Recent reads

Bad Business, by Robert B. Parker. Spenser novels are one of my guilty pleasures. The fact that the characters do not "develop" from one book to the next -- or even from one decade to the next -- is almost a deliberate hallmark of the books. As a recent reviewer put it:

Without waving a flag about it, Parker makes his intention clear in classic he-man style: having achieved the ideal stage of maturity, his courtly knight will not age, wither or forsake his heroic mission. And that's not all. Hawk will always be scary. Susan will always be a beauty. And there will always be a dog named Pearl in the house.

Part of the appeal of the books is in the protagonist's deadpan, smart-aleck attitude. It's no exaggeration to say that I read these books more for the rapid-fire dialogue and sardonic internal comments as for the plot.

"Do you do divorce work?" the woman said.
"I do," I said.
"Are you any good?"
"I am", I said.
"I don't want likelihood," she said. "Or guesswork. I need evidence that will stand up in court."
"That's not up to me," I said. "That's up to the evidence."
She sat quietly in my client chair and thought about that.
"You're telling me you won't manufacture it," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"You won't have to," she said. "The sonovabitch can't keep his dick in his pants for a full day."
"Must make dining out a little awkward," I said.
She ignored me. I was used to it. Mostly I amused myself....

What guy with lingering adolescent delusions of lonely intellectual superiority could possibly resist identifying with this narrator?

Of course, plot is supposed to be central to mystery novels, so I should probably mention that this one involves multiple dysfunctional marriages and a dysfunctional energy-trading company with certain similarities to the recently-deceased but unmourned Enron. There's skulduggery and mischief, deceit and danger galore.

An enjoyable outing, guilty pleasure or no.