Rating: 
Summary: Sunny Spenser Randall
Review: Sunny Randall is an amazing woman. She looks like Helen Hunt, who may soon play her on the silver screen, yet she acts like Spenser, whose life she relives in PERISH TWICE. I can't get enough of Spenser, and I am happy Robert Parker is writing other books. The Paradise series is solid, in my opinion, as was Parker's continuation of the Philip Marlowe series. I enjoy how Sunny Randall adapts to a Spenser-like lifestyle. Her hangers-on are similar to the big guy's. The storyline works well, though you are always waiting for Hawk or Susan Silverman to show up. PERISH TWICE is entertaining. I love Parker's writing. Give me more.
Rating:
Summary: Defining What It Means to Be a Healthy Woman Today
Review: Perish Twice is the second in Robert Parker's new series about his female private detective, Ms. Sunny Randall. No one who reads the story will miss the similarities to Spenser. Through the parallels, you can begin to see more clearly Mr. Parker's thesis about what being a good, honest person should be about. What constitutes a proper life for women and men is remarkably similar. As in the Spenser books, most people don't get it. His interpretation of the proper feminist version of goodness and a healthy mind becomes more obvious in Perish Twice than in any other book by Mr. Parker. This transparency is helped by his setting up so many alternative models of women who are either phony, hypocritical, or miserable (or perhaps a little of each). As with the previous Sunny Randall book, Family Honor, this one makes Sunny a little too dependent on her hoodlum ex-in-laws to be totally palatable.The story has four major plot lines. The primary one revolves around a bodyguard job that Sunny does for a high profile feminist, Ms. Mary Lou Goddard. Someone is threatening Ms. Goddard. Sunny soon spots a stalker and tracks him down. The path from there takes many twists. The second one involves Sunny's sister Elizabeth who wants to know if her husband is cheating on her. Sunny quickly finds out that he is, and Sunny plays chaperone and analyst for her emotionally floundering and confused sister. The third relates to her friend, Julie, who suddenly walks away from her marriage. The fourth continues Sunny's relationship with her ex-husband, Richie. Each plot line crosses the others from time to time, providing for a rewarding set of developments. The mystery in the book has two very interesting features. First, it develops surprising depth after what appears to be a very simple beginning and initial plot. Second, Mr. Parker leaves the ending at a place where many stories don't end. As a result, you will have many thoughts about what the story means that you would not otherwise have. That's a fine bit of writing. So you have at least two nice surprises to look forward to enjoying. After you finish this book, you should think about why connecting to other people is so difficult and painful. Another useful question might be why we don't draw more love and support from our connections to one another. What's missing? Put honoring your values ahead of pursuing your needs, if you want to enjoy self-respect.
Rating: 
Summary: Leightweight
Review: Many of the reviews listed compare this book, and it's protagonist Sunny Randall, with Parker's Spenser books. This is the first Robert Parker book I've read, so I'm not going to try to make that comparison. Instead, I will give you my impression as an out-and-out newcomer. There was one word that kept flashing through my head as I was reading this book. That word was "lightweight".
The mystery, involving two murders never really became intriguing enough for me to care who committed them. The story never gathered any momentum nor reached any heights. Rather than building up suspense and reaching some thrilling conclusion that had me on the edge of my seat, the story just petered out. No high point to speak of. Sunny appears to be a Stephanie Plum character - only capable and with more boring friends. The shtick with the dog struck me as too cutesy. I'd call this a good beach book, a nice quick read to kill some time.
Rating:
Summary: Why, Mr. Parker, why?
Review: Sunny Randall, Boston PI, is hired by Mary Lou Goddard prominent militant feminist to protect her from a stalker. But then a member of Ms. Goddard's staff is murdered and Mary Lou fires Sunny for cooperating with the police. But Sunny will not be dissuaded and pursues the case anyway. This is the second Sunny Randall mystery and once again I wonder why Mr. Parker is even bothering. It's Spenser all over again, and a pale imitation at that. She sounds like Spenser, she acts like Spenser, she could be Spenser's twin sister. However she doesn't have the rich characterization that Spenser has. Quite frankly, I think Mr. Parker has difficulty writing from a female point of view. If you read Sue Grafton or Janet Evanovich you'll see what I mean. Things that a woman would normally worry about are just not there in the Sunny Randall books. I'm not saying that a man can't write from a woman's viewpoint, however I think Mr. Parker is having problems with it. This particular story itself is almost a non-story. The ending is slap-dash and not very satisfying. And once again, as in the first book, Sunny must use her ex-husband's mob connections to bail her out of trouble. After the first Sunny Randall came out I swore I wouldn't read another. Well, I did, and I find I still don't like the series. I shudder to think that Mr. Parker is writing a Spenser meets Sunny book but it's bound to happen. There's so much crossover now I guess it's inevitable. My recommendation is if you like Spenser, read Spenser, and don't waste your time on this pale imitation.
Rating: 
Summary: Kill me twice if I run out of Parker stories to read!
Review: Sunny Randall is back, and she has a new part-time job as advisor to the love-lorn. First up is Mary Lou Goddard, a prominent feminist (à la Rachel Wallace, from the Spenser series) who thinks she's being stalked. When Sunny tracks down the stalker, Goddard fires her. Doesn't stop her from continuing to investigate, even though she has no client. First rate mystery, typical Parker twists and turns, and links to criminal types. The second woman is her sister -- who hires her to catch the sister's husband cheating. Which Sunny does, and then spends the rest of the book dealing with the dysfunctional sister. This storyline is kind of hard to take, because you just want to slap the sister. Which is okay because Sunny wants to slap her too, I can't figure out why she doesn't. The third woman is her confidant and best friend Julie who runs into marital problems in this book. I kind of liked her in the first book, but not sure how much I like her involvement in the story here. I'll have to wait and see. Overall, a good story, and definitely a different spin on the normal Spenser story, as Parker continues to carry on writing the best in detective fiction. Some of the characters are 1:1 match-ups with Spenser characters, but they work well in both contexts.
Rating: 
Summary: Spenser in Drag
Review: I've enjoyed Robert Parker's Spenser novels for years. Sometimes they are quite entertaining and other times it seems he's just taken a cookie cutter approach -- plugged in his Spenser formula and out comes a novel. PERISH TWICE is the second novel featuring Sonny Randall and she is, indeed, Spenser all over. There's really very little difference in the prose or style of the novel, or the type of approaches she takes to solve the cases she gets involved in. Nevertheless, Perish Twice is a quite enjoyable read, if not too different from what Spenser fans have seen before. If you like Parker's novels like I do, then you'll find Perish Twice entertaining, if not new.
Rating: 
Summary: Getting tired!
Review: Well, even Mr.Jordan had some bad games. Mr.Parkers second novel featuring protagonist Sunny Randall is a pure air ball. I really liked "Family Honor", despite the similarities to "Early Autumn", however this is border line self plagerism.This book is so close to "Looking for Racheal Wallace" that you would be far better off going and buying a second copy of said book. The issues here, sexual harrasment, sexual identity, are right out of "Wallace". Sadly, even Mr.Parkers trademark banter wears thin. I have been a fan of almost all of this authors work, though the last two Spenser novels were not up to par, but this travesty is literary drek. Mr.Parker has been at this genre since the early 70's, with a yeoman like outpouring of work every year, but it may be time to retire his pen.
Rating:
Summary: Parallel Unicops
Review: Robert B. Parker is best known for his Spenser novels. A hallmark of the Spenser stories is the sensitivity of the tough but not-so-hard-boiled private eye and the relationships among the supporting cast. Parker's new series about a female private eye closely parallels the old series. Perish Twice is the second go-around for Sunny Randall, introduced last year in Family Honor. This time she has three parallel "cases." (Like Spenser, she doesn't let little things like having paying clients affect her desire to investigate. After all, what she really wants is to know the answers.) Her paying client (for a while, at least) is a militant feminist who wants protection from whoever is making threats. But she doesn't want to call in the police because they are sexist pigs and her business is none of theirs. So Sunny is her body guard, escorting her to and from work. When Sunny quickly spots and identifies the stalker, the client does not want her to do anything, and is angry at Sunny for making the ID. Strange! Then a staffer in the client's office is murdered and Sunny is fired by her client because she, against the client's orders, identifies the stalker to the police. The stalker is then found dead with a suicide note and a pistol in his hand, so the police wrap up both cases. Murder followed by guilt-induced suicide. Sunny is not satisfied, however, and pursues the case on her own. Along the way she also has to deal with her pre-feminist-consciousness sister, who thinks her husband is cheating on her and with a mid-life crisis on the part of her best friend, who is a counselor who doesn't want to deal with her situation. Sunny's ex-husband (who shares custody of their dog and is a frequent date) and friend Spike complete the main cast. There are also assorted cops and bad guys who are typical of Parker's menagerie. The conversations are clones of those among Spenser, Hawk, and Susan - and that is a favorable recommendation. Sunny Randall is not Spenser - but then again she is in many ways. We enjoy Spenser time after time, and now we can enjoy Sunny for all of the same reasons.
Rating:
Summary: perish the thought
Review: I suspect I do a disservice to Mr Parker by not looking ever so closely at this and his last few books, but I am so angry at the rip-off nature of his (and others') work of late that concern about, say, the character of Sunny Randall doesn't seem very important. The book has all the characteristics of Parker today: thick margins, thin plot; empty characters, blank pages; smart-cracks, wise-offs, and smug self-satisfaction (does NO ONE have a true, human conversation in Parker's world?); some bad guys who are good (white Boston thugs), some good guys who are bad (strident Boston feminists--and don't fall for the faux feminist poses of these books); an ever so cute dog, an ever so cute gay and buffed up restaurateur who loves being cruel, condescending, and hateful to his clients (try that on for "realism"), and the usual litany of black racial cliches: the whores with hearts of gold, the cheating whores (say what!),the pscyho killer, and the pensive, good-at-heart friend of Sunny, also a brutal mass murderer. But it's not that Parker is showing fierce complexity in humans: it's rather that he can't resist turning a moral issue into dueling wisecracks, muffling the reality of what's going on. But the trouble is that little is going on. The plot of the book almost literally exists on but a dozen pages. Certainly the "puzzle" is disposed of in one brief conversation, the scene almost a farcial parody of Mon. Poirot solving the puzzle in the drawing room. Only here--and think about this--Sunny, our P.I., in whom we're supposed to trust (she says just that) and whose qualities of investigation supposedly animates the book, can't figure anything out (she says just that), so her lover's mafia pals come to her aid, she confronts the villain, says tell me or my friends and betters will be mad at you, and so the villain does--willingly, fully, stupidly. But the thick paper, big type, pages left without print and endless silly dialogue keep this going for better than 250 pages. Can I take a star back? This is infuriating, and it can be seen in many other writers today. I presently think it's a function of genre/formula fiction. Obviously these writers are trying to find new gimmicks (a female detective, changing characters) to stretch out what material they have. Alas, not many have enough.
Rating:
Summary: Page Turner
Review: What a great fast read! If you are looking for a weekend treat, try this one. Robert Parker gives you all the snappy dialogue, interesting plot and quirky characters you will need. It will be interesting to see where he goes with this new character. I loved her and her neurotic sister, her fragile best friend and her unique relationship with her ex and his family. Guaranteed a book you won't want to put down until you are completely through it.
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