[.ca] Thin Air (ISBN 1597770264)

so so:
Spenser gets a call from police friend Frank Belsen to look for his missing wife. Along the way, Spenser and Susan go to LA to uncover some background info, and pick up a Hispanic sidekick named Chollo. I didn't understand what motivated Chollo to join Spenser back to the east coast to finish the job, but Spenser needed him as Hawk is MIA in this book. Chollo wasn't nearly as entertaining as Hawk, but the basic premise of the book was pretty good.

a touching and compelling work:
In Thin Air, Robert B Parker deviates from his normal mystery format and produces more of a thriller. What happened and who did it is never in question -- the issue is what will happen. While this is being resolved, Parker reveals rich details about the principal characters, keeping the reader engaged throughout the entire book. Viewpoint varies with the primary chapters, as usual in the Spenser series, from the detectives perspective. Between these, the victim Lisa's view is represented. This is quite nicely pulled off. The welcomed trend in the series of deemphasizing the tiresome participation of Susan in the primary plot continues with Thin Air. Additionally, giving a rest to the use of Hawk as a superhero to completely suppress any opposition is also welcomed. While Hawk is a very enjoyable character, he's overused in the books preceding this. So Thin Air is highly recommended. If there is one criticism, some of the action at the end strains credibility to the point of collapse. But the reader is still touched by the result, something which can't often be said for genre work. This book only reinforces my assessment that Parker is an excellent writer. Dan

Spenser (or Parker) Rules, OK.:
More plot to this novel ~ more detecting too ~ than some other Spenser stories. Still, plot is not everything, and still not the real reason one reads Parker. The interplay between Spenser and Susan is as strong as ever; Hawk is in Burma ~ don't ask ~ so we miss seeing him and Spenser. There is a Hawk replacement in the person of Chollo, a Latino hit-man from one of Spenser's West Coast connexions and, while not as detailed or intricate as the Hawk conversations, his with Spenser are still pleasurable. The pretext for the action this time is the disappearance of Lisa St. Claire, wife of Spenser's Boston PD friend Frank Belson. When Belson is hit with three shots from behind Spenser activates himself and goes hunting. The trail leads to a Hispanic community in northern Massachusetts ~ hence the introduction of the Latino side-kick. A welcome innovation (from Parker, not for fiction as a whole) is the use of third person sections interspersed, in a different type-face, telling of Lisa's experience. We thus are given both the hunter and hunted points of view.

Fun Read:
Like most of the Spenser books, this one moves quickly and holds the reader from start to finish. It's always fun when one of the supporting characters needs a helping hand from Spenser. Here we get a glimpse of Belson's life, and his wife's nefarious past. (Jeer within a cheer: Just once, pretty please, I would like to see some female character have a nefarious past that has nothing to do with selling her body. Women do commit other crimes occasionally, at least in the real world.) My biggest problem was poor editing. The resolution was not believable. And the errors in Spanish were an amateurish mistake. It's a good vacation read though.

Candy:
Robert Parker's Spencer series is like candy, very satisfying while being digested, but soon gone, leaving one wishing for more. I have read most of the Spenser books, and I have never been disappointed.