Do you like your action hard-boiled? You won’t be disappointed with
HUGGER MUGGER by Robert B. Parker, the latest Spenser novel, published
by Putnam. Spenser is a private dick, bounced from the Suffolk County (Mass.)
police 30 years ago because he lives by his own knightly code. In a change
of pace from the usual New England locales, he is on the road to investigate
race horse shootings at a stable in Georgia that includes the up and coming
Hugger Mugger. The horses are owned by Walter Clive, father of three daughters--the
oldest one is single and runs the operation and feels unappreciated [King
Lear anyone?]; the two younger ones don’t do much at all except take up
space with their ne’er-do-well husbands. The case is left unsolved but
Spenser returns when Clive turns up dead. Whodunit? And why? Is the murder
tied into the horse shootings or is it coincidence? What about the possibly
bastard son by Clive’s former and final mistress and the three girls’ mother,
the unReconstructed hippie ex-Mrs. Clive? There’s fortune at stake and
plenty of motive for murder. Spenser pokes around, claiming that it looks
bad for a former client to turn up dead, but we know it's another crusade
for justice in a world where the rich get their way when good people do
nothing.
I missed a Spenser regular, the redoubtable Hawk, who is in France during the events of this book, but the local sheriff provides a good bantering partner for Spenser. He spills enough for Spenser to pursue the facts, but not enough to have it come back to him.
I paid a little more at Posner’s Bookstore in Grand Central Station to get a signed copy. Support your small bookseller if you can and pick up a copy of HUGGER MUGGER.
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