A solid entry in the Spenser series. It provides good insights into Spenser's inner motivations. When he's nearly killed and badly disabled, the story of his incredible pursuit of recovery--aided by Hawk, Susan, and Pearl (Susan's dog)--will strike anyone who's gone through a long rehabilitation process as accurate. Yes, the bad characters are really bad.

Solid Spenser always the man who finishes what he starts.

I liked this book pretty well but there wasn't much happening as there usually is in Spenser books. I did think the book was well crafted and was quite different from the norm with Spenser's rehab in Santa Barbara (a wonderful city where I lived for quite a few years) but I guess I expected a little more action. Definitely a different feel to this book.

Much like Mr. Parker's other Spenser novels this book revolves around a baby boomer's idea of romance and mystery with a decent plot. Overall not a terrible book and if you haven't read any of Mr. Parker's books it is worth a shot but you won't be missing out if you don't.

One of the very best of the Spenser novels.

Only an establishment as woke as the NYT could rate this a bestseller and then only on woke credentials. Elder confirms most personal violent crime in the US is by black Americans on black Americans, Riley will add it is mostly males and of the males, those in the teenager to late 20s early 30s range and Clarke will state that corruption among US policemen is low and anyways not bent towards whites. Numerous daily reports will suggest a hired killer is more likely to come out of the US military than the Israeli forces because Israel look after their retirees, and it seems the US don't. I'm not sure a Harvard PhD counsellor would speak as awful as Susan.
The story is hardly original and while it has its own twist, cutting 150 pages would have made it a page turner rather than a skipper. Along the way Hawk and others are given a good build but come page 326 the most they've done is to help our hero get fit enough too again run up a hill unaided.

Spenser is hired by a former prosecutor that now works for large legal firm because she thinks a black defendant, Ellis, was falsely accused of murdering a white college coed. As Spenser investigates there are too many coincidences in the case and he suspects the coed's tennis star boyfriend from a wealthy family is involved in the cover up. The tenacious Spenser is warned to back off the case and hunted by the Grey Man, an assassin, that puts three near fatal bullets in Spenser after killing a corrupt state police officer. Half the story is Spenser's rehab and recovery with Susan and Hawk in California, a slow filler. After 10 months, Spenser returns to Boston to continue putting together the pieces to exonerate Ellis. With some clever maneuvering the Grey Man is captured and a deal is struck that indicts the tennis star in an exchange that the Grey Man is not charged with attempted murder and an ungrateful Ellis walks free. That was a bothersome aspect to the ending as the Grey Man could have been charged with the state police officer's murder. Wonder if the Grey Man reappears in another episode of Spenser's investigations.

Spenser is always best when his back's against the wall. The thing that makes the Spenser novels so good is not the mystery, because we pretty much know the solution at the outset, it's watching how Spenser shakes it out like a hound snapping a rat's neck and seeing how the other characters react to Spenser bulldogging his way through their secret lives.

Does Parker not get the credit he deserves as a prose stylist because he wrote genre?

A really good Spenser novel with Hawk and Susan. Spenser is shot and almost dead and it takes a year for him to fully recover. They spend the year in California. Spenser is hired to investigate the murder of a college student and prove that the murderer is not the man that has been arrested. The gray man is after him but he succeeds in outwitting him and finding the killer.

I've always had this in my head as the Last of the Great Spenser Novels, and I've never read any of the books beyond this more than once, so it'll be interesting (to me, at least) to see how they compare on a second read. There's no doubting this is quality from start to finish though, and I think there's an argument to be made that Parker should have ended the series with this one. Part of Spenser's charm in the earlier books was that, tough as he was, he sometimes took a real beating... and he'd just dust himself off and come back for more, until he got what he was looking for. By the 90s he'd become almost invulnerable, so I remember it coming as a real shock to me that things go so badly for him here. There's a lot to be said for how Parker handles Spenser's recovery - had this happened in the mid 80s it'd have played like a Rocky Training montage, but this is much more nuanced, and feels all the more genuine for it, which, in turn, makes the pay-off more satisfying. There's a too-obvious side-story about Susan wanting to adopt a child (which comes out of nowhere), we could have done without, but on the plus side, all the usual suspects (Hawk, Quirk, Belson, Vinnie, Henry) are here, with cameos from Paul Giacomin, Gino Fish, Lee Farrell, and, pleasingly, the shady government spook Ives, last seen way back in A Catskill Eagle, which, coincidentally, might rival Small Vices for highest-stakes Spenser novel. Plus, The Gray Man is a GREAT villain. This one never gets old.

Next time round, Spenser gets to hang out with Susan's ex, who is a real prince.

Dec 2020 a favorite. and the Grey Man and. who are the grey men in our own lives?

April 2020 Still 5 stars. Possibly my favorite Spenser. I like my note that I bought this at Bookman's in F?lagstaff!!!
I dog eared 3 terms/names I didn't remember:
Philo Vance page 188
Philo Vance is a fictional character featured in 12 crime novels written by S. S. Van Dine, published in the 1920s and 1930s.
During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, movies, and on the radio. He was portrayed as a stylish,
even foppish dandy; a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent

Procol Harum page 67
Procol Harum (/ˈproʊkəl ˈhɑːrəm/) is an English rock band formed in 1967.
Their best-known recording is the 1967 hit single "A Whiter Shade of Pale”,
one of the few singles to have sold over 10 million copies.

Isadora duncan page 235
Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) was an American pioneer of dance and is an important figure in both the arts and history.
Known as the “Mother of Modern Dance,” Isadora Duncan was a self-styled revolutionary whose influence spread from
American to Europe and Russia, creating a sensation everywhere she performed.

jan 2015 re read
JAN 2011 spenser
i actualy bought this paperback at Bookman's in Flagstaff right before getting on the plane back to LAX> good read about the grey man.
January 2011 book on tape with BURT REYNOLDs, a personal friend of robert parker.
AUG 2009
i'm one of the few who really like reynolds reading of this story.
at least four stars
Spenser as we have never seen him before: near death, having taken three bullets from a hired assassin. Most men would give up, but who ever said that Spenser was like most men?
Spenser embarks on the long, hard road of rehabilitation with his friend, Hawk, and his lover, Susan, by his side.

I'm a fan of Robert Parker and I like Spenser, so I had to like this book. It's my favourite Spenser book, because he stops being a big, powerful private detective hero and is reduced to shuddering invalid. The heroic part comes as he struggles back to health after being badly injured. A big plus in these books is the wisecracks: if they get on your nerves you won't like Spenser at all and lots of people have trouble with his girlfriend, but lots of us have trouble with their friends loves and I'm afraid you just have to deal with it. It's worth it, if only to meet Hawk, his sparring partner and friend. Terrible husband material, but terrific if you're in trouble, and he and Spenser are a wining combination.