My second Parker book in less than a month, and it's a bit confusing. This one is the 11th in the Spenser series.

The mystery is intricate and clever and unexpected--Spenser is hired to rescue an actress who's been reportedly abducted by a cult. Finding her, figuring out what's going on, and who's behind it is a story that's full of twists and turns and just brilliant.

But then there's the personal story, and it's just way too close to the one in Trouble in Paradise, which is a different series, to allow me to enjoy it. Spenser's long-term girlfriend Susan has just been awarded her PhD, and has announced that she's moving to San Francisco. Whereupon they embark on the identical relationship as Jesse Stone and his ex-wife Jenn: obsessed with each other, unable to let each other go, but sleeping with other people and each other. It's identical, right down to the details of Spenser/Stone admitting to other lovers that he's still hoping to go back to Susan/Jenn eventually and being brave and stalwart in the face of emotional angst.

Really, I wouldn't have minded it--would probably have enjoyed it, even--in one book, or one series. And maybe it's my own fault for having read the two books in the same month. But putting identical "romantic" relationships in two different series makes me think that the author sees it as ideal or common, and I can't quite believe it's either.

Of course, Trouble in Paradise was written 14 years after Valediction, so if I'd read them when they were written, no doubt it wouldn't have bothered me at all. I'm still not sure why I read them in this order--normally, if I have more than one book by an author in my TBR pile, I'm almost obsessive about reading them in the order in which they were written.

Ah, well. Water under the bridge. I still liked this, and I'll still read more Parker books. I think I'll just be a little more careful about trying to read them in order from now on.

Unfortunately, I haven't read Robert B. Parker's Spenser series in order. For this reason, Valediction was a bit spoiled for me, although it is still a fine mystery.

Tommy Banks runs a dance studio and one of his dancers, Sherry Spellman, has apparently been abducted by The Reorganized Church of the Redemption. Spellman is also Tommy's girlfriend. This church borders on a cult and Spenser gets very few answers from church leader, Bullard Winston. The more evasive the church becomes, the more determined Spenser is to get to the bottom of this mystery. In the process, he discovers money laundering, a heroin ring and a crooked construction company. Spenser's job is to figure how these puzzle pieces fit together. I would have never guessed the solution, which came as a complete surprise.

In Valediction, there is also a subplot that involves Spenser and his girlfriend, psychologist Susan Silverman. I can't divulge this part of the book, but having not read this series in order, I already knew this part of the story.

When I discover a good writer, I have a tendency to read everything they have written in a short period of time. But with Parker's Spenser series, I like to string them out and savor each and every one of them.

VALEDICTION is a fine Spenser novel, and deals primarily with Spenser's relationship with Susan Silverman, his longtime girlfriend. The novel begins with Silverman leaving Spenser, and moving to San Francisco. In order to take his mind of his troubles, Spenser takes a new case involving a dancer allegedly kidnapped by a religious cult.

The mystery plot is nothing special, but VALEDICTION is worth reading because it explores Spenser's emotional life and vulnerabilities. As another reviewer mentioned, there is probably more character development in this novel than most of the other books combined.

I do not recommend making this your first Spenser book. I instead suggest reading PROMISED LAND, LOOKING FOR RACHEL WALLACE, and A SAVAGE PLACE to get some more background on Spenser first. Otherwise, I highly recommend this novel to all Spenser fans.

Upon her graduation from Harvard, Susan announces to Spenser that she is moving to San Francisco - she doesn't want him to know where she will be. She will call him when she wants him to hear from her. Left feeling shattered and numb, he is gratified by the distraction when the choreographer from Paul's dance troupe hires him to find a missing dancer, whom the choreographer claims has been forcibly kidnapped by a religious cult. During Spenser's investigations, he pulls out several threads, including connections between the church the girl is with and a local crime boss, a heroin ring and money laundering. He also learns, from Susan, that she is seeing someone else and actually has been for some time - even before she left Boston.

While not lacking in witticisms, this book is notably darker than many previous installations (with the exception of "A Savage Place"). I liked it, but it wasn't easy to read at times. My heart broke for Spenser in many cases. I also felt bad for Linda - the art director from across the way with whom he has flirted for so many years finally has a name! - since she is essentially fulfilling the role of rebound date and all the badness that tends to go with that.

Not to be missed by the hard-core Spenser fan!

This might not be much of a review since the only word which has come to mind since I've finished the read is, "WOW."

More than most offerings in this series so far, # 11 VALEDICTION concluded a catharsis which had been building through previous plots. The theme set by the title and dedication in THE WIDENING GYRE, # 10, continued to gyrate here, accumulating insight about the center holding (at the cliff-edge of a workable level of obsession), weathering The Storm, using as Super Glue a commitment to Capital "L" LOVE.

Even so, I believe that a reader could open this offering in the series as a first taste of Spenser and easily slip into the plot (more like willingly fall down a well) and enjoy it. I'm thankful, though, that I received the addictive effect of having carefully read and reviewed the previous 10 books in order, prior to approaching VALEDICTION.

The solitary, diary-narrative-style set in GYRE continued in VALEDICTION, yet with a gradual erosion of the set-apart, lonely P. I. Emotions ran (and rutted mesmerizing-ly) so deeply that, especially in retrospect, I felt more like I had lived within this book instead of reading its words. I fell so far into the story that I'm not able to immediately recall details of the action, though there was plenty (of delicious detail and apothecary action).

I was particularly intrigued by purposely-parallel-situations exposing various levels-of-obsessions. Parker used Spenser's male client as a juxtaposition of nearly identical feelings of loss endured in a contrasted way to Spenser's handling of Susan's journey taking her further and further away. The precise way in which Susan initiated her abandonment of Spenser was quietly shocking, to the reader as well as to Spenser. Yet, Parker's way of dealing with this complex type of trauma, through Spenser and other characters, was one of the best dramatizations I've read, of coming through the deepest types of separation or loss.

This novel traveled to the ends of several roads in the visceral labyrinths of human intimacy. Lusciously included in this labyrinth were signature scenes with Hawk, Paul & Paige; touching phone conversations with Susan; and a Partridge-Pear-Tree-Gateway, which opened "Through-The-Looking-Glass" of the woman-at-the-drawing-board who'd been posed through several previous novels, in the window across from Spenser's office. Whew. Take a breath.

Impressive to the Nth degree, Dr. Parker. You've done it again, yet gone beyond anywhere you'd been. I have no doubt that the next eleven Spenser novels have been written at sequential levels of mastery, with the first eleven proving a foundation of perfection.

Landmark. Lazarus. Phenomenon. Whatever. Wow.

Linda Shelnutt