Spenser and Hawk against the mob

REVIEWS BY BY BRUCE TIERNEY

For more than 30 books, author Robert B. Parker has been entertaining fans with tales of wisecracking Boston P.I. Spenser and his hipper-than-thou sidekick, Hawk. The latest addition to the series, Cold Service, is a veritable Hawk-fest, with Spenser in an uncharacteristic role as second-among-equals. As the story opens, Hawk lies in a hospital bed, recuperating from three well-placed gunshot wounds to the back that would have killed a lesser man. He had been hired to protect a bookie from the Ukrainian mob, and he had failed miserably: the bookie, his wife and two of his three children lay dead, and Hawk faces months of painful therapy. Let it be noted that Hawk does not suffer failure particularly well; he has had very little opportunity for practice over the years. He will not rest until he has visited justice (revenge?) on the mobsters, and if a few people have to die, so be it. That, of course, does not sit well with Spenser's psychologist girlfriend, Susan; despite her affection for Hawk, she deplores the violence that defines much of the relationship between the two men. Spenser must walk the fine line between helping his friend and retaining his hold on compassion and humanity, without which he will lose the love of his life. Cold Service presents Parker at the top of his game, delivering fast-paced action, staccato dialogue, and depths of friendship hitherto unexplored in the series.


Another dynamic duo

I would not be the first to draw comparisons between Robert B. Parker's Spenser/Hawk characters and Robert Crais' dynamic duo, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Both lead detectives are witty, macho-yet-vulnerable, insightful and exceptionally verbal (both series are written in the first person, as all good P.I. series should be). The sidekicks are somewhat private and remote, loyal to a fault and cooler than anyone we know. This age-old formula dates back at least to the Lone Ranger and Tonto, if not to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. That said, in the right hands, it is brilliant setup, and Robert Crais owns a pair of the right hands. In the eighth installment of the Elvis Cole series, The Forgotten Man, our hero receives a middle-of-the-night phone call; it seems that a mortally wounded man has told police officers that he is looking for his estranged son, Elvis Cole. Cole never knew his father, purportedly an itinerant "human cannonball" in a traveling circus, and he is cautiously intrigued. With the aid of the aforementioned Joe Pike and L.A. policewoman Carol Starkey, Cole launches an investigation into the identity of the dead man. There is more at play here than Cole knows, however, and he soon finds himself the target of a psychopathic killer, apparently somehow related to the man claiming to be Cole's father. The Forgotten Man delves more deeply into the past of Elvis Cole than any of the previous installments, giving the reader insight into the events that led him to his investigative career. A crackling storyline and vivid supporting characters make this book one of the best yet in the popular series.


Mystery of the month

The March Tip of the Ice Pick goes to James Swain for his exquisitely rendered Mr. Lucky. Tony Valentine knows more about gambling scams than anyone alive. A retired Atlantic City cop, Valentine has opened an agency to help casinos identify the cheaters that cost the industry billions of dollars each year. However, Valentine has never met anyone as lucky as North Carolina hayseed Ricky Smith. Having survived a multistory fall from a burning Las Vegas hotel, Smith walked across the street to a casino and proceeded to take them for a small fortune. Blackjack, roulette, craps, straight poker, Ricky couldn't lose. To make matters even more unbelievable, when he returns home to rural Slippery Rock, he wins a long-shot bet on a horse race and $50,000 more on a single lottery ticket purchase. Valentine smells a rat, and pays a visit to Slippery Rock to see what he can dig up (and, as is often the case in mystery novels, he digs up way more than he had bargained for). Author James Swain is an accomplished card magician in his own right, as well as a world-renowned authority on cheating; he knows whereof he speaks, and he delivers it to his readers clearly and succinctly through the voice of Tony Valentine.


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