Widow's Walk

May 6, 2002
This unadorned production leaves everything to the considerable narrative skill of veteran reader and actor Mantegna (Godfather III; Searching for Bobby Fisher; etc.), but not even he can breathe much life into an off effort from Parker (Potshot; Death in Paradise; etc.). Though Mantegna's style is perfectly suited to the rough-and-tumble PI genre, Parker's text offers little in the way of intriguing substance. With the rugged detective Spenser once again working the streets of Boston, the tale centers on Mary Smith, a flighty blonde socialite of questionable moral character and undeniably low IQ, whose husband, a wealthy banker, is found shot to death in the couple's home. Despite Smith's ludicrous alibi and transparent lies, Spenser takes on the case and begins to unravel a messy skein of infidelity and corrupt land dealings. Smith's vapid character provides Mantegna's greatest challenge, and, truthfully, it's not one that he answers particularly well. He's much more at home with the pointed banter between Spenser and his lover, Susan, or the gruff, streetwise voice of Spenser's henchman, Hawk. Despite some occasionally snappy dialogue and pulse-quickening action scenes, there's little here among the hackneyed trappings of the detective story and a rather confusing plot to keep anyone but the most devout fan of the series truly engaged. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Forecasts, Feb. 4).

February 4, 2002
Last year Parker published three strong novels including the excellent Spenser mystery Potshot. So he's entitled to a miss and a pass and gets one with this forgettable Spenser entry. Attorney Rita Fiore, who's worked with the Boston PI before, hires Spenser to find out if her new client, Mary Smith, whom Spenser's cop pal Quirk describes as "dumber than my dick," indeed shot to death her husband, banker and Mayflower descendant Nathan Smith, as the evidence indicates. Spenser's search for the truth takes him into one of the most confusing (for the PI and the reader) cases of his long career; unusual for Parker, pages are needed at book's end to explain who did what and why. Sidekick Hawk pitches in to protect Spenser, and gunsel Vinnie Morris lends a hand, too, as several folks Spenser talks to wind up dead, and as the PI is trailed, then attacked, by thugs headquartered at a crooked land development company with ties to the dead man's bank. Susan, Spenser's beloved, offers some advice as well, but the ritual appearances by Spenser's crew, human and animal (Pearl the Wonder Dog, ancient and slow, waddles in here and there), while earning a nod of gratitude from series fans, do little to advance or deepen the proceedings. The novel stirs to life only fitfully, most notably in the confrontational exchanges between a female lawyer implicated in the crimes and her powerful attorney father; here, Parker taps into truth about familial loyalties. The writing is as clean as fresh ice, and from the opening sentence (" 'I think she's probably guilty,' Rita Fiore said to me"), it's clear that readers are in the hands of a vet who knows what he's doing; but what Parker is doing here is, alas, not very interesting.