Taming a Seahorse

Rating:
Summary: Once again April Kyle complicates live for Spenser
Review: "Taming a Sea-Horse" finds Spenser returning to simpler pursuits after the imitation James Bond heights of our hero's previous story, "A Catskill Eagle." Susan Silverman is back in Spenser's life with minimal mention of the hell she put him through in the last couple of books when she was off in California. But they are very happy together, although they now find very little time to do any real cooking. The problem this time around is an old one revisited: April Kyle, the teenage prostitute Spenser saved in "Ceremony" has left the call girl service of Patricia Utley and has started turning tricks for Robert Rambeaux, the man she supposedly loves. Spenser does a little investigating but before he gets too deep into the matter April disappears, Rambeaux is beaten up by somebody other than Spenser, and one of the hookers our hero intereviewed is murdered. Once again, there is much more to the case than meets the eye.

This is an intimate Spenser novel, which was certainly a wise move on Robert B. Parker's part after the epic scale of its predecessor. At the end of "Ceremony," Spencer and Susan were planning on taking April to meet Mrs. Utley because they could not come up with a better solution and we could only guess at what would become of the young girl. Now the gap of the last four years has been filed in and our hero has another chance to help the young girl, whom I suspect might be on her way to being the surrogate daughter in Spenser's growing symbolic family unit. While "Taming a Sea-Horse" might seem to cover some of the ground Robert B. Parker has covered before, there is always some sort of twist, and it is not understatement to say that this time around the story ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Rating:
Summary: Once again April Kyle complicates live for Spenser
Review: "Taming a Sea-Horse" finds Spenser returning to simpler pursuits after the imitation James Bond heights of our hero's previous story, "A Catskill Eagle." Susan Silverman is back in Spenser's life with minimal mention of the hell she put him through in the last couple of books when she was off in California. But they are very happy together, although they now find very little time to do any real cooking. The problem this time around is an old one revisited: April Kyle, the teenage prostitute Spenser saved in "Ceremony" has left the call girl service of Patricia Utley and has started turning tricks for Robert Rambeaux, the man she supposedly loves. Spenser does a little investigating but before he gets too deep into the matter April disappears, Rambeaux is beaten up by somebody other than Spenser, and one of the hookers our hero intereviewed is murdered. Once again, there is much more to the case than meets the eye.

This is an intimate Spenser novel, which was certainly a wise move on Robert B. Parker's part after the epic scale of its predecessor. At the end of "Ceremony," Spencer and Susan were planning on taking April to meet Mrs. Utley because they could not come up with a better solution and we could only guess at what would become of the young girl. Now the gap of the last four years has been filed in and our hero has another chance to help the young girl, whom I suspect might be on her way to being the surrogate daughter in Spenser's growing symbolic family unit. While "Taming a Sea-Horse" might seem to cover some of the ground Robert B. Parker has covered before, there is always some sort of twist, and it is not understatement to say that this time around the story ends not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Rating:
Summary: Ooooh, lucky us!!
Review: (...) It is easy to understand that Spenser represents a modern day Knight. But is it necessary that all of the objects of his gallantry (both male and female) must be so damn unworthy. Even Spenser admits he doesn't like these creatures. In this sense, the story is ridiculous. And it's a damn shame, cause Parker is such a great writer!

Rating:
Summary: Spenser by Rote
Review: Ah, whatever--here's how it works, kids: the Spenser series arcs up, improving with every entry, until "Catskill Eagle," where Parker either peaks or goes way over the top depending on your perspective (I liked it). "Taming" is the beginning of the series for completists only--it's better than the dreck he's foisted on us for the last ten years, but far from a great novel. Whisper this part--go to the library...

Rating:
Summary: Spenser's hooker fetish
Review: Is Susan the only woman in Spenser's life who isn't a hooker? I know I'm reading the books out of order, but just in grabbing them off the shelves randomly-Ceremony, Mortal Stakes, Thin Air, Taming a Seahorse all feature Spenser riding to the rescue of once or current hookers. Oh well, in this one April Kyle, the teenage girl that Spenser and Susan thought would have a nice life as a prostitute disappears from the fancy upscale house they put her in and is doomed to work the streets. While searching for her, Spenser meets ***gasp in amazement*** another young hooker. Naturally she's not a coked-up, used up street walker, she's another in Spenser's long line of beautiful street corner girls. The girl ends up dead which leads to Spenser beating up her father, tracking her to a Hefner/Flynt clone whose men's clubs are actually highclass whorehouses, and to the club's Caribbean resort which leads to another gorgeous hooker and so on. Who killed the hooker and her pimp? Don't know, April, I assume, will go back to hooking in a manner Spenser prefers. I found the ending very puzzling-almost like Parker had to maintain a page count and he had to finish it up with no time for tying things up. There were about 20 more pages of story could have been wrung out of this one.

Rating:
Summary: Spenser's hooker fetish
Review: Is Susan the only woman in Spenser's life who isn't a hooker? I know I'm reading the books out of order, but just in grabbing them off the shelves randomly-Ceremony, Mortal Stakes, Thin Air, Taming a Seahorse all feature Spenser riding to the rescue of once or current hookers. Oh well, in this one April Kyle, the teenage girl that Spenser and Susan thought would have a nice life as a prostitute disappears from the fancy upscale house they put her in and is doomed to work the streets. While searching for her, Spenser meets ***gasp in amazement*** another young hooker. Naturally she's not a coked-up, used up street walker, she's another in Spenser's long line of beautiful street corner girls. The girl ends up dead which leads to Spenser beating up her father, tracking her to a Hefner/Flynt clone whose men's clubs are actually highclass whorehouses, and to the club's Caribbean resort which leads to another gorgeous hooker and so on. Who killed the hooker and her pimp? Don't know, April, I assume, will go back to hooking in a manner Spenser prefers. I found the ending very puzzling-almost like Parker had to maintain a page count and he had to finish it up with no time for tying things up. There were about 20 more pages of story could have been wrung out of this one.

Rating:
Summary: Run-of-the-mill Spenser
Review: Robert B. Parker, Taming a Sea-Horse (Delacorte, 1986)

One of the fun things about Robert Parker's Spenser novels is that way folks keep popping up and making Spenser's life miserable. In this case, the poppee is April Kyle, a prostitute Spenser encountered a few years before. That story didn't end to anyone's satisfaction, least of all Spenser's. Now it's time for him to find out why. April has left the employ of the madam with whom Spenser set her up to turn tricks for her new boyfriend, a woodwind player struggling through Julliard. Or so everyone's been told. Spenser starts asking around, and the more he asks, the less he finds out. Typical, huh?

In no time, one of April's associates who Spenser talked to is dead, and the pimp has had his face rearranged. There's more to this than a runaway streetwalker. Enough "more," at least, for another Spenser novel.

This isn't one of Parker's more elegant works, but then, a bad Spenser is still better than most anything else. It has all the hallmarks of Robert Parker. There's some cooking, some literature, a lot of snappy one-liners, and inherent readability. What's missing is the necessity to down the whole thing in one long swallow that pervades such Spenser gems as A Catskill Eagle and Early Autumn. But that's comparable to a pizza with one slice gone; the rest will still taste good. ***

Rating:
Summary: Another take on it
Review: Sometimes when I read these reviews, I'm not sure if the person who authored it has really read the book. For example, what's often said is that the Spenser series is great up until A Catskill Eagle and then it's all downhill. While I can see where this broad, general summary might stem from, I don't agree. First of all, it depends what you're looking for from a book. Parker writes a Spenser novel a year. None of them are complex mysteries where the reader isn't sure who did it and it takes four hundered pages to get to it, but rather they are morsels of exquisite literature where the interaction between characters and the descriptions of clothes and surroundings and sociology of the cases are the real story. If you're one of those readers who believes that the series gets better and better until A Catskill Eagle, with all of its action and over-the-top plotting, then I don't understand how a reader couldn't like Taming a Sea Horse any more than The Widening Gyre, or Valediction, which come right before it. These are all excellent stories that really just chronicle Spenser wandering through a case. He gets coffee and goes to dinner and thinks alot and slowly but surely solves the case the way he wants to. He doesn't rely on big crescendos and huge gunfights. Sometimes these are in his books, but not always. Parker is an exceptional writer who you can tell reads the classics. He has elements of Robert Frost and Shakespeare and Whitman. Spenser's romaticism is what fans like. If you read Patricia Cornwell or another author who tries to go through all of the correct police procedurals, you won't like Spenser. My point is if you like his other books, you'll like Taming a Sea Horse. And read them for yourself and see. If you stop reading Spenser after A Catskill Eagle, you'll be missing out on some great reads. After all, they're not too long and you get to hang out with Spenser for a few hours. What's not to like?

Rating:
Summary: Another take on it
Review: Sometimes when I read these reviews, I'm not sure if the person who authored it has really read the book. For example, what's often said is that the Spenser series is great up until A Catskill Eagle and then it's all downhill. While I can see where this broad, general summary might stem from, I don't agree. First of all, it depends what you're looking for from a book. Parker writes a Spenser novel a year. None of them are complex mysteries where the reader isn't sure who did it and it takes four hundered pages to get to it, but rather they are morsels of exquisite literature where the interaction between characters and the descriptions of clothes and surroundings and sociology of the cases are the real story. If you're one of those readers who believes that the series gets better and better until A Catskill Eagle, with all of its action and over-the-top plotting, then I don't understand how a reader couldn't like Taming a Sea Horse any more than The Widening Gyre, or Valediction, which come right before it. These are all excellent stories that really just chronicle Spenser wandering through a case. He gets coffee and goes to dinner and thinks alot and slowly but surely solves the case the way he wants to. He doesn't rely on big crescendos and huge gunfights. Sometimes these are in his books, but not always. Parker is an exceptional writer who you can tell reads the classics. He has elements of Robert Frost and Shakespeare and Whitman. Spenser's romaticism is what fans like. If you read Patricia Cornwell or another author who tries to go through all of the correct police procedurals, you won't like Spenser. My point is if you like his other books, you'll like Taming a Sea Horse. And read them for yourself and see. If you stop reading Spenser after A Catskill Eagle, you'll be missing out on some great reads. After all, they're not too long and you get to hang out with Spenser for a few hours. What's not to like?

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put down book
Review: This book Is another novel about the beloved April Kyle. If you read the first book Ceremony you leave with a feeling that you want only the best for April and you wish she could catch a break in life. Well in this book it just gets worse but in the end you get the feeling that she might just finally give up her current life of prostitution. This book I found to be another good Spencer novel and I couldn't put it down.