Rough Weather Book

If your taste is for tough, wise-cracking private eyes in the Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe vein, you should make the acquaintance of Spenser. Robert B Parker's durable detective has been at the centre of a long-running and accomplished series, with Rough Weather a strong new entry in the canon. A rich woman client has handed Spenser a particularly strange job: he is to be present at her daughter's wedding as kind of ‘surrogate husband’. Spenser has said yes, aware that his long-term lover, the highly intelligent Susan Silverman, will be on the scene. Trouble, needless to say, ensues – and an old foe of Spenser’s, Rugar, The Gray Man, is involved. Parker's tenacious private dick is still a favourite of the author’s admirers, despite his introduction of another series character (Jesse Stone, Chief of Police of Paradise, Massachusetts). But the sardonic Spenser remains Parker’s signature character, even when some of the entries in the long-running series are less than top-notch. Rough Weather, however, is the author on form: the dialogue and the evocation of locale here is as strong as in the best Parker. It’s no mean achievement to keep a form that many felt had been played out (the private eye novel) in such rude health – and Robert B Parker is to be applauded for his continuing success. --Barry ForshawRead More