Old friends. Small favors. Bitter rivals. Stirred together, it all makes for one explosive cocktail. Spenser can feel the heat stretching from Boston to Vegas and people are about to get burned. â Henry Cimoli and Spenser have been friends for years, yet the old boxing trainer has never asked the private eye for a favor. Until now. A developer is trying to buy up Henry's condo on Revere Beach with a push from local thugs. Soon Spenser and his apprentice, Zebulon Sixkill, are on the trail of a mysterious woman, a megalomaniacal Las Vegas kingpin, and a shady plan to turn a chunk of land north of Boston into a sprawling casino. As alliances shift and twisted dreams surface, the Boston political machine looks to end Spenser's investigation one way or another and once and for all.
I thought that this was a better outing overall than Lullaby, Mr. Atkins' first turn as Spenser's new scribe. Hawk does not appear, which is a disappointment, so Spenser is left to trade one-liners and witticisms with his protege Zebulon Sixkill and Henry Cimoli, who asks Spenser to look into why a company looking to buy the condo complex he lives in would send some thugs to pressure the residents into selling. What follows is an entertaining yarn filled with the usual Spenserian offerings: heroic good guys, despicable bad guys, true love and of course, brilliant descriptions of food, drink and locale. Is it perfect Robert B. Parker? Of course not, but it's good enough to keep me coming back for more.
I gave up on this after a few pages. I liked Robert B Parker's Spenser but I think the series should have died with him. Atkins imitates Parker's style but doesn't catch his substance. For people who like a fast read style, competently written ordinary mystery, this might be okay, but I can't see a real Parker/Spenser fan being satisfied. Read at your own risk.
