I enjoy Robert B. Parker's work, but many of his later novels have a by-the-numbers quality that make them pleasant diversions and nothing more. PLAYMATES is pretty much a perfect example; there is nothing in this book that I haven't seen in other, superior novels by Parker.

Unlike most of the other Spenser books, however, there are no real sympathetic characters in this book. The basketball player is arrogant and annoying, and is not worth the effort that Spenser invests in trying to save him. In many ways, he reminds me of April Kyle in TAMING A SEA HORSE and MILLION DOLLAR BABY -- a character with almost no redeeming features who Spenser forms some inexplicable attachment to.

The plot of PLAYMATES is thin and there's very little true mystery or suspense. My advice is to skip this book and try other Spenser novels, such as EARLY AUTUMN, MORTAL STAKES, or LOOKING FOR RACHEL WALLACE.

The setting for this Spenser novel is the Taft college basketball team that is challenging for the NCAA title. A story has been published in the campus paper alleging that some of the players are engaged in point shaving. Dwayne Woodcock is on the team and the best college basketball player in the country. He is a tough, underprivileged man from Brooklyn and a man of street principles. Spenser is asked to investigate and while it takes a bit of time, after studying game tapes and looking over the records of the games, he concludes that Dwayne is shaving points.
Being Spenser, he encounters the gambler behind the plot and the gambler hires people to kill Spenser, which of course fails miserably. As he continues his investigation, Spenser learns that Dwayne does not know how to read and there has been a go-along plot among the faculty at Taft to keep Dwayne eligible. Nobody specifically changed grades, just gave Dwayne extra opportunities to succeed where reading was not required. After working the problem for some time, Spenser manages to find a solution where no one learns of the point shaving or the complicity of others in the scam.
My favorite character in the book is the Taft basketball coach, Dixie Dunham. A fiery guy who demands a lot from his players, he makes the mistake of fighting with Spenser. However, after he gets beat up, he agrees to cooperate with Spenser and even benches Dwayne during the NCAA tournament when he will not give the name of the gambler. Despite all of his bluster and obnoxiousness, Dunham proves to be an honest man who does the right thing, even if it will cost him the national title.
This is a good book with Spenser once again proving to be a thug with a moral compass and an overgrown sense of decency. As an academic, I could also relate to the attitude of the faculty and staff at Taft. While there is no overt bending of the rules for an athlete, s/he is quietly helped along a path that avoids their weaknesses.

I've read all of the Reviews and I am AMAZED that no one has noted that the book is obviously based on an actual point shaving scandal at Boston College ("Taft"?). The fixer was Goodfella/Wiseguy Henry Hill. "Danny Davis" was probably Rich Kuhn( from Monroeville, PA who Henry probably met through his Pittsburgh Drug Connection). The main fixer was Ernie Cobb who was never indicted. I have no idea whether Cobb was illiterate or not. Cobb later played for the Harlem Magicians not the NBA. And Kuhn later did time. No, he wasn't killed. And Henry obviously wasn't a College Professor. Don't know if he made it to High School. If you pay attention to the movie there is a Bar scene where a comment is made that "They are fixing gammes up in Boston". That comment was out of time and place. The scandal wasn't uncovered until after Henry was arrested. Anyhow I thought I should pass my thoughts on. I agree with a lot of the reviews. This is a good, not great, Spenser Novel.

When Spenser is hired to investigate allegations of point shaving by members of the Taft university basketball team, he quickly realizes there is much more to this than meets the eye. With the help of several friends and contacts, he finds that point shaving is, in fact, occurring and tracks down the source to the best player on the team - Dwayne Woodcock. However, Dwayne refuses to acknowledge this, or the fact (as Spenser soon learns) that he cannot read. Spenser, being a sucker for hard-luck cases, despite the fact, as he says, that Dwayne is "arrogant, but he's surly," decides that he wants to help Dwayne and at the same time track down whoever is holding Dwayne's strings and clip them off.

As usual, this means Spenser ticks off a lot of people and has a couple attempts on his life, thwarted, as usual, with the assistance of Hawk.

I enjoyed this book - not only was it an interesting look into the lives of basketball players and the pressures that university professors may face to make sure they can remain on the team, but also the 80s in general. The description of the clothing and hair was so typical of what I remember that I laughed out loud at several points in the book just from remembering how ridiculous we all used to look.

Definitely don't miss this, especially if you're a fan of Robert Parker and/or Spenser.

The sass quotient went off the charts in the opening of PLAYMATES, as Spenser lunched in luxury with a big shot trustee on the board of Taft University, then faced off with the cool cats at the college newspaper office (giving a classic line for the heart of journalism), then connected with the hot shot coach of the basketball team, which was allegedly shaving points somewhere in the ranks. Each time Spenser met a new person or persons I smirked in anticipation of how they'd respond to him and how he'd prod tender spots. Of course, whenever Spenser met someone worthy of him I all but leaped out of my chair and clicked my heels.

The return to the university scene reflected back to some of the themes and setting auras in THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT, the pilot to the Spenser series. Parker's writing style seemed to take a reminiscent walk in PLAYMETES, as he described physical scenes with the crisp depth and detail of his first few novels which opened the series in the seventies. In a sense, PLAYMATES seemed to be a pleasant pivotal point for the trilogy of Spenser, Parker, and his readers, as many of the prior ingredients-with-pull in books 1 - 15 were surged and stirred into this pot of philosophical, literary gold.

I see why/how C. MCCALLISTER was able to write his exquisite review from the reading perspective he described. It would be worth your while to read that review; and while I'm at it maybe I should mention that quite a following of perceptive reviewers have faithfully tracked this series with pens prosing in posh syntax style. Read `em and weep if you don't have a private collection of each of the 34-and-counting books in this series.

When I ordered PLAYMATES from Amazon, for some reason, I was more curious than normal about the title, how it would fit into the plot. I was still wondering about the title, after having read to the last page of this novel's ingeniously unusual type of impossible solutions and resolutions, which went on to become one of the signatures of Parker's denouement genius. MCCALLISTER described this signature precisely, in a succinct sentence or two, though he didn't call it a signature, since PLAYMATES was the first novel he had read in this series, which gave his reluctant capture even more weight in the astuteness category .

With a bit of contemplation after completing the last page of PLAYMATES with a smile, I could see who the pair of playmates were, and why Parker's use of that word would capture anyone with a sensitive soul protected by a gruff, sassy, or classic exterior. After having read the first 16 Spenser novels now, with a peppering of some of the later books into the mix, I was reminded pleasantly why I continue to crave Spenser's sass and genuine class, starting from the first few paragraphs I read in one of the later books in this series. If you want to know which one that was, which caused me to pause within THE ACCIDENTAL READER clause and cause, feel free to read my reviews from the base of my Listmania, which lists all books in the series and indicates which ones over which I've blathered.

I contemplated closing this review by listing the ingredients (from previous plots) which I noted above as having been surged and stirred into PLAYMATES. Then I thought, "Maybe not. Better to let that list become bait for further study of this series, including a soul dip into its prime review collection." You might slip on a hint of allergy remains here and there, but let the "faithful" leading the show pull you out.

Of course, in addition to Amazon's Customer Reviewers, some of the best big name journalists also pose posh and perceptive on Spenser, who seems to bring out the sass and spark in a massive collection of readers.

Live long and well, Parker. When you leave, your trail will endear and endure,
Linda Shelnutt