Ace Hits His Stride

 Robert B. Parker’s - Cheap Shot - Ace Atkins (Putnam Publishing)

Back in 1989 Raymond Chandler’s estate selected with Robert B. Parker to finish he partial manuscript for a book called, Poodle Springs that Chandler left upon his passing. Parker was a solid choice to finish off the book featuring the hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe. At the time fans cried foul, complaining that Parker could never live up to standard Chandler had set.

Flash forward a few decades and now its Parker fans who grouse about the authors selected to continue the stories featuring Parker’s collection of memorable characters. Ace Atkins finds himself firmly in the least enviable position of picking up the reins of the series featuring Parker’s most famous character, Boston private investigator Spenser.

As a confirmed Parker fanatic I always approach these new efforts with a mix of excitement and trepidation that I temper with the clarity that no one can truly replace Parker. With his third outing carrying on the Spenser series entitled Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot Atkins really hits his stride. While to two prior efforts were chock full of references to familiar places and faces from Spenser’s world, this one keeps in place that cast while generating an original storyline that has a ripped from the headlines quality.

Take one highly paid NFL superstar, add some nightclub gun play, a dead body, shake with a curvy trophy wife who has substance issues and a checkered porn past and throw in a kidnapped son and the story is off to the races. Spenser is on the case weaving his way through the Boston underground to track down not only the kidnappers, but also the truth.

Rather than exercising his ability to simply name drop, Atkins uses those familiar characters to weave an entertaining tale anchored firmly by Spenser’s do the right thing moral compass.

Review: Robert B. Parker - Sixkill

For me, it was bittersweet to read Sixkill by Robert B. Parker. Since his passing in January of 2010, a handful of books that he had in the pipeline have been released, but Sixkill will be the final book in the series of novels featuring hardboiled, but tender, Boston P I, Spenser.

A friend introduced me to Parker/Spenser and I was hooked from the start. I quickly worked my way through the back catalog and continued to voraciously gobble up each new edition to the series. Along the way Parker added a couple of new denizens to the Boston ‘burbs, in the form of Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall, who joined the long list of colorful, quirky characters that filled the pages of his books.

Parker was a master at drawing compelling characters who while often habitually flawed; they almost uniformly do the right thing and make the honorable thing. Sixkill adds the character Zebulon Sixkill, a Cree Indian, who works as a body guard and ends up under Spenser’s sizable wing.

Parker does a masterful job of drawing Sixkill’s background from a child on the res, to the college football field and into the seedier side of Hollywood celebrity body guarding.

Along the way Spenser hones Sixkill’s skills and prepares him for the final showdown and crossing swords, or in this case a Bowie knife and .40 Smith and Wesson, with a sadistic hit man out to kill them.
It makes Parker’s passing all the more sad; Sixkill is a good fit to join the long list of hard men, skilled with hands and weapons, like: Hawk, Vinnie Morris, Chollo, Bobby Horse, Ty Bop, and Junior.

While I see that Michael Brandman, the television producer responsible for the Tom Selleck movie’s featuring Jesse Stone, is set to continue that series with the new book, Killing The Blues set for release this September, I’m not sure Parker’s estate should strike a similar deal to continue the Spenser series. Some things are better left the way they are.