The Perspiring Writer Magazine

Robert B. Parker is one of the country's busiest authors. A writer who produces one book per year is considered prolific. Since 2007, Parker has averaged three books per year. His Jesse Stone series is swiftly gaining in popularity, as are his Westerns. He is also the author of the six-volume Sunny Randall series. 

With all these characters pulling at Parker's attention, one might assume that his first and best protagonist, the private detective Spenser, is being neglected a bit. Sadly, judging from Parker's latest Spenser offering, that assessment may be accurate. The Professional is the 38th installment in the Spenser series, and fans have become spoiled by the exploits of the literate, gourmet-cooking gumshoe. Parker's spare prose and witty dialogue are without peer. But his latest effort suggests the unthinkable - that the master author and his nonpareil detective may both be losing their juice.

In the latest volume, Spenser gets a visit from an attorney who represents a group of women in need of the kind of assistance only he can provide. The women have several things in common: they are all in their thirties, they are all attractive, and all are married to wealthy men much older than they are. They are also connected - pun intended - to the same man: a slick-talking opportunist named Gary Eisenhower. 

Mr. Eisenhower has carved out an interesting and lucrative niche for himself, bedding down wealthy, married women of "a certain age," obtaining audiovisual evidence of the trysts, then blackmailing the women. Four of these women have contacted an attorney in the hopes of making Eisenhower cease and desist, but none of the women want to involve the police because they don't want their husbands to get wind of their indiscretions.

Enter Spenser.

It doesn't take long for the detective to find Eisenhower, who is hardly a Mensa candidate, but the more Spenser learns, the more muddled the situation gets. Shortly after he takes the case, shady underworld characters get involved, which plants a nagging question into his mind: What does an infidelity/extortion case have to with crimelords and legbreakers?

Most of the treats that Spenser fans have come to expect are there: the crisp writing, the snappy patter, and some of the best supporting characters in crime fiction. There's also the humorous interplay between Spenser, Hawk, and Susan, and vivid, affectionate descriptions of the city of Boston. The problem, in my not-so-humble estimation, is that Spenser is winding down. Robert B. Parker is 77 years old, and his detective is, at the youngest, in his mid-sixties. Hawk, Spenser's ultra-violent friend (Hawk would be deeply offended at being referred to as a "sidekick") is - or should be - of a comparable age. 

In their day, they were arguably the toughest duo in the history of American crime fiction, but they're a little long in the tooth to be walking the mean streets these days. The paucity of action scenes in The Professional reflects this, and since suspense was never Parker's forte, the book is lacking two essential elements of good crime fiction.

Mind you, Robert B. Parker is probably not capable of writing a bad book. As a longtime Spenser fan, I will continue to read the series as long as Parker continues to add to it. However, he has set the bar to a height that this latest novel doesn't approach. The author might do well to give his main gumshoe a little more attention.