[.ca] Paper Doll (ISBN 1597770221)

What's lurking behind the facades:
This book is a crackerjack mystery and, like all Spenser mysteries, much more. Olivia Nelson is a perfectly lovely society matron, not your typical murder victim. Her adoring husband is a respected, successful business man, or is he? Her family life was ideal, or was it? As Spenser unravels this case, we learn that few of the characters in this book are as they seem on the surface, including our hero himself. Brawny and wisecracking, he proves once again that he's gotten hidden depths (hidden from just about everyone but Susan, Hawk and us) and goes by his own code. As a pure mystery, I've read better. But as a multilayered, highly entertaining exercise in storytelling, I highly recommend it.

Solid if not spectacular:
In Paper Doll, Spenser is hired by Loudon Tripp, a local Boston businessman who is trying to help the police solve the apparently "random" killing of his society wife. Without any better ideas and stumped in Boston, Spenser heads to a sleepy South Carolina town where the victim was born to try and dig up something the police may have overlooked. In so doing, Spenser manages to alienate the local law enforcement authorities, get himself followed, and finds out that the victim may not have been who she appeared to be. In fact neither is the esteemed businessman Loudon Tripp, whose rubber checks bounce all the way to Brookline. Along the way, Spenser is offered some dubious assistance by a hard-drinking Massachussets senator, who may have some skeletons in his closet to hide. There is the usual playful banter between Susan and Spenser, in their perrenial honeymoon-like lovefest, but a lot less Hawk than this reader would prefer. All in all I thought this was a pretty decent read, better than Potshot to be sure, but not exactly Dashiell Hammett either. Fans of the series will not be disappointed.

PARKER DOES IT AGAIN!!!:
I have read many, many of the Spencer books. Some I liked better than others. I rank this one close to the top. Spencer is hired to find out who killed Olivia Nelson. She was killed with many blows to the head with a hammer. The police have done all they can to find the killer but had no success. Spencer is hired by Olivia's husband. A trip is made back to a town in South Carolina, where Olivia Nelson came from. But is her real name Olivia Nelson? Yes, there is a person by that name but where is she? Why would a Senator want to keep Spencer from finding out anything? Spencer in jail?????? Many, many twists and turns. The ending is very good, really two endings, finding the killer and finding out about the senator. A good Spencer read! The only thing that would make it better, for me, would be less Susan and more Hawk.

Maybe the Best:
I have read all the Parker books more than once, and this one is my favorite. You shouldn't start with it - it would be better to be familiar with the character first - but if you're going to pick and choose, choose this one. The mystery is top-shelf, the supporting characters are carefully drawn, there isn't too much of the adorably annoying Susan, and Spenser is at his wise-cracking best. He really hit his stride with this book.

Disappointing:
This book has very little narrative summary to support the dialogue. As a result, it reads much like a movie script. Character development is weak and inconsistent, and the prose is almost juvenile in spots. It is something I would expect to see from a freshman college student, not a well-respected, seasoned author. I haven't read Parker's other books, so perhaps they are all written in this same over-simplistic style. It apparently works for some people, but not for me.