I love Robert Parker's writing especially the "Spenser" novels and I'm beginning to enjoy the Jesse Stone novels equally as well.The only complaint I may have is the banter between Spenser and Susan.It gets to the point of being plumb silly at times.Susan is a great character but less is more in her case.I wish Parker would have them marry. That would end the silly sugarness.

Though not difficult to get a feel for the characters in this book, since I am not a regular Spenser fan it felt like I landed in the middle of an episode of a popular show everyone has been watching but me. It wasn't uncomfortable or confusing, just a trifle unusual for a series novel not to have any back story on any of the characters.

PI Spenser takes a case from a distressed husband who wants his wife followed. Spenser gets evidence of her affair on tape, but he gets more than he bargained for when he overhears some very interesting pillow talk. The FBI also finds it interesting, especially when both Spenser's client and his cheating wife are murdered. That Professor Perry Alderson, the woman's lover, seems to have no past is of interest to Spenser, and he is determined he will find out who the man really is and bring him to justice.

Wisecracking Spenser is joined by his vibrant and beautiful lover, Susan Silverman, a psychiatrist who becomes intimately involved in the case, a very lenient FBI agent friend, and a racial mishmash of thug friends who shoot to kill on reflex: Vinnie, Hawk, and Chollo. They cruise through the story trading witty banter and being too cool for their bad selves in a way that is downright smarmy. Spenser is Mr. Slick, directing both the FBI and the local cops to do his bidding, and don't worry your pretty little head over the number of bodies that pile up. They all had it coming, after all.

This is the lightest mystery I have ever read. Nancy Drew's adventures are total nail biters compared to this. Neither Spenser nor his leading lady were ever in the least amount of danger, and Spenser didn't so much as catch a stray piece of lint on his suit, much less suffer anything as traumatizing as a broken nail. I have a feeling all of this could be forgiven by Spenser fans, who might lose themselves in the flurry of clever banter among the characters, but to me it was nothing but a bit of fluff. I also tired of Spenser and Susan's incessant blase conversations about an infidelity that came off like they were discussing nothing more emotionally fraught than golf scores. The most annoying problem, however, is the fact that the author has not bothered to find another verb to use in place of SAID, and every quotation ends in he said or she said or someone said, which was more than a trifle annoying. Though I didn't think it was horrible, a book needs to have a lot more depth, a little danger, and some thrills to be worth reading. This one failed on all counts.

Spenser gets involved with an FBI buddy whose wife is apparently cheating on him. After a couple of dead bodies, the story becomes Spenser's personal quest to come to grips with his and Susan's past. Meanwhile, Spenser and Susan discuss marriage, and Spenser takes a road trip to Ohio to investigate the mysterious Perry Alderson. Surrounded by his usual gang of thugs, Spenser protects Susan and roots out the bad guys (but aren't Spenser's guys bad too?).

Spenser and Hawk sprint through another fast paced adventure. This book is a lot of fun to read. Parker writes so well that we readers are willing to give him plenty of leeway. The villain's motives are never really explained, but we'll let that slide. We willfully forget that our heroes were born during the Depression: they are so old that they are the same age as John McCain! But Parker should help us out. The plot revolves around some recordings: tapes, no less. When was the last time anyone used a tape to record anything? The file, sir, not the tape. Ever hear of MP3?

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am pretty tired of Spenser's continuously dragging up the story of when Susan left him, decades and decades ago. If only he could move on as swiftly as the plot of this novel does!

I'll go on reading Robert Parker's Spenser novels as long as he cares to go on writing them. This is a perfectly adequate page-turner.

The pages turn very quickly because there is so much dialog, and Parker's dialog is descending to self-parody. The average line of dialog seems to be about two words long, and some pages are not much more than thin columns of two-word exchanges.

Years ago, I cared about Spenser's clients, people in real trouble whom he rescued. This time, the client gets killed before we have a chance to care, and there's nothing much to care about except the fact that his wife is unfaithful.

Years ago, I cared about Spenser and Susan. I felt involved, anxious, and saddened during the several novels in which they were separated. This novel tries to refer back to that period, but evoked no real emotional response in me.

It is harder and harder to suspend disbelief, particularly in Spenser's ability to get teams of people to work twenty-four-hour shifts on his behalf, apparently without paying them, just because of being good friends. Spenser himself appears to have no visible means of support, and Parker doesn't even bother to try to explain it with throwaway references to successful jobs. The different shades of moral code between Spenser, his associates, and the people he encounters in the police, FBI, etc. are not believable or interesting.

The big gimmick in this book is the exciting question of whether, after decades of living together, Spenser and Susan will decide to get married. It has the contrived feeling of, there's no way to avoid saying this, Fonzie jumping the shark.

As always, there is some laugh-out-loud funny dialog. I liked this exchange.

"Want to talk about it?" Susan said.
"Sex might make it better," I said.
"You think sex makes everything better," Susan said.
"Uh-huh."
"Maybe you're right," Susan said. "Let's see."