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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 10, No. 37 |
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Spenser goes hunting for
a serial seducer of women
of TheColumnists.com
Most of the bad guys Spenser tracks down in Robert B. Parker's long series of detective novels about the modern Boston P.I. are pretty reprehensible guys. They're also usually pretty dangerous and need to be hammered on a bit before Spenser can bring them to justice.
But that's certainly not the case with the "bad guy" in Parker's latest Spenser novel--"The Professional" (Putnam, $26.95). In fact, Spenser's prey, Gary Eisenhower, really isn't all that bad a guy. In fact, I think Spenser kind of likes him and worries that something bad may happen to him just because Spenser tracked him down.
How can a novel's villain be a nice guy? Well, it's complicated. You see, Gary Eisenhower makes women fall in love with him. Once they do, he starts fornicating with them regularly. So far, so good, right? But Gary takes the trouble to make sure his "girl friends" are married women whose husbands are very rich. That way, Gary can show each girl friend the nice videos he has secretly made of their lovemaking with him and offer to NOT show them to the husband, provided the wife comes up with large amounts of cash money for him.
This doesn't sound like the sort of case Spenser might want to handle because it involves helping women who are betraying their husbands. But I suppose we can figure Spenser can't get murder cases to solve every time he turns around. I mean, he has to do a little grut work every now and then, if he's going to be a credible private eye.
But, dear readers, don't worry over much. Murders are committed before too long and Spenser gets to shift into tough guy mode after all.
Truth be told, Gary Eisenhower is one of Parker's better "villain" characters because he's handsome, charming and terribly cool about the nasty things he's been doing with other men's wives. As it turns out, these aren't exactly all sympathetic women that Spenser is helping. In fact, one of them is married to a very bad hombre who may suspect there's somebody doing his wife even before Spenser finds Gary Eisenhower. And this dude has the clout to make Gary disappear rather efficiently--for good.
Spenser has some mostly amusing moments with the real hard dudes of the novel, such as "Boo," a former prizefighter who wants to mess Spenser up good with his bare hands, and "Zel," who is the gun-toting guardian of "Boo," and the second half of their Lenny and George twosome. Some old Spenser regulars also make appearances, including "Ty-Bop," the hired killer who seems to download hip-hop directly into his cranium, and "Vinnie," Spenser's hit man friend who's always happy to fill in for those jobs that Spenser's regular hit man sidekick, "Hawk," can't handle.
Reading a Spenser mystery these days is like attending a family reunion. You know all these people so well that you feel like you're just kind of checking up on what they've been doing since last you met. And, in my opinion, the real reason to read a Spenser novel any time is just to relish the witty stuff that comes out of Spenser's mouth while he's trying to maintain his oddball life as an unmarried gumshoe who's had the same girl friend for about 40 years and never grows tired of her.
"The Professional" isn't the best Spenser novel I've ever read and it's far from the worst. It's the latest, which is all you need to know if you're an addict, which I suppose I may as well admit that I am.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The book cover illustration is courtesy of Putnam. This column first posted Oct. 19, 2009.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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