Hundred-Dollar Baby
Robert B. Parker
G.P. Putnam's Sons
U.S. hardcover, 1st ed.
ISBN 0-399-15376-4
304 pages; $24.95

School Days
Robert B. Parker
G.P. Putnam's Sons
U.S. paperback reprint
ISBN 0-425-21134-7
320 pages; $7.99

I’ve read every single Spenser novel Robert B. Parker has written, all the way back to The Godwulf Manuscript. I’d say that I don’t quite know why, given that in the last five years, maybe longer, they’ve been pretty lame, but I do know: they’re comfortable. I can dive into a Spenser mystery and stay there for three hours or so and get lost in the wisecracks and Spenser’s fierce but tender heart, full of violence and full of love. I don’t worry about job, money, housework, or any damn thing. I just read. It’s a wonderful thing.

School Days is precisely that sort of book. It’s not really very good, though as usual Parker’s expert use of dialogue to tell his story is as lively and skillful as anything I’ve ever read. The book is about a Columbine-style shooting in a high school. Two boys are arrested, and both confess. But the grandmother of one of the boys is certain that her grandson cannot have committed this horrific act, and hires Spenser to prove it. Spenser becomes far more caught up in the why of the crime, rather than the who, and traverses a seemingly dead suburbia sorting through the hollow lives of the unthinking privileged.

Hundred-Dollar Baby is a better book. Parker again meets April Kyle, the star of Ceremony and Taming a Sea-Horse. You may remember her, as she is one of Parker’s more vivid characters: as a 15-year-old, she refused to accept any real sort of rescue from Parker, and instead committed herself to a life of prostitution. Rather than simply abandon April to the streets, Parker placed her with Patricia Utley, a madam running a high class place in New York. Utley taught April how to speak, walk, eat and dress like a lady, and then turned her almost loose to manage a branch of the operation in Boston. It is in her capacity as the madam of this local operation that April seeks Parker out for his help in dealing with some thugs who are threatening her girls and disturbing the men seeking discretion in their pleasure.

But something is not right about April. As Susan repeatedly points out, April can hardly be in the best mental and emotional condition, given her life as a plaything of any male who can pay her price – even though it was the life she chose. And there’s more to these men who are out to ruin her business than is obvious on the surface, more to do to eradicate the threat than merely get rid of the thugs with Hawk’s able help.

Rather than say too much about either of these books and spoil the stories, I’ll simply put it this way: if you enjoy the Spenser novels, you’ll probably enjoy both of these. They are lesser efforts, no doubt, not nearly as detailed in characterization or plot as others in the series. But if all you want is a couple of hours enjoying a solid plot solidly told, you’ll get it. Those not yet familiar with Parker will not want to start here, but with a stronger mystery like Looking for Rachel Wallace, probably my favorite in the series because of the depth of emotion it conveys. I suspect we won’t be seeing its like again.