Rating: 
Summary: Spenser grows on you
Review: I started at the beginning of the series and I like these books more and more as I read them. Spenser is funny and so cool. I find my self chuckling through out these books.
This one has Spenser trapsing around the world. Half way in, he has to pull Hawk in to help protect him from a gang of thugs. Spenser was highered by a man whose family was killed in a bombing in London. He wants Spenser to find the 9 people behind the bombing and either kill them or have them arrested. In true Spenser form, most of the group is terminated. Especially with Hawk in the picture.
The final scene occurs in Montreal during the Olympic games where Hawk and Spenser have to take down a mammouth body guard.
I really enjoy these books and can't wait to start the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Early Parker, Rough but Enjoyable
Review: In Robert B. Parker's fifth book about the Boston sleuth Spenser, he sends Spenser through London, Amsterdam and Montreal in search of justice.In an opening which almost exactly mirrors the start of The Big Sleep, Spenser heads out to rich-suburb Weston to meet with a sad family man in a wheelchair. In this case, the man's family has been blown up as 'collateral damage' by terrorists in London with unknown aims. The man hires Spenser to bring in the 9 responsible, dead or alive. Off Spenser goes, telling his beloved Susan, who he was practically married to in the last book, that he might be gone for months or years. "See ya" says she. He puts out one ad and lounges for a full week before someone answers it. Two thugs try to kill him and he takes them out. When another pair try the following week, Spenser decides to trust his life to Hawk, who was just a casual acquaintance in the previous story. Some pretty strange relationship-altering substances must have been taken between these two stories. On Spenser goes, from Denmark to Amsterdam to Montreal. He barely stops back in the Boston area to keep his benefactor informed and to pop in to see Susan. With an almost implausible twist of fate he tracks down and finds the final head terrorist at the Montreal Olympics and stop an assassination attempt. Oh, and he lets the sex-crazed-nympho female terrorist go, because, of course, she's female. She must not have known any better. In a very unusual situation, there was a made-for-TV version of this which was FAR far better. The female terrorist is a much better character. The whole environment makes much more sense, and there are EXTRA twists that make the story even more interesting. It's pretty amazing when the movie version turns out much better than the book! Let me just add the note that I'm a huge Spenser fan, that I did enjoy reading this as a "historical story" and have read it several times. So it's worth having if you enjoy Spenser. It's just clear that this is an early work of Parker's, before he really hit his stride.
Rating:
Summary: The Spenser Reviews: This Won't Betray Your Time
Review: In The Judas Goat, Spenser takes a vacation from his usual Bostonian suspects and takes on a job in Europe hunting down terrorists who killed his latest client's family. While certainly not reaching the complexity of the "great Spenser period" soon to come, the story advances some of the key elements that would later gel (and, ultimately ossify in some ways) in some ways. Although her role is peripheral here, Susan Silverman is a lot more likeable here than in previous books. And here Hawk finally emerges as his own character, finally becoming Spenser's true doppleganger. The only flaws are a rather plastic set of villains, including an unfortunately portrayal of a seriously demented nymphomaniac terrorist. Clearly, Parker is still struggling with his tendencies to characterize the non-Silverman women as either good time girls or pyschotic whores. But the action scenes here are among Parker's best, including an astonishing, multi-page set piece involving Spenser's attempt to lure a couple of assassins waiting to kill him. This probably isn't the first Spenser you should read, but it's among the best of the earlier Spensers.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, rip-roaring adventure with Hawk
Review: The first of the books to give Hawk real prominence in the story-line, this book really shines. Post 11 SEP this books also hold a resonance that it hadn't since it came out: Spenser and Hawk battle a group of nasty, deadly and fanatical terrorists bent of death and destruction. With pithy prose and sparkling dialogue, the story also gives the extreme violence in the book a moral context that raises it above the usual actioner into the realm of literature. A must read for the Spenser fan.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, rip-roaring adventure with Hawk
Review: The first of the books to give Hawk real prominence in the story-line, this book really shines. Post 11 SEP this books also hold a resonance that it hadn't since it came out: Spenser and Hawk battle a group of nasty, deadly and fanatical terrorists bent of death and destruction. With pithy prose and sparkling dialogue, the story also gives the extreme violence in the book a moral context that raises it above the usual actioner into the realm of literature. A must read for the Spenser fan.
Rating:
Summary: Back On Track
Review: The Spenser series is back on track, it slipped a bit in the last installment. This one moves great and firmly brings in the character Hawk, a great bonus! The only problem I have is Spenser letting a woman who is obviously psychotic and capable of homicide loose because of his ideas of chivalry. It is not chivalrous nor heroic to allow someone the opportunity to kill again, simply because of their gender.
Rating:
Summary: Robert B. Parker (and Spencer & Hawk) at their best!
Review: The Spenser series is one of my favorite detective fiction series, and this is my favorite Spenser novel. You've got to love Spenser. As hard boiled and cynical as he is, there's still the occasional glimpse into the regular guy aspects of his persona. Spenser travels to London to track down the killers of a rich Boston industrialist's family. They were killed in a terrorist bombing while vacationing in England. In London, Spenser discovers that this is not exactly the group of amateurs he thought he was dealing with and summons Hawk for help. Spenser and Hawk track down and deal with the group in an odyssey that covers much of Europe and ends up in Montreal during the summer Olympics. The guy's have discovered that the group they are dealing with is just a splinter organization of a much more serious group determined to disrupt the Olympics--and Spenser and Hawk are just as determined to stop them. Full of energy, violence and the usual Spenser philosophizing, this is the most action packed and absorbing book in the Spenser series.
Rating:
Summary: Robert B. Parker (and Spencer & Hawk) at their best!
Review: The Spenser series is one of my favorite detective fiction series, and this is my favorite Spenser novel. You've got to love Spenser. As hard boiled and cynical as he is, there's still the occasional glimpse into the regular guy aspects of his persona. Spenser travels to London to track down the killers of a rich Boston industrialist's family. They were killed in a terrorist bombing while vacationing in England. In London, Spenser discovers that this is not exactly the group of amateurs he thought he was dealing with and summons Hawk for help. Spenser and Hawk track down and deal with the group in an odyssey that covers much of Europe and ends up in Montreal during the summer Olympics. The guy's have discovered that the group they are dealing with is just a splinter organization of a much more serious group determined to disrupt the Olympics--and Spenser and Hawk are just as determined to stop them. Full of energy, violence and the usual Spenser philosophizing, this is the most action packed and absorbing book in the Spenser series.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Spencer books
Review: This book shares equal-first placing with Small Vices as my favourite Spencer books, because Spencer is not the smartest, strongest, all-conquering hero. He makes mistakes and wears the consequences. The Judas Goat is probably the least predictable of the Spencer books. Hawk and Susan are introduced to a large degree in this book, so they are fresh and unpredictable. Hawk is morally ambiguous and hasn't developed into a boy scout with a ghetto accent. Susan is quite intelligent and hasn't been reduced to alternating speeches of undying love for Spencer and self-righteous whinging about the unfairness of life. As Australia is currently in the last stages of preparing for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the book's references to the 1976 Olympics are particularly interesting. Robert Parker wins a gold medal for this effort.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Spencer books
Review: This book shares equal-first placing with Small Vices as my favourite Spencer books, because Spencer is not the smartest, strongest, all-conquering hero. He makes mistakes and wears the consequences. The Judas Goat is probably the least predictable of the Spencer books. Hawk and Susan are introduced to a large degree in this book, so they are fresh and unpredictable. Hawk is morally ambiguous and hasn't developed into a boy scout with a ghetto accent. Susan is quite intelligent and hasn't been reduced to alternating speeches of undying love for Spencer and self-righteous whinging about the unfairness of life. As Australia is currently in the last stages of preparing for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the book's references to the 1976 Olympics are particularly interesting. Robert Parker wins a gold medal for this effort.
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