Paper Doll (Spenser Mysteries (Audio))

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the Best
Review: I have read all the Parker books more than once, and this one is my favorite. You shouldn't start with it - it would be better to be familiar with the character first - but if you're going to pick and choose, choose this one. The mystery is top-shelf, the supporting characters are carefully drawn, there isn't too much of the adorably annoying Susan, and Spenser is at his wise-cracking best. He really hit his stride with this book.

Rating:
Summary: What's lurking behind the facades
Review: I have read many, many of the Spencer books. Some I liked better than others. I rank this one close to the top. Spencer is hired to find out who killed Olivia Nelson. She was killed with many blows to the head with a hammer. The police have done all they can to find the killer but had no success. Spencer is hired by Olivia's husband. A trip is made back to a town in South Carolina, where Olivia Nelson came from. But is her real name Olivia Nelson? Yes, there is a person by that name but where is she? Why would a Senator want to keep Spencer from finding out anything? Spencer in jail?????? Many, many twists and turns. The ending is very good, really two endings, finding the killer and finding out about the senator. A good Spencer read! The only thing that would make it better, for me, would be less Susan and more Hawk.

Rating:
Summary: A standard case for Spenser
Review: I have read several Robert Parker "Spenser for Hire" novels and have enjoyed all of them. This particular book was good, but seemed more formulaic than most. Some of his books are very interesting with unusual plot twists. Unfortunately, some of them, like this one, seem to be cranked out to a formula. Parker has been very successful in slowly defining Spenser's character and nuances. I felt this book drew on already established characteristics and went too far in the extreme with the climactic gunfight scene in the end. Still, the novel plays well into the series and is a fast paced book and a good read for true Spenser fans.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the Best
Review: In Double Deuce Parker neglected mystery to focus on social commentary. In Paper Doll, however, he achieves quality in both.

As a mystery, it's a success. A crime is committed, Spenser is hired, the clues and suspects are introduced... By the end, the simple story grows into one of Parker's most complex plots.

And as social commentary, it also succeeds. In addition to Parker's comparison of different economic classes, he addresses the issue of homosexual prejudice. It's all effectively done without being excessively didactic.

Paper Doll is highly recommended for fans of the series, even if you don't follow the best approach of reading them in chronological sequence.

Rating:
Summary: Solid if not spectacular
Review: In Paper Doll, Spenser is hired by Loudon Tripp, a local Boston businessman who is trying to help the police solve the apparently "random" killing of his society wife. Without any better ideas and stumped in Boston, Spenser heads to a sleepy South Carolina town where the victim was born to try and dig up something the police may have overlooked. In so doing, Spenser manages to alienate the local law enforcement authorities, get himself followed, and finds out that the victim may not have been who she appeared to be. In fact neither is the esteemed businessman Loudon Tripp, whose rubber checks bounce all the way to Brookline.

Along the way, Spenser is offered some dubious assistance by a hard-drinking Massachussets senator, who may have some skeletons in his closet to hide. There is the usual playful banter between Susan and Spenser, in their perrenial honeymoon-like lovefest, but a lot less Hawk than this reader would prefer. All in all I thought this was a pretty decent read, better than Potshot to be sure, but not exactly Dashiell Hammett either. Fans of the series will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Punishment is not what Spenser does...
Review: Spenser is hired by Loudon Tripp, a Boston aristocrat who believes the brutal slaying of his wife Olivia Nelson is something more than the random act of a psychopath. Spenser accepts the case with a rather interesting caveat, telling Tripp he will find the killer, "But punishment is not what I do." I picked up on this line right away and knew it somehow foreshadowed the unique twist that Robert B. Parker invariably provides in his Spenser novels. As our hero begins to investigate the life of Olivia Nelson, everything is simply too good to be true. No one has anything bad to say about her, but her house looks more like a photo spread than a home, the children are obviously glossing over their troubled lives, and the husband seems to be clinging to more than his fair share of illusions. On top of all this throw in a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts with a reputation for chasing the ladies (he is bald, so obviously he is meant to be the OTHER Senator from Massachusetts, right?) who's idea of helping Spenser is to have him beaten up by the cops.

Since Spenser's favorite writer is Faulkner, there are several fun scenes when our hero in the Deep South (think "In the Heat of the Night"), dealing with the colorful local populace. Spenser heads South to talk to Olivia's father and has an interesting talk with the old man's servant by the name of Jefferson (which seems appropriately symbolic once the mystery is totally unraveled). We are also introduced to another possible continuing member of the supporting cast, Detective Lee Farrell, who is young and gay and rather surprised that Spenser does not care about either of those things as long as the guy can help him solve the case. The solid portrait of Farrell somewhat balances out the buffoonery of the Senator. Ultimately "Paper Doll" is another one of those Spenser novels where he is hired to do a job and the client tries to fire him but it is way to late to do any good. But then this is also one of those cases where trying to figure out the best thing to do is rather tricky, especially since Parker does not like our hero to ever use the same solution twice.

Rating:
Summary: Parker is Back!!
Review: Thankfully Parker has given up creating characters so stereotyped as to be unbelievable. His strongest point is plotting and this one is wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Parker!

Rating:
Summary: Unusual twist on "the butler did it"
Review: The wife of Loudon Tripp is brutally murdered by being pounded in the head with a hammer. Lieutenant Quirk investigates, but reaches a dead-end, due to lack of evidence and actions by the political machine. Quirk then advises Tripp to hire Spenser, which he does. On the surface, Tripp's family life gives the appearance of being ideal. Lovely wife heavily involved in the community, two very successful children and a great deal of inherited wealth. The police have tentatively attributed the murder to a random act of violence and while the case was not closed, it was about as lukewarm as it could be.
However, it does not take long for Spenser to learn that not all is as it seems to be, he visits the Tripp house and it gives him the appearance of a Potemkin village. To him, it is not a place where people live, but something kept in a permanent state of open house. Spenser then decides to visit the place where Tripp's wife grew up in an attempt to learn more about her. Of course, he tangles with the local law enforcement officers, who are being prodded by some private security people from Washington D. C. They are about to seriously rough him up when Quirk arrives and takes control in a very effective way. Parker is a master in describing this scene, Quirk makes no explicit threat and uses no violence, yet it is very clear that he is considering it and will not hesitate to kill a few people if they provide the justification.
The story has many twists and turns, and of course Spenser, Susan, Quirk and Hawk all have their contributions. However, in the end, the real criminal turns out to be a senator, and the murderer is someone who is extremely loyal to a man known as Jumping Jack for his past sexual activity, but who is now an obese, aged drunk. This is one of the better Spenser novels, because it lacks one of Spenser's traits, violence. Aside from the mild beating Spenser receives in jail and the one he and Quirk give as payback, there is no violence. Not a shot is fired, the storyline is based on people trying to hide things from outsiders, and Parker plays it to perfection.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book has very little narrative summary to support the dialogue. As a result, it reads much like a movie script. Character development is weak and inconsistent, and the prose is almost juvenile in spots. It is something I would expect to see from a freshman college student, not a well-respected, seasoned author. I haven't read Parker's other books, so perhaps they are all written in this same over-simplistic style. It apparently works for some people, but not for me.

Rating:
Summary: Some tragic stories unfolded as a mystery
Review: This is another Spenser story with the flavor of a who-dun-it and a very tragic undertone as you learn the stories of the murdered woman, her husband and children, her mother, her father and his servant, and a new continuing character introduced in this story, a gay police detective named Farrell.

Part of Parker's skill is shown in the way previous characters reappear. There's a brief reference to Vinnie, Joe Broz' long time hit man who left the mobster in a previous story. Susan plays a lesser role this time, as does Hawk. In Hawk's case, this is only fair since he carried the last book in the series.

All in all, this is a very good Spenser, but be prepared for the underlying tragedy of several lives here.