[.ca] Hundred-Dollar Baby (ISBN 1594132208)

ANOTHER TOP FLIGHT STORY AND A FIVE STAR READING:
Yes, he's a Tony Award winner for his Broadway role in Glengarry Glen Ross, an Emmy nominee for his television appearances and a star of feature films. Nonetheless, for this listener Joe Mantegna is the voice of Robert Parker's iconic hero, Boston PI Spenser. This actor has brought excitement and thrills to such Spenser escapades as Back Story, Bad Business, Cold Service, Hugger Potshot, and Widow's Walk. He does it again with Hundred-Dollar Baby. There's little that ruffles Spenser but the reappearance of April Kyle does. She was once a teenage runaway (Ceremony, 1982) who had the beauty and nerve to turn to prostitution because she believed she had no other choice. She learned her trade well and now is back in Boston running a high priced bordello. Problem is some men are trying to muscle in on her territory and she needs Spenser's help. Well, April may be beautiful and clever, but she's not too candid as Spenser soon discovers. She had maintained that she had no idea who was trying to scuttle her operation but Spenser and his trusty sidekick, Hawk, find that April isn't the unknowing victim that she claims to be. Another top flight story in this ever popular series. - Gail Cooke

A Damaged Woman Breaks:
Ceremony is one of Robert B. Parker's best books in the Spenser series. In that book, Susan Silverman persuades Spenser to track down teenaged runaway, April Kyle, and rescue Kyle from the gritty world of the street walker. Kyle didn't want to be rescued and that book ended with Spenser introducing Kyle to a madam in New York City, Patricia Utley, who promises to look after Kyle. Kyle breaks out of that life when she falls "in love" with a pimp during Taming a Sea-Horse. That book was pretty ordinary . . . and occasionally seemed like little more than an opportunity to wrap stylish dialogue around a superficial look at the sex trade. April Kyle is back again in Hundred-Dollar Baby as the madam for a Boston Back Bay mansion where suburban soccer moms do the horizontal for big bucks. When April Kyle walks into Spenser's office to ask for his help, he doesn't recognize her. But she certainly gets his attention fast enough when Kyle asks him to get rid of some men who are disrupting her operation, which Ms. Utley helped her set up. Spenser and Hawk quickly dispatch some Andrew Square thugs . . . and begin to sense that things are not as they seem. Why would anyone bother to take over a low-profit operation like this one? Naturally, the motives are complex, twisted, and pathological. Susan opines from afar about Kyle's mental health while Spenser and Hawk spend most of the book on boring stakeouts. Unless you really wanted to know more about how to be a successful madam (including recruiting those suburban soccer moms), there's nothing for you in this book. The story is mostly uninteresting. What does happen moves way too slowly. I felt like I was reading a short story that had been stretched beyond recognition. The ending is unbelievably bad . . . and unbelievable. For the first time in my reviewing career of looking at Robert B. Parkers books, my advice is to skip this one. Only occasional glimpses of sparkling dialogue provide any reward for the reader. Certainly, few will be enlightened by Parker's amoral defense of the expensive part of the sex trade. I felt the need to wash my hands of Parker's views on that subject after finishing the book.

Hundred-Dollar Baby and Dream Girl = same book:
If you like Robert B Parker, you might buy this book under two different titles like I did. Amazon.ca will not tip you off. The book is good, the merchandising trick isn't