Lullaby

March 12, 2012
Even the most fanatical Parker fans would be hard pressed to identify any aspect of this Spenser novel that doesn’t read as if it were penned by Spenser’s late creator. Mattie Sullivan, a street-hardened 14-year-old, asks the Boston PI to solve a cold case—the stabbing murder, four years earlier, of her mother, Julie, even though a male friend of Julie’s is doing time for the killing. Mattie witnessed two drug dealers hustle her mom into a car, but couldn’t get anyone to take her seriously. Spenser accepts the assignment from the endearingly feisty Mattie, agreeing to be paid in doughnuts. Atkins (The Devil’s Garden) hits all the familiar marks—bantering scenes with Spenser’s girlfriend, fisticuffs, heavy-duty backup from the dangerous Hawk—as he offers familiar pleasures. At the same time, he breaks no new ground, avoiding the risk of offending purists and the potential rewards of doing something a bit different with the characters. Agents: Helen Brann, the Helen Brann Agency, and Esther Newberg, ICM.

May 15, 2012
And the beat goes on. Handpicked by the Parker estate to be keeper of the flame for the Spenser franchise, award-winning author Ace Atkins (The Ranger, 2011, etc.) rises flawlessly to the occasion. In addition to the signature dialogue, all the familiars are fully resurrected: Susan, the sexy shrink; Pearl, the wonder dog; Hawk, the wonder sidekick; good cop Quirk, and, of course, Spenser himself, that consummate knight errant for the 21st century. So there he is, Boston's premier peeper (Sixkill, 2011, etc.), laid-back as ever but--now that the torch has been passed--clearly ready to be engaged for the 40th time. At the moment he is atypically solvent thanks to a big fat check from a white-shoe law firm, earned, he acknowledges a bit guiltily, without breaking a sweat. Enter 14-year-old Mattie Sullivan, a waif with an attitude. He's charmed by her toughness, smarts, pink Boston Red Sox cap and the essential cuteness lurking beneath all that faux flintiness. Four years ago, she tells him, her mother was murdered. A suspect was duly arrested, tried, convicted and jailed for the crime--wrongfully, Mattie is now convinced. Will Spenser take the case? Five crumpled 20s are produced in aid of getting him started. Feeling slightly besmirched by his last case, Spenser spurns the 20s and hires on for a box of cinnamon donuts: "Sometimes a few hours of honest work was better than a bar of soap." Once again, however, on behalf of a damsel in distress, he has miscalculated the attendant danger, also his own invulnerability. Bullets fly, body bags fill and Spenser is lucky indeed not to be tucked into one of them. Parker fans will like it that the Atkins version is virtually indistinguishable from the prototype.

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May 1, 2012
The effort to keep the profits coming from the late Robert B. Parker's enormously popular and well-crafted Spenser novels is obvious from this book's cover, in which the words Robert B. Parker's have been cast in the title. Atkins' writing itself can best be described as a karaoke performance in which the lead vocal is missing. Atkins can construct a solid plot, certainly. This story of a 14-year-old girl from the Boston projects who enlists Spenser's help in reopening the case of her murdered mother is a solid puzzler, though details are sometimes improbable. (Would Spenser really let a kid accompany him on his interrogations?) But what's missing throughout is Spenser's voice, the Spenser of the wisecracks and the poetry quotes in dialogue; the Spenser of the tough-guy summation of character and the poet's rendering of setting. Atkins' voicing of Spenser is justoff. The elements are therehere's where Spenser should deliver a one-two putdown, and here's where Spenser should throw someone off balance with a self-aggrandizing remarkbut they're delivered in a labored, dutiful way. On its own, this would be a solid, though somewhat routine, mystery. As an effort to resurrect Spenser, it's an out-of-tune rendition that serves neither Spenser nor Parker well. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Parker name and an agressive marketing push may attract readers, but the attempt to resurrect Spenser remains misguided.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)