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Title: Pastime by Robert B. Parker ISBN: 0-425-13293-5 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: June, 1996 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.46 (13 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Parker on parenthood....
Comment: This book provides closure to the door left open by Early Autumn. Paul returns to the forefront as he and Spenser seek his wayward mother. The theme of this novel is parenthood...Paul and Spenser...the Brozs...Spenser and his father (and the uncles)...even Spenser and Susan and their "baby" Pearl. The underlying quest/adventure is good but the real draw for Spenser fans is a look back into the detective's youth. The story of the young Spenser's encounter with the bear alone is worth the price of the book. My second favorite Spenser novel; I'll let the readers of this review guess what the first is.
Rating: 4
Summary: Sequal to "Early Autumn"
Comment: You will find this Spenser novel more entertaining if you read "Early Autumn" first since two of the characters are introduced in the earlier book.
Parent-son relationships are an important theme here. Paul's mother has come up missing and the youth contacts Spenser who in many ways has acted like a father to Paul in earlier books. In following her trail, Spenser again faces mobster Joe Broz and his son, Jerry. You get to know and understand the gangster a bit better here. That father-son relationship is also well explored.
Parker uses another element to add suspense. Susan has ended up with ex-husband's dog Pearl who accompanies Spenser and Paul. Well, we all know how high the animal mortality rate is in crime and suspense fiction, so dog lovers will be holding their breath everytime the dog goes out with Spenser.
All in all, a good and satisfying read.
Rating: 3
Summary: Middling entry in an increasingly self indulgent series
Comment: "Pastime" reintroduces a character first glimpsed in the book "Early Autumn" ,the dancer Paul Giacomo .In the early novel he had been taken in hand by Spenser and turned from an unprepossessing and gangly 15 year old slacker into an achiever .Now he re-enters Spensers life and asks for help in finding his mother who has gone missing.
Unfortunately she has absconded with a man named Beaumont who just happens to have fleeced the local mob and is being hunted down by Gerry ,the no good incompetent son of the local mob chief.There is every chance that Paul's mother is in harms way by virtue of her association with Beaumont
During the course of the book Spenser battles mobsters ,is sseriously wounded and eventually comes to an understanding with the mob.
There is a great deal too much back story in the book for my taste -the ever over inquisitive Susan probes Spenser for details of his past and his relationship with his sidekick Hawk while the conversation of Paul is saturated with psycobabble to a teeth clenchingly irritating extent
What has knocked the series off the rails for me has been the increasing space given to Spencers relationship with the shrink Susan -it has transformed what were sharp and almost over readable crime stories into "touchy-feely "exercises redolent of the self absorbtion I see as the ultimate sin of psychoanalysis
The action when it comes is crisp and sharp but there is too little of it and until Parker dumps Susan and the damnable dog they share this series will continue to be seen as the irrelevance it at present is
What a waste.
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Title: Stardust by Robert B. Parker ISBN: 0425127230 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: March, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Paper Doll by Robert B. Parker ISBN: 0425141551 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Double Deuce by Robert B. Parker ISBN: 0425137937 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: April, 1993 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Crimson Joy by Robert Parker ISBN: 0440203430 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 02 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Playmates by Robert B. Parker ISBN: 0425120015 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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