Finally, a Spenser book that met my expectations.  After several disappointing ventures into old Spenser books, I loved this one, and it redeemed both Parker and Spenser in my mystery-loving heart.  It’s the sixth in the series of 40 Spenser novels that Parker wrote up until his untimely death in 2010, eight years after being named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

The story is straight-forward.  The eponymously named radical feminist lesbian has received death threats if her new book is published so the publisher hires our hero to protect her. Spenser and Rachel Wallace get along like TNT and matches, and after saving her from a number of relatively minor threats, she has had enough of his toxic masculinity and fires him. Shortly after that, she disappears and Spenser launches into his usual unpaid quixotic hunt for her.  The action is fast and furious (as a matter of fact, two bad guys die at Spenser’s hands which is unusual in this series) but the real treat is the dialogue, between Spenser and Wallace, between Spenser and Susan Silverman, and in Spenser’s first person narration.  I could turn to any page at random and quote some of Parker’s great prose, but here’s one that I actually marked in my 1980 $2.95 paperback edition.  Here’s Spenser describing three four goons who were about to assault him; “The other three were all heavy and looked like men who’d done heavy labor for a long time. The shortest of them had slightly bowed legs, and there was scar tissue thick around his eyes. His nose was thicker than it should have been. I had some of those symptoms myself, and I knew where he got them.  Either he hadn’t quit as soon as I had or he’d lost more fights.  His face looked like a catcher’s mitt.”  This is detective writing at its best.

The book was worth the time, and if you have never made Parker’s or Spenser’s acquaintance, this would be a good one to start with.  Enjoy!