When a teenage girl and her baby are killed in a drive-by shooting at the Double Deuce housing project, a group of the residents hire Hawk to solve their murders and to drive the gang out of the project. Hawk, naturally, asks Spenser to join him.

The story is a study in contrasts. While Hawk and Spenser are spending their days in the poverty-stricken, crime-ridden ghetto, Spenser's taking a stab at living with Susan in clean, comfortable relative luxury, and Hawk is dating a beautiful television reporter. The contrasts build up as Hawk and Spencer's showdown with the gang escalates, until the reporter is taken hostage and the two worlds collide.

There's also a wonderful contrast between the reporter's view of how to help the people of the Double Deuce--a well-meaning but unworkable plan that comes from a privileged point of view--and the limited but real help provided by an ex-nun who knows and understands the environment.

The eventual outcome is never really in any doubt, but this is one of those cases where it's not where you're going that's important, but how you get there. The relationships--between Hawk & Spenser and between Spenser & Susan--are intense and solid, even if Spenser and Susan's relationship is a work in progress. And the dialogue is unsurpassed. I absolutely love the dialogue.

It's a feel-good, good guys vs. bad guys story, and on one level, it's like a Steven Seagal movie, which I'll confess I have a weakness for, but its excellence is in the execution. The pacing: in particular, the elegant meshing of the two main plot threads; the characters; the action...it's all done so precisely that the work is invisible, and the story is real.

It's a first-person story, like the rest of the series, and it's very dependent on the personality of Spenser. I love the character, so I love the books. But if the character grates on you--and I can see how he could--I imagine that the whole book will, too.

DOUBLE DEUCE is an okay Spenser novel. In this book, Spenser and Hawk deal with a gang killing of a fourteen year old girl and her baby daughter. As they do so, they are forced to deal with the stark day-to-day realities of the black underclass in Boston, and how many of its children are alienated and disenfranchised from society.

I respect what Parker tried to do here -- DOUBLE DEUCE is a gritty read, designed to provokes thought about racial and class division in America. It is not, however, that great of a story. The plotline is way too short and stale, and largely boils down to a lot of macho posturing between Hawk and the main gang leader. The resolution of the plot is also quite predictable.

That being said, DOUBLE DEUCE is highly readable, and I enjoyed it enough to finish. There are much better Spenser novels out there, but if you enjoy Robert Parker's writing style, you should find this one entertaining enough to spend a few hours on.

When 14-year-old Devona Jefferson and her three-month-old baby Crystal are shot down near the projects at 22 Hobart St (thus called Double Deuce), a committee of the residents comprised of women, old men and the reverend Orestes Tillis contact Hawk and ask him to help weed out the gangs who have taken over the neighborhood. Hawk agrees to help and brings in Spenser. Understandably suspicious of Spenser, many of the residents outright state that they do not want him there - the most outspoken being Tillis, who calls Spenser the White Satan and says that he will not support Spenser being there. Hawk says that Spenser is there with him and if anyone has a problem with that, then both he and Spenser will be on their way.

Spenser and Hawk spend a lot of time around the Double Deuce, trying to work out who runs the Hobarts (the local gang) as well as who spiked (shot) Devona and her baby. As they investigate, connections to their old "friend" Tony Marcus pops up - it seems that Marcus has been using the Hobarts to run drugs through the area.

In many ways, this was a very difficult book to read - not to say I did not enjoy it, but it was full of uncomfortable truths about the disenfranchised who surround us every day. It paints a very bleak picture of life in the projects. I would recommend this book to just about anyone - read it and think about it.

I just read this book 2 days ago,so I still remember it clearly. This must be a kids book like Nancy Drew or something to merit anything over 2 stars. Firstly, the whole story is entirely cliche. We have two tough guy detectives who dont talk much cause they dont need to "we dont think, it just happens" or something stupid like that which they actually say in the book. The whole young gangster and power hungry minister(oh wow thats creative) are the basic characters as well. The very first chapter is the closest this book gets to exiting, they pretty much drag the story with a bunch of nonsense filler. Just like the reporter lady "doesnt know anything about the streets" neither does the author who pretty much uses basic sterotypes, and situations. I for one was very dissapointed, i will not read any more of his generic garbage. One thing I did get out of this book is the confidence for writing my own novels since I know that at worst my book would still be better than this one and some people are giving it pretty good ratings (WTF???)I would've like to have had the option of a negative 5. Thanks for your time whoever you are do not make the same mistake I did!

As a calculated contrast to life in the gang-infested DOUBLE DEUCE housing complex, scenes of daily doings in Susan's home provided prime parlay between Spenser and his lady, resulting in poignant posing in the DD bailiwick broken up by hearty humor in the SS Titanic. What a cartoon-funny difference (no black-tongued-grins from "THE WAR OF THE ROSES" there) Parker painted between Susan's fronted femaleness and Spenser's gangling guy-ness. As Parker obviously planned, the light-hearted clashes in SS roommate rambles became an "Accidental Family" foil to the heartbreaking reality-overwhelm of the gang members' no-relief lifestyle boring holes of terror into their "straight" neighbors.

In DOUBLE DEUCE Parker created another classic "pair" of new female characters, providing them with reverse personalities and reverse first letters in their names:

"E. M." was for Erin Macklin who drank her whiskey easy as she held the glass with both hands (contemplate why Parker repeated more than thrice how Macklin held her amber-filled glass, with the caring gesture of duel palms).

"M. E." was for Marge Eagen, who pumped and primped her preen until Spenser crimped her lack of style. (For an opposite styled Marge character, a genuine, real-life article of bull dog class, see Coal & Coca-Cola)

As a Parker fan would anticipate, the scenes in which these two women seared the social brine with Spenser were intriguing, engrossing, and effortlessly entertaining.

Hawk was featured in his best ebony sheen in DOUBLE DEUCE, as his image, which had preceded him into gangland territory, was developed through interactions with the gang members, all of which were fascinating, and felt to be on target with the tang and sizzle of those subcultures. Another side of Hawk's image was uncovered here, through his intimate study of black-lady Jackie, and her jigsaw-ed break-down of Hawk's heart hung low to capture her song.

The continuation of Pearl-the-wonder-dog's character (she was introduced with pizzazz in PASTIME, # 18 Spenser) provided a welcome warm spot in this plot. I couldn't help but wonder if Parker might use the heart-healing-dog to get through to the gangs, as he used the 3 mongrels rescued in STARDUST (used them to help coax Jill's soul to return for another round of participation in life).

In the first part of Chapter 37 an exquisite scene of an easy-dance-step, multi-manoeuver training seminar set itself up around mangy machinations (no hair lost on the dog) of Susan, Spenser, pancakes, and Pearl:

>> I (Spenser) left my pancakes and went to the bedroom and put on a shirt (training from Susan). When I came back Pearl was still sitting gazing at my plate, but the plate was empty and clean. I looked at her. She looked back clear eyed and guilt free, alert for another opportunity.

>> "Ah yes," I said, "a hunting dog." <<

Contemplate that in reference to Hawk's name, which clarified in DOUBLE DEUCE's chapter 37, especially in reference to Jackie's complaints that she couldn't "get to him."

Having endured decades mired within a nurtured angst of ethical determinations, as humans trod toward the core of the Apple from "The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" ... might they sometimes long for a temporary release from the moral gauntlet; might they long for a cease of constantly pushed cerebral convolutions defining every dot quantum on the eternal line between Right and Wrong ... might they wish for a few moments to experience the easy, non-complex mind, set into the nature of a hunting dog, or a Hawk ... might they sometimes long to be:

"Clear eyed and guilt free"?

In addition to primal concepts, prime setting descriptions were applied here, as only Parker could accomplish, in bringing to pose on paper the essence of ghetto life.

Get a dog's life?

The concluding scene in DOUBLE DEUCE catered a surprising twist to Susan and Spenser's attempts at traditional homemaking. The close was as refreshing to the double S as a storm-brought rainbow. The choice carried in DD's final chapter surfaced in silent style into the thematic structure of PAPER DOLL, # 20 in the Spenser series.

A prolific author successfully carries a ranging style through time and time and time, until the heart says, "Take to the sky on the wings of a hawk."

Linda Shelnutt