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- Hardcover: 320 pages ;
Dimensions (in inches): 1.36 x 9.26 x 6.32
- Publisher: Putnam Pub Group;
(March 18, 2002)
- ISBN: 0399148450
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Book
Description
"Sometimes you have to wonder how
Robert B. Parker keeps his mojo working. . . . There is a
trick to keeping the faith with an old hero. In an age of
shifty heroes with shaky values, he has created a hero who can
still stand up for himself-and us." (The New York
Times Book Review)
When fifty-one-year-old Nathan Smith, a once-confirmed
bachelor, is found in his bed with a hole in his head made by
a .38-caliber slug, it's hard not to imagine Nathan's young
bride as the one with her finger on the trigger.
Even her
lawyer thinks she's guilty. But given that Mary Smith is
entitled to the best defense she can afford-and thanks to
Nathan's millions, she can afford plenty-Spenser hires on to
investigate Mary's bona fides.
Mary's
alibi is a bit on the flimsy side: She claims she was watching
television in the other room when the murder occurred. But the
couple was seen fighting at a high-profile cocktail party
earlier that evening, and the prosecution has a witness who
says Mary once tried to hire him to kill Nathan.
What's
more, she's too pretty, too made-up, too blonde, and sleeps
around-just the kind of person a jury loves to hate.
Spenser's up against a wall; leads go nowhere, no one knows a
thing. Then a young woman, recently fired from her position at
Smith's bank, turns up dead. Mary's vacant past suddenly
starts looking meaner and darker-and Spenser's suddenly got to
watch his back.
With lean, crackling dialogue, crisp action, and razor-sharp
characters, Widow's Walk is another triumph.
From
the Back Cover
Praise for Robert B. Parker's Potshot:
"Sometimes you have to wonder how Robert B. Parker keeps
his mojo working...There is a trick to keeping the faith with
an old hero. If [Parker] expects applause, he's got it coming.
In an age of shifty heroes with shaky values, he has created a
hero who can still stand up for himself - and us." - The
New York Times Book Review
It's
good to see private eye Spenser back in Boston, after his
ludicrous imitation of a frontier lawman in Robert B. Parker's Potshot.
But he's getting nowhere investigating the gunshot murder of
banker Nathan Smith in Widow's Walk.
The cops figure
Smith's ingenuous but unfaithful young wife, Mary, pulled the
trigger. She denies it. Spenser, hired by former prosecutor Rita
Fiore to help build Mary Smith the best defense her money can
buy, isn't sure either way, and the more time he spends on this
case (dense with business and sexual deceptions), the more
perplexed he becomes.
Of course, our poetry-spouting hero
finally catches a break by linking Smith's demise to a
convoluted real-estate scam.
The rest of the novel offers plenty
of Parker's characteristically witty dialogue, the slayings of
several informants that you know from the get-go are toast, and
ample opportunities for Spenser and his robustly menacing
sidekick, Hawk, to intimidate lesser thugs.
Unfortunately, the author isn't as
attentive to the needs of other series regulars, including
Spenser inamorata Susan Silverman, whose restrained jealousy
toward lawyer Fiore ("Rita is sexually rapacious and
perfectly amoral about it. I'm merely acknowledging that")
and self-flagellation over a gay client's suicide somehow add no
new depth to her character.
Parker has a propulsive prose style
and can still concoct engrossing stories; his 2001 standalone
Western, Gunman's Rhapsody, is a fine example.
Widow's Walk doesn't quite
meet that standard. Though entertaining, it's an unsatisfying
chapter in a series that's become too predictable. --J.
Kingston Pierce
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