagine though that I'm close to the point where the stories start evening out. Anyway, this one has Spenser working for a man who suffered the horrible loss of his family and of the proper use of his body in a terrorist attack in England. The job is to find each of the nine terrorists involved and bring them in, dead or alive. The title comes from Spenser's plan to use one member of the group to catch the others and this does come about although in a somewhat unexpected manner.
The story has twists and turns enough to delight any mystery fan, along with the developing characters of Susan and Hawk. Most importantly, it has some food for deeper thought along with the action.
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Title: Promised Land by Robert Parker ISBN: 0440171970 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 05 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Mortal Stakes by Robert Parker ISBN: 0440157587 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 01 May, 1987 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: God Save the Child by Robert Parker ISBN: 0440128994 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 01 May, 1987 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert Parker ISBN: 0440129613 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 05 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Looking for Rachel Wallace by ROBERT PARKER ISBN: 0440153166 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 01 August, 1987 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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