Spare Change

Kate Burton has just the right voice to portray Sunny Randall, former cop and now a proficient PI. She's gutsy enough to confront a serial killer yet attractive enough to discern which outfit is perfect for meeting him. SPARE CHANGE is the sixth novel for plucky Sunny, and, in typical Parker style, this mystery satisfies his fans with the inclusion of characters from the Spenser novels. The Spare Change Killer's random murder spree has suddenly resurged after a twenty-year hiatus. Sunny's dad, Phil, comes out of retirement because of his work on the old case, and Sunny joins him to track down the killer. Burton deftly handles the dialogue between them, giving Phil's voice a believable New England accent. N.M.C. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

August 27, 2007
Not all of Sunny Randall's cases have been personal, but this one, her sixth, raises the average. Her on-again, off-again romance with her ex-husband is on again in a big way. And she's working an investigation with her father, Phil, an ec-cop lured from retirement by a slayer using the same modus operandi (coins left on beautiful female corpses) as the serial killer he hunted 30 years before. Parker's snappy dialogue keeps the story moving along. Burton is too smart to let Sunny slip into girliness when she's chatting with her beloved dad or her ultraromantic ex-husband, and she never makes her too cute or too tough in her cat-and-mouse encounters with the man she's certain is the Spare Change Killer. Instead, Burton maintains Sunny's professional edge, using subtle shifts of phrasing or timing to indicate the emotions the sleuth is keeping under wraps. She is just as successful in finding the right voices for the other main characters: flirtatious and sinister for the prime suspect in pursuit of Sunny; and gruff frustration for Phil Randall, who is worried for his daughter's safety. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 9).

April 9, 2007
At the start of Parker's engaging sixth Sunny Randall novel (after Blue Screen
), the cop-turned-PI helps her father track down a Boston serial killer whose depredations begin again after a 20-year hiatus. The "spare change" killer executes victims with a single shot to the head, leaving three coins near the body. Sunny's dad, Phil, headed the old task force formed to catch the killer, who wrote Phil taunting letters as the killings piled up. A new killing and a fresh letter to Phil have him and Sunny serving as consultant and assistant respectively to a new task force. Gutsy Sunny takes the lead in identifying the most likely suspect, and then in playing him dangerously to get hard evidence. Parker's signature bantering byplay and some borrowings of characters from other series (notably Susan Silverman from the Spenser novels) will delight fans. The outcome is never in doubt, but Parker hits most of the right notes, and there's still ingenuity to his cat-and-mouse.