I am unsure how to rate or give this story stars. The book is good if a little long and overly wordy even for a Spenser book. Susan seems to have become just a cardboard cutout of her former self. She is just there to be a sounding board to Spenser (and the sex) and then spout something out of character or just silly / stupid to give Spenser something to worry about. Though I did enjoy the whole remodeling the "country house" thing. I worry about Susan. Hawk was even more of a stage prop in this story than in the past. I know I often wish for Hawk to show up in a story. But in this case he was always there when needed.
Anyway, the book was a good 100 pages longer than needed. The story dragged through the first 2/3 of the story. Then rushed at the end to the conclusion.
Still a quick read but needed help.

Good story - plot line. Satisfying conclusion though somewhat expected. This time Spenser is shot and almost killed. Took him a year to rehab in California and of course came back as good as before. A whole year of living with Susan, Hawk, and Pearl together in Calif. Susan probably handled it ok but must have complained to Hawk, or used him as a sounding board, during their time together. But she did stick by him throughout the ordeal. She had to because he was dead, killed by his shooter, so that no one could contact anyone back in Boston while they were gone. Hard to believe that Susan’s therapy business could survive her being gone a year.
We’ll see in the next books how often he refers to his near death experience, and how Susan’s business goes. And I guess Hawk had time to stay with Spenser throughout his recovery period. Then everyone went back to work, and Spenser wrapped up the Alves case and moved on. Amazing!

Another good and intriguing book, of course. Susan is still annoying, but I've accepted this as never going to change even as I want to smack her across the head. There is one big thing about this book that drove me bonkers. This book is more than 50 chapters long and it takes most of it for what's in the blurb about Spenser being near-fatally injured to actually happen. If it's in the blurb, I expect it to occur fairly early in the book. Especially when it's not a long book to begin with. It builds suspense, yes. But there's a difference between building suspense and making your reader want to throw things, including the book. This one nearly got to that point for me. As I said, I enjoyed the book despite the problems. I want to continue with the series. I love Spenser and his interactions with his world and the characters within it too much to give it up. I liked the Spencer for Hire series when I was a lot younger. I liked Hawk too and still enjoy seeing him on ad's and different means. This was a lot different than the books I read. Interesting read. Parker has done a good job with Jesse Stone too. I've really liked them.

I have enjoyed all of Parker's Spenser books, but Burt Reynolds' narration of this book was terrible. I couldn't understand a lot of what he said and I lost the thread of the story because I was spending so much time trying to understand what was being said. I will try this book again in an another format out of respect for the author.

4/10 - This is the first Spenser novel I have read. I'll get the obvious out of the way first, as many others have pointed out, and I am uselessly wrapping entire review in a Spoiler alert...

The plot synopsis on the back cover gives away a crucial detail- Spenser gets shot and is briefly in a coma. This happens on page 202/326 in my paperback- 62% into the novel. It's the movie trailer syndrome in printed form. And does everyone in Boston constantly say "Un huh"? What the fuck does "Un huh" even mean?

And speaking of movie tropes, we get 40 pages after the shooting of a drawn out recovery montage. Spenser can barely walk... Spenser makes it 10 yards up the hill... Hawk wears a black and white track suit and supervises Spenser's recovery... Spenser makes it 30 yards up the hill.. Susan can't cook and buys takeout... Hawk speaks in ghetto street language, but by God, he pronounces all the syllables in the word "alleviate"... Spenser finally makes it all the way up the hill!

I did not care at all for the repeated asides with Susan and the baby-or-no-baby subplot. Despite all these things that annoyed me (and the plot-spoiling back cover is not the author's fault), I didn't hate the novel. Will I read another Spenser?

Un huh.

Ok, so the mystery itself isn’t bad but there are a lot of issues with this book.

For background, Spenser is hired to investigate an old murder allegedly committed by Alves, a black man who has been convicted of rape and other crimes before. Alves was tried and convicted and imprisoned. Now they think Alves is innocent.

Ok, so the issues: First, so many racial slurs. Really gratutious use of the n-word. In early books, it was used by bad guys, often to describe Hawk and they were immediately corrected. The fact they used the n-word or other slurs was proof they were small-minded and, well, bad. In one case, a slur was employed by an explicitly racist group. But in this book, everyone calls the guy Spenser is investigating an n- or uses the German term (is that even a thing?) or once some other word.

Allegedly, it’s to show how jaded everyone is because the guy Spenser will get out of jail. just bad and also hopeless. They briefly discuss how it’s the system that forces him to be bad, but not for long. Everyone from the black policeman who patrols the ghetto to Spenser to Hask to the DA to the wealthy family of the victim agree Alves is a POS. They never quite make the connection that dude might be hopeless because he was in prison unjustly for 18 months. Or maybe he (and the people he represents) aren’t guilty of all the things they are arrested and convicted of.

Second, the guy who did it, his rich dad bribed the cop to arrest Alves. He cajoled witnesses. And apparently he has access to the world’s greatest killer. Better than Hawk or Spenser. Everyone in the book agrees the Grey Man, hired by the Dad, is the most deadly person ever. And the Dad just happens to know how to get in touch, has the stones to do it? Something no mob boss has ever done in 20 years, find someone who can (almost) kill Spenser? The rich Dad is so powerful and ruthless, cops warn Spenser he’s out of his league. Yet, the guy is portrayed as a norkal guy. By the descriptions, I expected Mr. Stapleton to be revealed as head of the Russian mafia or the Grey Man in disguise. Nope. Just a rich preppie, yet more terrifying and connected than Gino Fish, Joe Broz, Tony Marcus....

Finally, the Gray Man, the world’s greatest killer gets hos assignments from a sleazy lawyer, does no background checks, and doesn’t even bother to check the client before meeting in person? Spenser gets the drop on him in 5 seconds, using a method he could havd used at the beginning before the dude shot him. WTF?

Great mystery spoiled. Too bad.

I read this for the 2024 Popsugar Challenge prompt #49, the 24th book of an author, as this is #24 in the Spenser series. I have read a lot of the other books in this series, but I don't believe I had read this one, so it was sort of nice to catch up with Spenser, Susan, and Hawk. I have to say that it certainly follows the usual pattern of quips and relationships, but the innuendos between Spenser and women he is interrogating is wearing a bit thin for me, even tough he never takes them up on their offers. At the same time this is the first book where I have seen Spenser vulnerable and almost broken, which was interesting.

In this Spenser adventure he faces two very difficult things: the first is Susan's desire to adopt a baby together and the second is his near death and gut wrenching rehabilitation after being shot and nearly killed by the Gray Man. I am not sure which was tougher for Spenser. Yes, physically there is no doubt the shooting and the rehabilitation he faces as a result took all he had. Yet when Susan expressed a desire to adopt a baby along with Spenser at their age (guessing mid-40s) when Spenser doesn't want to do it may have involved more emotional strength to keep his life baby free yet maintain his relationship with Susan.

All of this started when Spenser was hired by a law firm to investigate the killing of a young prep school girl at an exclusive girl's college. A black man was arrested and convicted of the murder a couple of years ago but the lawyer who defended him is convinced that he was innocent, though he was a bad guy who deserved to be in prison for a lot of other things.

Spenser does his thing by looking into the girl's past and asking a lot of questions. His investigation gets attention of those who want him to stop asking questions. This also results in the Gray Man showing up to attempt to kill Spenser.

Fun quick read.

Man, I just love Spenser. He’s tough and tender and will do what he has to do to free a black man who was falsely accused of killing a white girl. However, the black man is a career criminal who is probably better left in jail. But Spenser was hired to prove he didn’t do it, so whatever else he does is not a concern to Spenser because he did what he was hired to do. That the father of the young man who really did kill the girl (accidentally he says) and who hired people to kill a cop who was in on the false arrest and to try to kill Spenser himself is arrested, but he’s rich so he and his son may go free. Susan, Spenser’s long-time girlfriend, loves Spenser so much that she stays with him despite her fear that he will be killed in the course of his need to take care of things as he sees fit.

This is one of those books that gives me a dilemma when it comes to reviewing it because the major event in this one doesn’t occur until well into the story so it seems like some kind of spoiler warning is in order. However, that event is described in the book jacket and even in the plot summary on Goodreads so I’m not exactly giving away the ending of The Sixth Sense. Hell, I guess since no one else worried about it, I won’t either. You have been warned.

Spenser gets hired by attorney and old friend Rita Fiore to look into Ellis Alves. Rita was the prosecutor when Alves, a black man, was charged with killing a white college girl, and Rita got him sent to prison without breaking a sweat. Now working for a high priced law firm, Rita has become worried that Alves might have been innocent, and that his race and an inexperienced defense attorney may have allowed her to wrongly convict him.

Spenser begins investigating and quickly decides that Alves was framed, and the trail leads to the college tennis star who has a wealthy family. A formidable hitman who dresses all in gray suddenly appears and warns Spenser off. The Gray Man (as Spenser dubs him) seems like such a threat that he calls in almost every tough guy he knows to guard Susan, but Spenser continues working the case. So the Gray Man kills him.

Yep, poor old Spenser gets shot full of holes, falls off a bridge into an icy river, and his heart stops. After being saved by modern medical science, zombie Spenser faces a long and painful rehab with the help of Hawk and Susan while almost everyone else thinks he's dead. Can Spenser recover, find the Gray Man and get Alves freed from prison? Come on, it’s Spenser! Anybody really have any doubt how this is gonna play out?

This could have been a major book in the series and possibly injected some fresh life into it’s later years. There’s a lot of potential for intriguing drama with the idea of a macho tough guy like Spenser being badly injured, and the rehab stuff does make for a nice break from the routine with the usually ultra-confident and physically fit Spenser struggling to walk up a hill and having to spend countless hours learning how to punch and shoot all over again.

But once he’d brought his hero low, Parker couldn’t wait to build him back up again. I’m not saying that he should have put Spenser in a wheelchair for the remainder of the series, but the entire shooting, rehab, resolving the case and dealing with the Gray Man occurs in the second half of the book. Maybe stretching the storyline through a couple of books would have given it more weight and allowed some deeper exploration of what being that badly hurt would do to someone like Spenser. Instead, Parker mostly bypasses that idea in his rush to get Spenser back to his old self as soon as possible.

Oh, and as usual Susan is being annoying. This time she’s nagging Spenser to adopt and raise a child with her. Yawn.

This is still a good Spenser story, but it’s always seemed like a lot of potential was wasted here. This could have been a watershed event that shaped and defined Spenser for the remainder of the series, but instead it becomes just another obstacle for him to overcome with no real lasting effects.

Next up: Spenser meets Susan’s ex-husband in Sudden Mischief. Yeah, it’s a book heavy on the Susan. *sigh*

First Robert B Parker book. No problem if another pops up. Sad he passed away 10 years ago, when I did a search, I found out he was born in Springfield MA, the town I spent my young formative years in. He lived and died in Boston.
Spenser is yet another detective series, albeit a good start for me with Small Vices (#24). I like Spenser's style, particularly his humor. This story is well thought out, moves along fast and ends to a satisfaction.
Parker seems to enjoy describing each character by their looks and clothes. I guess all authors have to do this, but some skimp on the details. Parker does not, especially women.
Enjoyed this Spenser tale.

Leave it to me to start the series with book #24....

Spenser for hire. An attorney Spenser knows requests his help verifying that a coworker's early case was rightfully incarcerated for the murder of a young coed.

At great risk to Spenser and his signifcant other's lives, mind you.