Parker had written 31 novels by the time he got around to ‘Hush Money’ in 1999, and you could tell the drill was wearing thin. First of all, there were two stories unfolding simultaneously as if he couldn’t quite sustain a single plot for the required 300 or so pages. Second, the amount of white space in the book seemed to have increased markedly.  The spacing between lines was overly generous; the chapters were short resulting in a large number of new chapters which began halfway down the page; finally, there was a lot more dialogue between Spenser and Susan and between Spenser and Hawk than seemed necessary—another filler.

On the other hand, the dialogue remained sharp, clever, and catchy.  I also loved the allusions to Cambridge.  At one point, Parker writes that “Cambridge was placed here across the river from Boston to provide comic relief”.  In another section as Spenser was tailing a woman through Cambridge he notes current Harvard Square features that are still a part of the place— the guy playing the Peruvian pipes, the sellers of Spare Change, the guy beating rhythm on the bottom of inverted buckets, the diverse variety of cops, and Cardullo’s gourmet shop.  On the other hand, the passing of 24 years is evident in his references to places long gone—Nini’s and The Casablanca Bar to name just two.

The plot, as in so many of Parker’s Spenser books is a bit far-fetched and mainly an excuse for the clever repartee, as Spenser takes on two pro bono cases as favors for friends. For Susan, he helps K.C. who is being stalked, and for Hawk, he helps Robinson Nevins who has been denied tenure at Harvard because his of an alleged homosexual relationship with a student that led to the student’s suicide. Guess what—the suicide was, in fact, a murder and Robinson is straight as an arrow.  Off we go on a fun ride through Cambridge, Boston, Maine,  and Rockport.

It was the usual perfect escape read.