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Spenser #1
Spenser und das gestohlene Manuskript: Ein Auftrag für Spenser
Privatdetektiv Spenser wird an die Universität bestellt, um den Diebstahl eines wertvollen Manukriptes aus dem 14. Jahrhundert aufzuklären. Dabei gerät er an eine Studentenvereinigung, bei der einiges im Argen liegt und bald wird er in einen Mordfall verwickelt. Die Hauptverdächtige ist die schöne Terry Orchard. Spenser ist von ihrer Unschuld überzeugt und bemüht sich mit aller Kraft, sie zu entlasten. Nun hat er jedoch den Lehrstuhl, die Polizei und das organisierte Verbrechen gegen sich. Doch Schlitzohr Spenser lässt sich nicht von seiner Fährte abbringen und versucht die Wahrheit ans Licht zu bringen, mit allen Mitteln, so unorthodox sie auch erscheinen mögen …
183 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 2, 1973
2407 people are currently reading
9745 people want to read
About the author
Robert B. Parker
488 books2,281 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database named Robert B. Parker.
Robert Brown Parker was an American writer, primarily of fiction within the mystery/detective genre. His most famous works were the 40 novels written about the fictional private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the mid-1980s; a series of TV movies was also produced based on the character. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited as reviving and changing the detective genre by critics and bestselling authors including Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane.
Parker also wrote nine novels featuring the fictional character Jesse Stone, a Los Angeles police officer who moves to a small New England town; six novels with the fictional character Sunny Randall, a female private investigator; and four Westerns starring the duo Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. The first was Appaloosa, made into a film starring Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen.
Robert Brown Parker was an American writer, primarily of fiction within the mystery/detective genre. His most famous works were the 40 novels written about the fictional private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the mid-1980s; a series of TV movies was also produced based on the character. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited as reviving and changing the detective genre by critics and bestselling authors including Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane.
Parker also wrote nine novels featuring the fictional character Jesse Stone, a Los Angeles police officer who moves to a small New England town; six novels with the fictional character Sunny Randall, a female private investigator; and four Westerns starring the duo Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. The first was Appaloosa, made into a film starring Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,341 reviews
December 31, 2023
Ah, the first Spenser mystery, the one to start a series of almost forty books in forty years. Having started the series somewhere in the middle, I went back to the beginning in 1973 to see where it all began. The short version? Read if you are a series completionist or you want an eye-blink view into the 1970s scene, which was something, man.
I discovered Parker's writing appealed more than mid-series when it had been distilled to the bare bones. Though I'm a fan for the art of minimizing in my physical life, there's something to be said for richness in mood and setting, particularly in a mystery, and this supplies it in spades. Unfortunately, at times the description takes a bit of a list form over integrated scene-building.
"I'd come down mainly to check my mail, and the trip had been hardly worth it. There was a phone bill, a light bill, an overdue notice from the Boston Public Library, a correspondence course offering to teach me karate at home in my spare time, a letter from a former client insisting that while I had found his wife she had left again and hence he would not pay my bill, an invitation to join a vacation club, an invitation to buy a set of socket wrenches, an invitation to join an automobile club, an invitation to subscribe to five magazines of my choice at once-in-a-lifetime savings, an invitation to shop the specials on port at my local supermarket, and a number of less important letters. Nothing from Germain Greer or Lenny Bernstein, no dinner invitations, no post cards from the Costa del Sol, no mash notes from Helen Gurley Brown. Last week had been much the same."
See? Time period. Also classic deadpan Spencer. (Also, the more things change, the more they stay the same).
It is also coarser, to be certain; late Spenser was sanitized and heroic, faithful to Susan, dogs, and knightly values. It's clearly early Spenser, evidenced by a gratuitous torture-porn scene that literally did nothing for the plot, and Spenser's general attitude of a swinging 70s ladies' man Also notable for a 'fag' exchange between Lt. Quirk and a member of the squad (indirectly supportive of gay people in a very passive way).
There's a bit of social commentary as well, which late Spenser also seems more comfortable avoiding. Spenser is consulted by a college dean who wants him to find a missing illuminated manuscript which is apparently being held for ransom. He has to spend his time hanging around radical, anti-establishment college students who are all about the dogma, man. It allows for some solid, world-weary reflections: "I felt the beer a little, and I felt the sadness of kids like that who weren’t buying it and weren’t quite sure what it was." One of the radicals gets framed for murder, so the case rapidly shifts from a missing McGuffin to a Find the Real Killer.
It's interesting, sometimes, to read these older books and feel the time period soaking through. This is a booze-soaked Spencer story, to the point of a cop offering him a pint as he's recovering in the hospital. Spencer is frequently drinking or hungover. Speaking of cops, there's another period moment when the police officers transported a gunshot victim. They did that, you know, pre-ambulance days. Emergency medical services didn't really get underway until 1970, and paramedics a bit later.
I'll be honest; the female characters are accessorizing sex objects or victims, none of them heroic, which would annoy me more if it had been long-standing through the series. Some day, the psychologist Susan will come in and annoy us all with her anorexic eating habits, so I suspect my tolerance was indirectly the result of my irritation with future direction. Parker is also weirdly fascinated by clothes and describes what each character is wearing, even extraneous ones. Again, fun in the retrospective sense. "He looked like a zinnia. Tall and thin with an enormous corona of rust red hair flowing out around his pale, clean-shaven face. He wore a lavender undershirt and a pair of faded, flare-bottomed denim dungarees that were too long and dragged on the floor over his bare feet."
Overall, a solid P.I. mystery, good start to a series and a fun window into a time period. Of note, this is one that introduces the heroic Lt. Quirk as part of Boston PD's Detective Bureau, Sgt. Belson, a red-faced beat officer named Kenneally, and the infamous Joe Broz.
I discovered Parker's writing appealed more than mid-series when it had been distilled to the bare bones. Though I'm a fan for the art of minimizing in my physical life, there's something to be said for richness in mood and setting, particularly in a mystery, and this supplies it in spades. Unfortunately, at times the description takes a bit of a list form over integrated scene-building.
"I'd come down mainly to check my mail, and the trip had been hardly worth it. There was a phone bill, a light bill, an overdue notice from the Boston Public Library, a correspondence course offering to teach me karate at home in my spare time, a letter from a former client insisting that while I had found his wife she had left again and hence he would not pay my bill, an invitation to join a vacation club, an invitation to buy a set of socket wrenches, an invitation to join an automobile club, an invitation to subscribe to five magazines of my choice at once-in-a-lifetime savings, an invitation to shop the specials on port at my local supermarket, and a number of less important letters. Nothing from Germain Greer or Lenny Bernstein, no dinner invitations, no post cards from the Costa del Sol, no mash notes from Helen Gurley Brown. Last week had been much the same."
See? Time period. Also classic deadpan Spencer. (Also, the more things change, the more they stay the same).
It is also coarser, to be certain; late Spenser was sanitized and heroic, faithful to Susan, dogs, and knightly values. It's clearly early Spenser, evidenced by a gratuitous torture-porn scene that literally did nothing for the plot, and Spenser's general attitude of a swinging 70s ladies' man Also notable for a 'fag' exchange between Lt. Quirk and a member of the squad (indirectly supportive of gay people in a very passive way).
There's a bit of social commentary as well, which late Spenser also seems more comfortable avoiding. Spenser is consulted by a college dean who wants him to find a missing illuminated manuscript which is apparently being held for ransom. He has to spend his time hanging around radical, anti-establishment college students who are all about the dogma, man. It allows for some solid, world-weary reflections: "I felt the beer a little, and I felt the sadness of kids like that who weren’t buying it and weren’t quite sure what it was." One of the radicals gets framed for murder, so the case rapidly shifts from a missing McGuffin to a Find the Real Killer.
It's interesting, sometimes, to read these older books and feel the time period soaking through. This is a booze-soaked Spencer story, to the point of a cop offering him a pint as he's recovering in the hospital. Spencer is frequently drinking or hungover. Speaking of cops, there's another period moment when the police officers transported a gunshot victim. They did that, you know, pre-ambulance days. Emergency medical services didn't really get underway until 1970, and paramedics a bit later.
I'll be honest; the female characters are accessorizing sex objects or victims, none of them heroic, which would annoy me more if it had been long-standing through the series. Some day, the psychologist Susan will come in and annoy us all with her anorexic eating habits, so I suspect my tolerance was indirectly the result of my irritation with future direction. Parker is also weirdly fascinated by clothes and describes what each character is wearing, even extraneous ones. Again, fun in the retrospective sense. "He looked like a zinnia. Tall and thin with an enormous corona of rust red hair flowing out around his pale, clean-shaven face. He wore a lavender undershirt and a pair of faded, flare-bottomed denim dungarees that were too long and dragged on the floor over his bare feet."
Overall, a solid P.I. mystery, good start to a series and a fun window into a time period. Of note, this is one that introduces the heroic Lt. Quirk as part of Boston PD's Detective Bureau, Sgt. Belson, a red-faced beat officer named Kenneally, and the infamous Joe Broz.
July 7, 2019
I hear this Ace Atkinson guy is good, but I can't bring myself to read a new Spenser now that Parker has died. Instead, I've decided to re-read the first dozen or so Spensers until gal-pal Susan starts annoying me again.
In this first mystery, Spenser is hired to find a medieval manuscript stolen from a university. Soon manuscript retrieval takes a back seat when one of the undergraduate radicals suspected of the theft is charged with murdering her boyfriend, and Spenser is convinced she has been framed. Our detective dives into a bewildering world of morally suspect professors, randy rich housewives, crypto-Satanists, heroin traffickers, and the Boston mob.
Spenser is not yet fully formed. His hobby is woodcarving (dorky for a detective), he drinks bourbon with bitters (is this really a thing?) and something referred to only as “beer” (brand and type unspecified). Sexually, this early Spenser has fewer scruples and less control, not having yet developed his personal moral code, and this makes him--in my eyes at least--less of a hero. (On the bright side, there is no Susan Silverman; she first appears in the next book, God Bless the Child.)
But much of the Spenser we love is here. The smart-ass wisecracks are as smart-ass as ever, the literary allusions frequent and amusing (although I think slightly more arcane here), and the meals he cooks for himself sound delicious. Quirk and Belson are here too, and Joe Broz, and somebody named Phil who looks like a first draft for Vinny.
The plot is good, and there are two great shoot-outs near the end, each of which reveal something about the moral nature of the people involved. Now I ask you, how many first class shoot-outs are revelatory of character? That's the Robert B. Parker I love!
May 6, 2023
"The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse."
Thus opens the novel that introduced Robert B. Parker's most famous creation, Boston P.I., Spenser. Spenser was a former cop who'd been fired for insubordination, and he was also a veteran of the Korean War. When The Godwulf Manuscript was published in 1973, he was apparently somewhere in his middle forties, which means that when Parker wrote his last contribution to the series in 2011, Spenser would have been in his early eighties. With the publication this year of the latest book in the series, written by Ace Atkins, Spenser would be pushing ninety.
For a guy that old, he still does amazingly well. More important, for a series this long--now forty-five books--the character and the concept have held up very well. Truth to tell, the series had begun to falter a bit toward the end of Parker's life, but Atkins has put it back on track and restored it to its former glory.
From the beginning, as suggested by the opening sentence above, Spenser was a world-class smart ass. He was also a very tough guy, wise to the ways of the world, and, naturally, hugely attractive to the ladies. He worked by his own rules, and for Spenser, the ends almost always justified the means. He was a very worthy successor to the generation of tough-guy P.I.s who had come before him.
In this case, a very valuable manuscript has been stolen from a Boston University. The manuscriptnappers are asking $100,000 for its safe return, but this is not one of the more stellar universities for which Boston is known. They don't have a hundred grand, and so the university president hires Spenser to get the manuscript back.
Spenser's main lead is to a group of campus radicals. Almost immediately, someone is murdered and the stakes are raised significantly. The murder and the theft are obviously related, and Spenser soon finds himself caught between the university officials, the cops, some local mobsters, a lot of uncooperative students and a particularly nasty faculty wife. Naturally, none of these will pose any significant problem for Spenser, but things will get very dicey along the way.
Rereading the book after a very long time was a lot of fun, and it's held up very well, especially for a book that's now forty-three years old. Mainly that's because the character of Spenser seems somehow almost timeless and the story moves along so well that you don't even stop to think about all the modern technology that Spenser doesn't have at his beck and call.
The character is obviously not fully formed yet. A couple of characters are introduced who will accompany Spenser through the entire run of the series, but Parker is still feeling his way along here, and it was interesting to go back and see the character again as he initially appeared.
This is the book in which Spenser meets Brenda Loring, who will be his first significant love interest. I liked Brenda a lot, and like many another fan of this series, I rue the day when she disappeared from the series only to have Spenser wind up with the insufferable Susan Silverman. Happily, that doesn't happen for a while, which is one of the reasons why so many of the early books in this series are among the best of the lot. All in all, this was a great trip back down Memory Lane.
Thus opens the novel that introduced Robert B. Parker's most famous creation, Boston P.I., Spenser. Spenser was a former cop who'd been fired for insubordination, and he was also a veteran of the Korean War. When The Godwulf Manuscript was published in 1973, he was apparently somewhere in his middle forties, which means that when Parker wrote his last contribution to the series in 2011, Spenser would have been in his early eighties. With the publication this year of the latest book in the series, written by Ace Atkins, Spenser would be pushing ninety.
For a guy that old, he still does amazingly well. More important, for a series this long--now forty-five books--the character and the concept have held up very well. Truth to tell, the series had begun to falter a bit toward the end of Parker's life, but Atkins has put it back on track and restored it to its former glory.
From the beginning, as suggested by the opening sentence above, Spenser was a world-class smart ass. He was also a very tough guy, wise to the ways of the world, and, naturally, hugely attractive to the ladies. He worked by his own rules, and for Spenser, the ends almost always justified the means. He was a very worthy successor to the generation of tough-guy P.I.s who had come before him.
In this case, a very valuable manuscript has been stolen from a Boston University. The manuscriptnappers are asking $100,000 for its safe return, but this is not one of the more stellar universities for which Boston is known. They don't have a hundred grand, and so the university president hires Spenser to get the manuscript back.
Spenser's main lead is to a group of campus radicals. Almost immediately, someone is murdered and the stakes are raised significantly. The murder and the theft are obviously related, and Spenser soon finds himself caught between the university officials, the cops, some local mobsters, a lot of uncooperative students and a particularly nasty faculty wife. Naturally, none of these will pose any significant problem for Spenser, but things will get very dicey along the way.
Rereading the book after a very long time was a lot of fun, and it's held up very well, especially for a book that's now forty-three years old. Mainly that's because the character of Spenser seems somehow almost timeless and the story moves along so well that you don't even stop to think about all the modern technology that Spenser doesn't have at his beck and call.
The character is obviously not fully formed yet. A couple of characters are introduced who will accompany Spenser through the entire run of the series, but Parker is still feeling his way along here, and it was interesting to go back and see the character again as he initially appeared.
This is the book in which Spenser meets Brenda Loring, who will be his first significant love interest. I liked Brenda a lot, and like many another fan of this series, I rue the day when she disappeared from the series only to have Spenser wind up with the insufferable Susan Silverman. Happily, that doesn't happen for a while, which is one of the reasons why so many of the early books in this series are among the best of the lot. All in all, this was a great trip back down Memory Lane.
January 23, 2010
I read Robert B. Parker’s The Professional last month and wrote a long review trashing him for ruining Spenser in the last half of his career. Parker died this week, and I feel like a jackass. He had provided me a lot of enjoyment over the years and had a lot to do with turning me into the crime-mystery fan I am today.
Plus, while reading the obits his death, and the high praise that was heaped on him by modern mystery writers for reviving the detective genre in the early ‘70, I remembered why I liked him in the first place. Parker did some fantastic crime writing in the ‘70s into the early ‘90s, and damning him for losing his fastball when he aged wasn’t fair. Guy was 77 years old, still wrote 5 pages a day, 6 days a week, and died at his desk working on a new Spenser novel.
He started not one, but two new successful series in the ‘90s after he already had made Spenser an icon. He branched out and wrote westerns and some young adult novels and a several stand-alone novels. He was the writer that Raymond Chandler’s estate tapped to finish Poodle Springs, and he did it well. It was far to easy to take him for granted, even if his early brilliance faded into comfortable routine.
So as penance for my general assholery, I’m going back and re-reading the early Spenser books and maybe a few of the other ones he did that I liked.
Parker claimed he wrote The Godwulf Manuscript because he missed Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe after he had read all the books and short stories, and it’s obvious that he was thinking of Marlowe when he created Spenser, especially in this first novel.
There’s no Susan and no Hawk yet. Just the introduction to private detective Spenser who is hired to find a stolen medieval manuscript by the university it was taken from. Published in 1973 when campus radicalization was in full swing, Spenser suspects a fringe group of damn dirty hippies of the theft, but the murder of one them frames a young female member. Since the cops seem willing to accept the frame-up instead of press for the real killer, it’s up to Spenser to clear her.
It was very interesting to go back and read the early version of Spenser after obsessing over the weaker recent books. Many of the early themes and characterization are there. Spenser is still a wise-ass who cares nothing for political agendas or institutional loyalty. For Spenser, the only thing that really matters is his own moral code, and it’s definitely situational. Knowing that he can’t save the world, Spenser doesn’t try. His focus will always remain on trying to save the few he deems worthy while not giving a rat’s ass about whatever bigger picture that everyone else is focused on. And once he’s committed, Spenser does whatever he has to in order to help them. In the early books, it often meant taking actions that he had a hard time living with later.
This is Spenser 1.0. Still cocky, funny and tough, but somewhat angrier, lonelier and a little ashamed of his own capacity for violence. After having to slap around a college student to get some critical information, Spenser tries to get something to eat:
“Halfway through my steak I caught sight of myself in the mirror above the bar. I looked like someone who ought to eat alone. I didn’t look in the mirror again.”
And early Spenser is definitely channeling Phillip Marlowe at times:
“I could tell he was impressed by the gun in my hand. The only thing that would have scared him more would have been if I threatened to flog him with a dandelion.”
This Spenser is more apt to break his own code than the later version, like sleeping with a couple of women related to the case, and he worries that his life is starting to seem a little shabby around the edges. As much as fans, including me, have bitched about later incarnations of Susan and the way their eventually lovey-dovey relationship took something away from the series, I realized while reading this that Parker was smart to eventually incorporate a long-term relationship into the stories. Spenser alone forever would have been a little to much of a Marlowe clone, and it was his relationships that eventually saved him from being a guy that deserved to eat alone.
Next up: Spenser goes to a gay bar in God Save the Child.
Plus, while reading the obits his death, and the high praise that was heaped on him by modern mystery writers for reviving the detective genre in the early ‘70, I remembered why I liked him in the first place. Parker did some fantastic crime writing in the ‘70s into the early ‘90s, and damning him for losing his fastball when he aged wasn’t fair. Guy was 77 years old, still wrote 5 pages a day, 6 days a week, and died at his desk working on a new Spenser novel.
He started not one, but two new successful series in the ‘90s after he already had made Spenser an icon. He branched out and wrote westerns and some young adult novels and a several stand-alone novels. He was the writer that Raymond Chandler’s estate tapped to finish Poodle Springs, and he did it well. It was far to easy to take him for granted, even if his early brilliance faded into comfortable routine.
So as penance for my general assholery, I’m going back and re-reading the early Spenser books and maybe a few of the other ones he did that I liked.
Parker claimed he wrote The Godwulf Manuscript because he missed Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe after he had read all the books and short stories, and it’s obvious that he was thinking of Marlowe when he created Spenser, especially in this first novel.
There’s no Susan and no Hawk yet. Just the introduction to private detective Spenser who is hired to find a stolen medieval manuscript by the university it was taken from. Published in 1973 when campus radicalization was in full swing, Spenser suspects a fringe group of damn dirty hippies of the theft, but the murder of one them frames a young female member. Since the cops seem willing to accept the frame-up instead of press for the real killer, it’s up to Spenser to clear her.
It was very interesting to go back and read the early version of Spenser after obsessing over the weaker recent books. Many of the early themes and characterization are there. Spenser is still a wise-ass who cares nothing for political agendas or institutional loyalty. For Spenser, the only thing that really matters is his own moral code, and it’s definitely situational. Knowing that he can’t save the world, Spenser doesn’t try. His focus will always remain on trying to save the few he deems worthy while not giving a rat’s ass about whatever bigger picture that everyone else is focused on. And once he’s committed, Spenser does whatever he has to in order to help them. In the early books, it often meant taking actions that he had a hard time living with later.
This is Spenser 1.0. Still cocky, funny and tough, but somewhat angrier, lonelier and a little ashamed of his own capacity for violence. After having to slap around a college student to get some critical information, Spenser tries to get something to eat:
“Halfway through my steak I caught sight of myself in the mirror above the bar. I looked like someone who ought to eat alone. I didn’t look in the mirror again.”
And early Spenser is definitely channeling Phillip Marlowe at times:
“I could tell he was impressed by the gun in my hand. The only thing that would have scared him more would have been if I threatened to flog him with a dandelion.”
This Spenser is more apt to break his own code than the later version, like sleeping with a couple of women related to the case, and he worries that his life is starting to seem a little shabby around the edges. As much as fans, including me, have bitched about later incarnations of Susan and the way their eventually lovey-dovey relationship took something away from the series, I realized while reading this that Parker was smart to eventually incorporate a long-term relationship into the stories. Spenser alone forever would have been a little to much of a Marlowe clone, and it was his relationships that eventually saved him from being a guy that deserved to eat alone.
Next up: Spenser goes to a gay bar in God Save the Child.
April 27, 2011
The Godwulf Manuscript has gone missing from the university and Spenser's been hired to find it. But what does the stolen and ransomed manuscript have to do with the murder of a dope dealer, seemingly by his girlfriend? And can Spenser figure out what is going on before being murdered himself?
This is the first Spenser book and quite a good read. While the story is called the Godwulf Manuscript, the aforementioned manuscript doesn't actually get that much action and is phased out pretty early. The real meat of the story is the killing of Dennis Powell, a heroin dealer. Spenser takes a beating and comes out on top in the end.
Spenser himself is an interesting character, a former cop fired for insubordination. Spenser likes to crack wise at every turn,, which is probably why he was drummed out of the force. I know I wanted to pistol whip him a couple times. He's also quite the lady's man. *** Minor spoiler alert *** How many other books have you read where the hero has sex with the main girl and her mother just hours apart?
For fans of crime and mystery, you could do a lot worse. This is where it all starts and it just gets better from here, from what I understand.
This is the first Spenser book and quite a good read. While the story is called the Godwulf Manuscript, the aforementioned manuscript doesn't actually get that much action and is phased out pretty early. The real meat of the story is the killing of Dennis Powell, a heroin dealer. Spenser takes a beating and comes out on top in the end.
Spenser himself is an interesting character, a former cop fired for insubordination. Spenser likes to crack wise at every turn,, which is probably why he was drummed out of the force. I know I wanted to pistol whip him a couple times. He's also quite the lady's man. *** Minor spoiler alert *** How many other books have you read where the hero has sex with the main girl and her mother just hours apart?
For fans of crime and mystery, you could do a lot worse. This is where it all starts and it just gets better from here, from what I understand.
January 12, 2024
In this first of the series Spenser is on the trail of a medieval manuscript stolen from a university which is a far cry from Ivy League. Of course in today's climate that would probably be a good thing. The trail leads to murder and chicanery. But Spenser sees it through with the usual wisecracks and wry observations which became a hallmark of the Spenser mysteries.
December 21, 2017
Robert B. Parker's Spenser detective series kicks off very academically, literally. A valuable manuscript goes missing from a Boston university and Parker's hero Spenser is called in to investigate.
This gives Parker a chance to poke fun at stuffy academic types, while showing that Spenser isn't a total meathead himself. However, Spenser is a tough guy and when things get rough Spenser gets tough.
Things do get rough. The stolen manuscript turns into a bigger issue that Parker unfolds at a nice pace. The plot thickens, but doesn't boil over. The web is intricate and never tangles.
The Godwulf Manuscript is a good beginning to a long and fruitful series that I look forward to diving into deeper.
This gives Parker a chance to poke fun at stuffy academic types, while showing that Spenser isn't a total meathead himself. However, Spenser is a tough guy and when things get rough Spenser gets tough.
Things do get rough. The stolen manuscript turns into a bigger issue that Parker unfolds at a nice pace. The plot thickens, but doesn't boil over. The web is intricate and never tangles.
The Godwulf Manuscript is a good beginning to a long and fruitful series that I look forward to diving into deeper.
April 13, 2020
I’m officially ashamed to call myself a private detective/noir fan. I should be beaten, flogged, and taken out to pasture. I hadn’t heard of the Spenser series until last week when I was doing some deep digging on Amazon’s bestsellers lists. It may have turned into my favorite iteration of the private detective novel. It has the perfect combination of darkness and humor. My eyes start to well up when I start to think about this genre fading away. There’s something about the smart-ass, loner private detective that I relate with. I wonder why people lost their interest in the loner private detective trope? If anybody has any recommendations on modern-day private detective novels, I’d love to see them in the comments.
August 28, 2022
I remember watching the TV series Spenser: For Hire when it was on back in the day, 1985-1988. Also remember my favorite character was Hawk played by Avery Brooks. Am a little late getting started reading the series though. But as the saying goes better late than never. Am glad I finally started the series. Enjoyed the first book and plan on reading the rest of the series. Four stars.
October 22, 2014
Another excellent novel by Parker. Spenser (spelled like the poet, with an 's', not a 'c') is a tough, noir detective. The plot had me guessing a fair amount & it was very well paced. Loved the ending. Well read, too. I'll look forward to more of these.
September 7, 2017
Private Eye Spenser makes his first appearance in this witty thriller from Robert B Parker. The story was written (& is set in) the early 1970s & world weary Parker speaks his mind at every opportunity. This allows for some sharp & highly amusing dialogue throughout the story. This may be the first Spenser novel I've read, but it won't be the last.
March 24, 2010
First Sentence: The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse.
Boston PI Spenser (with an “s” like the poet) has been hired by a university president to recover a 14th century illuminated manuscript. He is directed to a SCARE, the Student committee Against Capitalist Exploitation and Terry Orchard, one of the members, whom he finds along with her aggressive boyfriend, Dennis. Spenser receives a 2 a.m. call and finds Terry drugged. Dennis dead and the evidence of a professional hit.
I’ve not read this book since the 1970s and it is an interesting cultural look back. I am very happy fashions have changed away from white vinyl boots and leisure suits and that technology has advanced from mimeographs and typewriters. As silly as some of the slang sounds today, at least it wasn’t as profane as today’s speech.
It is also interesting looking at Spenser in his later 30s. He still thought he was funnier than anyone else did. This is a pre-Hawk, pre-Susan Spencer. As annoying as Susan can be, the one thing she did bring to the series was Spenser’s monogamy.
What hasn't changed is Spenser's doggedness, determination to see the case through, dedication to the innocent and his cooking. I am always amazed that he has just the right ingredients in his kitchen to make a wonderful meal.
What Parker did extremely well was description, dialogue and plot. With a very few words, you knew where you were and the other characters in the scene. He often employed analogies—“The wet wool smelled like a grammar room coatroom.”—which put you right into his scene. His dialogue, even with the slang of the period, was always tight, crisp and real. As to plot, the story started a bit light and annoying. However, once it took hold, it hit its stride and I was completely engrossed.
Re-reading this very first book makes it clear as to why I have read every other book Parker wrote.
THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT (PI-Spenser-Boston-Cont/1973) – VG
Parker, Robert B. – 1st of series
A Dell Book, ©1973, US Paperback – ISBN: 04401129613
Boston PI Spenser (with an “s” like the poet) has been hired by a university president to recover a 14th century illuminated manuscript. He is directed to a SCARE, the Student committee Against Capitalist Exploitation and Terry Orchard, one of the members, whom he finds along with her aggressive boyfriend, Dennis. Spenser receives a 2 a.m. call and finds Terry drugged. Dennis dead and the evidence of a professional hit.
I’ve not read this book since the 1970s and it is an interesting cultural look back. I am very happy fashions have changed away from white vinyl boots and leisure suits and that technology has advanced from mimeographs and typewriters. As silly as some of the slang sounds today, at least it wasn’t as profane as today’s speech.
It is also interesting looking at Spenser in his later 30s. He still thought he was funnier than anyone else did. This is a pre-Hawk, pre-Susan Spencer. As annoying as Susan can be, the one thing she did bring to the series was Spenser’s monogamy.
What hasn't changed is Spenser's doggedness, determination to see the case through, dedication to the innocent and his cooking. I am always amazed that he has just the right ingredients in his kitchen to make a wonderful meal.
What Parker did extremely well was description, dialogue and plot. With a very few words, you knew where you were and the other characters in the scene. He often employed analogies—“The wet wool smelled like a grammar room coatroom.”—which put you right into his scene. His dialogue, even with the slang of the period, was always tight, crisp and real. As to plot, the story started a bit light and annoying. However, once it took hold, it hit its stride and I was completely engrossed.
Re-reading this very first book makes it clear as to why I have read every other book Parker wrote.
THE GODWULF MANUSCRIPT (PI-Spenser-Boston-Cont/1973) – VG
Parker, Robert B. – 1st of series
A Dell Book, ©1973, US Paperback – ISBN: 04401129613
Want to read
September 6, 2022This is the first Spenser written by Robert B Parker and the character is indeed still very two dimensional, he is a smartmouthed sometimes witty private investigator. The book opens with him being rude and hired nonetheless to find an expensive book. His casual investigative skill leads him to murder and mayhem and he meets the local gangsters that dislike his interference.
The story never starts being a mystery, it is pretty soon fairly obvious who the culprits are. But the road towards the solution is not without any wit and indeed Spenser is a sympathetic character even if he has some doubtfull sexual morality in this book that befits a teenage boy.
A quick, casual and fun read that does indeed passes the time well enough and does not outstay his welcome.
The story never starts being a mystery, it is pretty soon fairly obvious who the culprits are. But the road towards the solution is not without any wit and indeed Spenser is a sympathetic character even if he has some doubtfull sexual morality in this book that befits a teenage boy.
A quick, casual and fun read that does indeed passes the time well enough and does not outstay his welcome.
January 3, 2023
This first Spenser mystery wasn't written as historical fiction by Edgar Grand Master Award winner Robert B. Parker but it's as a portal back to the late 60s and early 70s that I found it most interesting. Even having been there only once for a week's visit, I could tell he knew his Boston setting. His views on women are of the time but jarring today. The titular rare manuscript stolen from a university is merely a MacGuffin in a story that introduces private eye Spenser and engages him with Boston police, a student radical group, organized crime, drugs and the politics of an English Department at a university probably much like Northeastern University, where Dr. Parker was teaching when he wrote this. That Spenser lived on Scotch, coffee, and lovingly described breakfasts he cooked himself wasn't surprising for the genre, but the frequent and obsessively detailed descriptions of the outfits his characters wore were.
May 19, 2015
The Hook - I’m a Robert Parker/Spencer virgin. Ace Atkins, who is the new voice of Spencer, was in my neck of the woods doing an author talk so I decided to begin the series at book one.
The Line – ”Insubordination. It’s one of my best things.”
The Sinker – This guy’s tough, one I’d call Mr. Spencer if I knew what was good for me. 195 lbs. coming at you with a power-horse of muscle and one whole lot of smart talk to go along with it. On top of this he cooks, delicious offerings, some gourmet, fast food too and eggs. He listens to jazz, can hold his own in discussing books, and is no slouch when it comes to drink; bourbon, brandy, and even has a few bottles of good wine just in case. His city, Boston, gives him a substantial backdrop for crime and mayhem. These characteristics give me a hint of the man who will continue a career as a private eye in several more mysteries.
Speaking of mystery this one was ok. It’s really about the man more than the story. Spencer is hired by a Boston University to recover the stolen Godwulf Manuscript, an illuminated rare book. When Spencer asks what an illuminated manuscript is he gets a good description:
A handwritten book, done by monks usually, with illustrations in color, often red and gold in the margins. This particular one is in Latin, and contains an allusion of Richard Rolle, the fourteenth-century English mystic. It was discovered forty years ago behind an ornamental façade at Godwulf Abbey, where it is thought to have been secreted during the pillage of the monasteries that followed Henry the Eighth’s break with Rome.”
Illuminated books in themselves are an interesting topic but I would have to be satisfied with the above as though it prompts his hiring it is not the real focus of this story. The original cover featured a nice picture of an illuminated book however. The University President thinks a group called SCACE (Student Committee Against Capitalist Exploitation) may be behind the theft and Spencer is off to interview a few. When one radical male student ends up dead, his girlfriend becomes the prime suspect. Spencer doesn’t believe she’s guilty and we’re off and running.
Originally published in the early 70’s The Godwulf Manuscript held up pretty well. I couldn’t help but think though how some things have really changed.
Half a dozen McDonald’s burgers and a pint of bourbon constituted Spencer’s distracted driving of the day. Of course there are other changes in the 40+ years since the series origins but it really seemed not to matter. Parker has been compared to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Stepping in Chandler’s shoes he finished the last Marlowe book, Poodle Springs. It seems somehow fitting that the Parker’s pen is passed on to Ace Atkins, to keep Spencer, this beloved P.I. alive and ready to fight another day.
August 12, 2018
I picked this up at a secondhand bookshop last month and at first thought I'd stumbled onto a poor imitation of Raymond Chandler, complete with a bourbon-soaked wise-ass PI, dames in distress, and .45s singing like Philip Marlowe was alive and well. How derivative, my snooty wise-ass reviewer's voice began... but don't listen to him. What we have here is a loving homage to Chandler's creation. If you like hardboiled PIs for hire and you've read all Chandler published, why wouldn't you want to see his archetypes doing battle in more contemporary settings, in this case a university campus in 1970s Boston? Done well, such a book would be a quick, enjoyable read, and this, dear reader, is just that.
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newsletter with book recommendations galore for the Japanophile, crime-fiction-lover in all of us.
August 28, 2012
Hey cookie, hey lovely, your thighs are lush, let me sleep with you, or maybe your daughter, but I'll be a gentleman and wait till NEXT chapter to plow her field. what, there's a macguffin that's missing? Let me insult everyone who could aid me and sleep with a few dames and I'll get it sorted out before the next broad spreads her legs for my incomprehensible sex appeal.
No, I didn't like it.
No, I didn't like it.
March 29, 2013
Be warned: I am about to spoil the shit out of this book, so don’t read on if you’re not up for it.
The Godwulf Manuscript gets going when the president of a university in Boston — unnamed, but from context it’s probably BU — calls in private detective Spenser. A fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript has disappeared, and an anonymous caller has demanded $100,000 in ransom. This is a total giveaway — if “the university” were Harvard they’d fish the money out of their couch cushions and the book would be done here. They don’t and it’s not.
In the initial interview with Spenser, the president indicates that a far-left student organization, SCACE, is at the top of his suspect list. I should note that he’s fingering the group for precisely no reason. He literally says “it’s a gut guess,” I guess because they’re a bunch of hippies? No worries, it turns out that he is totally right to finger this group for precisely no reason. Onward!
Anyway, Spenser goes to investigate, and the first person he talks to is Terry Orchard. Terry is a girl born into privilege who has gone anti-establishment during her college years and is, at twenty, the secretary of SCACE. He takes her to a local pub for a beer to ask her about the manuscript, and about a minute into their conversation her boyfriend shows up and Spenser punches him in the face. Then he leaves without getting any answers from Terry or Dennis.
So, naturally, when a couple of hoodlums break into Terry and Dennis’s apartment, shoot Dennis dead, and dope Terry unto incoherency, her last lucid thought is “must … call … that … guy … I met … that one time ….” Thank goodness she knows one person who she can count on as a true friend in this world! Spenser to the rescue!
The book goes on in this vein. Spenser is a badass and smarter and better than everyone, and whenever it looks like he might run into a dead end, someone will call him out of nowhere and give him a new lead. Oh, and in case you were in suspense, yes, he does sleep with the twenty-year-old Terry. I bet you were worried that might not happen! Rest easy, my friend. It does. Oh, and you’ll be relieved to know that he sleeps with her mother, too. He spaces them less than 24 hours apart. Don’t worry, though, he’s a total gentleman. I mean, both of those ladies came on to him. Saying no would have been plain uncivilized.
The book ends “happily.” Terry remembers where she came from and gets back on the right track — you can tell because she starts wearing makeup and ditches her faded Levi jacket for a dapple gray suede coat with white fur trim. I am not remotely kidding. The unhinged cowardly hippie professor is safely behind bars, thank God. And Spenser gets to bang the university president’s secretary.
Oh, the manuscript, you ask? That got returned 75 pages ago. Did you think that was what the book was actually about? Hahahahahahaha sucker!
The Godwulf Manuscript gets going when the president of a university in Boston — unnamed, but from context it’s probably BU — calls in private detective Spenser. A fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript has disappeared, and an anonymous caller has demanded $100,000 in ransom. This is a total giveaway — if “the university” were Harvard they’d fish the money out of their couch cushions and the book would be done here. They don’t and it’s not.
In the initial interview with Spenser, the president indicates that a far-left student organization, SCACE, is at the top of his suspect list. I should note that he’s fingering the group for precisely no reason. He literally says “it’s a gut guess,” I guess because they’re a bunch of hippies? No worries, it turns out that he is totally right to finger this group for precisely no reason. Onward!
Anyway, Spenser goes to investigate, and the first person he talks to is Terry Orchard. Terry is a girl born into privilege who has gone anti-establishment during her college years and is, at twenty, the secretary of SCACE. He takes her to a local pub for a beer to ask her about the manuscript, and about a minute into their conversation her boyfriend shows up and Spenser punches him in the face. Then he leaves without getting any answers from Terry or Dennis.
So, naturally, when a couple of hoodlums break into Terry and Dennis’s apartment, shoot Dennis dead, and dope Terry unto incoherency, her last lucid thought is “must … call … that … guy … I met … that one time ….” Thank goodness she knows one person who she can count on as a true friend in this world! Spenser to the rescue!
The book goes on in this vein. Spenser is a badass and smarter and better than everyone, and whenever it looks like he might run into a dead end, someone will call him out of nowhere and give him a new lead. Oh, and in case you were in suspense, yes, he does sleep with the twenty-year-old Terry. I bet you were worried that might not happen! Rest easy, my friend. It does. Oh, and you’ll be relieved to know that he sleeps with her mother, too. He spaces them less than 24 hours apart. Don’t worry, though, he’s a total gentleman. I mean, both of those ladies came on to him. Saying no would have been plain uncivilized.
The book ends “happily.” Terry remembers where she came from and gets back on the right track — you can tell because she starts wearing makeup and ditches her faded Levi jacket for a dapple gray suede coat with white fur trim. I am not remotely kidding. The unhinged cowardly hippie professor is safely behind bars, thank God. And Spenser gets to bang the university president’s secretary.
Oh, the manuscript, you ask? That got returned 75 pages ago. Did you think that was what the book was actually about? Hahahahahahaha sucker!
March 6, 2018
"The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse."
That is one hell of a line to start your book off. It certainly sets a tone for our narrator, doesn't it?
Let's start off with a little background... not on the book, but on me. A week or so back I started reading the first of Parker’s Jesse Stone novels, and the reaction from a few of my friends was along the lines of “Why are you reading this when you haven’t read any of the Spencer novels?” I’ll be honest, the only thing I knew about Spencer came from the back of the Dresden Files books, where they say that Dresden is a combination of Spencer meets Merlin. So yeah… I was a bit clueless there, and decided to check out the first of this 30+ book series. The end results? Fairly entertaining.
As mentioned, I came into this after reading Night Passage, so I’m coming from the unique perspective of starting off with a later Parker book and then going to his first. The writing style is so different that they could be two completely different authors. The chapters are longer here (despite being the shorter book) and there are lot more description, whereas the other book was mostly dialogue. The later book was faster paced, whereas this one is much rougher and very clearly channeling authors that came before him (Here’s looking at you Chandler). I can’t really say that one approach is better than another, but I will say it was easier to get into Night Passage.
With that said, Spencer is a more entertaining protagonist than Stone was; he’s got more charm and a great sense of humor that shows off from the first line. I get the feeling though that Parker was trying to figure out the tone for the character. I haven’t read the other books, so I’m not sure how the character will evolve, but Parker was certainly off to a good start.
My only real issue with the book is that I wished it would have focused more on the manuscript in the title. One could have based an entire book off that hunt, but Parker instead chooses to focus on a more traditional mystery, with the manuscript seeming more like an after thought the farther we go. That aspect gets resolved, but its unsatisfactory when compared to the rest of the plot.
All in all, I found it a pretty good start to the series, and one I’m will to continue with in the future.
That is one hell of a line to start your book off. It certainly sets a tone for our narrator, doesn't it?
Let's start off with a little background... not on the book, but on me. A week or so back I started reading the first of Parker’s Jesse Stone novels, and the reaction from a few of my friends was along the lines of “Why are you reading this when you haven’t read any of the Spencer novels?” I’ll be honest, the only thing I knew about Spencer came from the back of the Dresden Files books, where they say that Dresden is a combination of Spencer meets Merlin. So yeah… I was a bit clueless there, and decided to check out the first of this 30+ book series. The end results? Fairly entertaining.
As mentioned, I came into this after reading Night Passage, so I’m coming from the unique perspective of starting off with a later Parker book and then going to his first. The writing style is so different that they could be two completely different authors. The chapters are longer here (despite being the shorter book) and there are lot more description, whereas the other book was mostly dialogue. The later book was faster paced, whereas this one is much rougher and very clearly channeling authors that came before him (Here’s looking at you Chandler). I can’t really say that one approach is better than another, but I will say it was easier to get into Night Passage.
With that said, Spencer is a more entertaining protagonist than Stone was; he’s got more charm and a great sense of humor that shows off from the first line. I get the feeling though that Parker was trying to figure out the tone for the character. I haven’t read the other books, so I’m not sure how the character will evolve, but Parker was certainly off to a good start.
My only real issue with the book is that I wished it would have focused more on the manuscript in the title. One could have based an entire book off that hunt, but Parker instead chooses to focus on a more traditional mystery, with the manuscript seeming more like an after thought the farther we go. That aspect gets resolved, but its unsatisfactory when compared to the rest of the plot.
All in all, I found it a pretty good start to the series, and one I’m will to continue with in the future.
August 11, 2023
Great start to the series. Full of Spenser’s sarcastic humor that the series is known for. Strange to not have the supporting characters from the later books.
June 4, 2014
Robert Parker is yet another author who I went about reading backwards, starting with his Everett Hitch & Virgil Cole westerns (which are awesome, by the way) instead of with Spenser, the detective that made him famous.
What actually drew me to read this book at this point in time was a review from Orson Scott Card recommending the latest Elvis Cole novel by Robert Crais -- a series and author I'd never read -- that also mentioned Parker and his detective Spenser. So I decided to read the both this and The Monkey's Raincoat. I was not disappointed with either.
As for this book, it seemed almost as dated as Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, but that didn't bother me at all. It was written in a style that paid its respects to those writers, with the Spenser character being very much in the mold of Spade and Marlowe. Spenser, however, pushes boundaries further than his predecessors -- sleeping with both his collegiate client and her married mother, for example.
The decision to name the book after a MacGuffin that disappeared from the story slightly after the first act was a bit puzzling, as was the attitude of basically everyone at the University -- but then again, I have no idea what the climate of higher learning was like in the early 70s.
All in all, this book definitely left me excited to read further Spenser adventures.
What actually drew me to read this book at this point in time was a review from Orson Scott Card recommending the latest Elvis Cole novel by Robert Crais -- a series and author I'd never read -- that also mentioned Parker and his detective Spenser. So I decided to read the both this and The Monkey's Raincoat. I was not disappointed with either.
As for this book, it seemed almost as dated as Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, but that didn't bother me at all. It was written in a style that paid its respects to those writers, with the Spenser character being very much in the mold of Spade and Marlowe. Spenser, however, pushes boundaries further than his predecessors -- sleeping with both his collegiate client and her married mother, for example.
The decision to name the book after a MacGuffin that disappeared from the story slightly after the first act was a bit puzzling, as was the attitude of basically everyone at the University -- but then again, I have no idea what the climate of higher learning was like in the early 70s.
All in all, this book definitely left me excited to read further Spenser adventures.
January 30, 2013
Spenser is officially my new favorite guy. He has everything I'm looking for in a private detective. He takes guff from no police lieutenant: "Quirk looked at me, then Belson . . . 'You're not working for the D.A. now, boy, you're working my side of the street, and if you get in the way I'll kick your ass right into the gutter. Got that?' 'Can I feel your muscle?' I said."
He's so tough he considers his bourbon cut with the addition of bitters or ice (I myself need a little water or, heaven forbid, a splash of lemonade in there).
He understands dining well, or not: "The waitress brought our sandwiches, large, on dark bread, with pickles & chips. They were sweet pickles, though."
He knows how to deal with a cranky building super, but the right way: "I said, 'There is a dead person in room 13 & I am going to call the police and tell them. If you say anything to me but yes sir I will hit you at least six times in the face.'"
He has fine opinions on home decor: "It was the first time I could recall sitting in a director's chair. I had missed little, I decided."
And finally, he truly appreciates that the best things in life are the also the simplest: "It was 8:10 when I left my apartment. Smart, clean, well fed, and alive as a sonova bitch."
This is surely the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
He's so tough he considers his bourbon cut with the addition of bitters or ice (I myself need a little water or, heaven forbid, a splash of lemonade in there).
He understands dining well, or not: "The waitress brought our sandwiches, large, on dark bread, with pickles & chips. They were sweet pickles, though."
He knows how to deal with a cranky building super, but the right way: "I said, 'There is a dead person in room 13 & I am going to call the police and tell them. If you say anything to me but yes sir I will hit you at least six times in the face.'"
He has fine opinions on home decor: "It was the first time I could recall sitting in a director's chair. I had missed little, I decided."
And finally, he truly appreciates that the best things in life are the also the simplest: "It was 8:10 when I left my apartment. Smart, clean, well fed, and alive as a sonova bitch."
This is surely the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
December 1, 2012
Well, I don't guess I'll be reading another Spencer book soon...but to be fair it may not be all "the book's" fault.
First I lived through the '70s and don't long for more of the shaggy clothed, self-righteous pan handlers who lived on their parent's income while cutting down the life style of people who are/were stupid enough to work for a living. I graduated in that generation and never quite fit in. I was too busy working.
Silly me.
Okay so Spencer doesn't suffer these fools gladly in this book...I just got annoyed all over again. Take a bath and get some deodorant and shampoo, especially if you're going to wear your hair that shaggy. I mean you want long scraggly hair I'm cool with it, but I'd rather that you send the lice to find homes elsewhere... Just me.
Okay enough, that wasn't the biggest reason that when I laid this aside that I wasn't dying to get back to it. The biggest reason was/is that I got the audio version from the library (thankfully I'd hate to have used an Audible credit on it) and the reader (Michael Prichard [whom I've heard read other books and do a good job]) ....left a bit to be desired.
Spencer is a bit of a wise cracking protagonist and here he's involved with a rich privileged young woman (who's living as part of the wonderful people of course sneering at rich folk) and her family. There are opportunities for Spencer to smart off galore but the reader reads the book in a flat, uninfected monotone. At one point the female protagonist calls Spencer and is crying for help as in "HELP ME". Our reader reads if you can imagine it as ....help me...
sigh.
So a pretty good mystery with a couple of fist fights and some little action and intrigue. Probably better than my impression because of said reader. Should I get another Spencer book I'll probably go another way.
First I lived through the '70s and don't long for more of the shaggy clothed, self-righteous pan handlers who lived on their parent's income while cutting down the life style of people who are/were stupid enough to work for a living. I graduated in that generation and never quite fit in. I was too busy working.
Silly me.
Okay so Spencer doesn't suffer these fools gladly in this book...I just got annoyed all over again. Take a bath and get some deodorant and shampoo, especially if you're going to wear your hair that shaggy. I mean you want long scraggly hair I'm cool with it, but I'd rather that you send the lice to find homes elsewhere... Just me.
Okay enough, that wasn't the biggest reason that when I laid this aside that I wasn't dying to get back to it. The biggest reason was/is that I got the audio version from the library (thankfully I'd hate to have used an Audible credit on it) and the reader (Michael Prichard [whom I've heard read other books and do a good job]) ....left a bit to be desired.
Spencer is a bit of a wise cracking protagonist and here he's involved with a rich privileged young woman (who's living as part of the wonderful people of course sneering at rich folk) and her family. There are opportunities for Spencer to smart off galore but the reader reads the book in a flat, uninfected monotone. At one point the female protagonist calls Spencer and is crying for help as in "HELP ME". Our reader reads if you can imagine it as ....help me...
sigh.
So a pretty good mystery with a couple of fist fights and some little action and intrigue. Probably better than my impression because of said reader. Should I get another Spencer book I'll probably go another way.
July 18, 2018
I've heard of this series in the past, and thought it might be interesting to check it out. It's a bit old, but only a little dated which might be a minus for younger readers as there are some references that might be missed. No problem for me, of course.
It was a fairly fun read, very quick, and I was finished before I knew it. He's definitely a wise guy, but then again, so am I, so it was OK. I'll try to remember some of his quips. Like, "I made a bet with myself that ..., and I won."
He's a bit over the top sometimes in these politically-correct days in his treatment of women, but we need to cut some slack and consider when it took place. I'm not sure what to think about someone who can sleep with both a mother and her daughter in the same day - if I were younger, jealousy might come to mind... hey, just kidding.
I'll probably read a few more to see how it goes, but I have a feeling it'll get old if I read too many.
It was a fairly fun read, very quick, and I was finished before I knew it. He's definitely a wise guy, but then again, so am I, so it was OK. I'll try to remember some of his quips. Like, "I made a bet with myself that ..., and I won."
He's a bit over the top sometimes in these politically-correct days in his treatment of women, but we need to cut some slack and consider when it took place. I'm not sure what to think about someone who can sleep with both a mother and her daughter in the same day - if I were younger, jealousy might come to mind... hey, just kidding.
I'll probably read a few more to see how it goes, but I have a feeling it'll get old if I read too many.
September 7, 2022
A second read of this novel involving a private investigator called Spenser, like the English poet. This is the first book by The late Robert B Parker written about the exploits of this PI who made the authors name and secured his finances.
This PI not unlike certain Philip Marlowe is fond of wordplay that can be considered funny if you are not involved with said PI, and Spenser does live in Boston.
He gets involved in the case of a stolen manuscript which only opens the doors to murder and mayhem.
A nice first entry in a long running series and the author certainly lived up to this first tale as he added characters and quality.
This PI not unlike certain Philip Marlowe is fond of wordplay that can be considered funny if you are not involved with said PI, and Spenser does live in Boston.
He gets involved in the case of a stolen manuscript which only opens the doors to murder and mayhem.
A nice first entry in a long running series and the author certainly lived up to this first tale as he added characters and quality.
July 9, 2018
Spenser was one of my absolute favourite series in the 80s. The book is different but at least you meet Spenser again. Well, I like the TV series better to be honest. After so many episodes it's hard to switch to the real Spenser character depicted in the book.
April 7, 2023
Spenser is hired by Boston university to recover a rare stolen medieval. manuscript from the Middle Ages and along the way gets involved with campus politics and lead to murder.
December 2, 2025
First book of a long series. Spenser is a tough Boston private eye. He’s in his 30s and used to box. He’s sharp and gets quick results. He’s witty and has an odd sense of humor. He’s a womanizer. The books are not long and the mysteries are straight forward. He finds a clue and sees its logical conclusion if possible and builds from it. Series started in 80s but time seems to be in the past when cops were called dicks. His tell it like it is manner is sometimes offensive but he is respected by those who know him for his crime solving abilities.
December 3, 2010
I didn't like Spenser, and that's a problem with a novel starting a series, one in a first person voice where Spenser is supposed to be your intimate guide into the story. If you don't like your narrator and protagonist, then you're going to need a really strong voice or plot or style or characterizations, and I didn't find that the case here.
I did rather enjoy the story in the beginning--it was published in 1973 and reading about the campus radicals, the hippies, the days where you called cops "pigs" and "Super Swine" was like a trip in a time machine; it was interesting to visit, all the more because you're happy you don't live there. Spenser has a rather smart--and smart aleck voice. But boy, this is another hard-drinking PI who thinks nothing of break-ins--and worse--roughing up a guy who won't talk, and sleeping not only with his client's wife, but their daughter. (On the same day--it comes across as more male fantasy than anything plausible or relevant.) It was around there, about half-way through, when I gave up on Spenser. The mystery certainly wasn't enough.
Part of the problem might be I'm reading way too many hard-boiled private detective series lately back to back. The last one was Paretsky's VI Warshawski, and she too gets worked over at one point by mobster types--and in both cases, I'm thinking, gee, isn't that sort of holding a Neon sign over your head saying "look here for villain?" I stayed with the Paretsky though, because I liked her detective--Spenser however, just came across as a thug.
I did rather enjoy the story in the beginning--it was published in 1973 and reading about the campus radicals, the hippies, the days where you called cops "pigs" and "Super Swine" was like a trip in a time machine; it was interesting to visit, all the more because you're happy you don't live there. Spenser has a rather smart--and smart aleck voice. But boy, this is another hard-drinking PI who thinks nothing of break-ins--and worse--roughing up a guy who won't talk, and sleeping not only with his client's wife, but their daughter. (On the same day--it comes across as more male fantasy than anything plausible or relevant.) It was around there, about half-way through, when I gave up on Spenser. The mystery certainly wasn't enough.
Part of the problem might be I'm reading way too many hard-boiled private detective series lately back to back. The last one was Paretsky's VI Warshawski, and she too gets worked over at one point by mobster types--and in both cases, I'm thinking, gee, isn't that sort of holding a Neon sign over your head saying "look here for villain?" I stayed with the Paretsky though, because I liked her detective--Spenser however, just came across as a thug.
May 8, 2022
This is the first Spenser novel and as such Spenser both is and is not the detective we’re familiar with in the series. The core is there. He has an inner calm that I’ve always respected and he still dislikes authority. But Hawk and Susan are not yet in the series and they really round out and show the depths in the character.
In many ways this struck me as a classic Spenser plot. He starts out being hired to investigate the theft of an illuminated manuscript, but not too far into the novel he becomes very protective of a young woman who has been framed for murder. While it’s never phrased in these terms, Spenser’s personal code won’t let him stop trying to clear her and so he pushes on when others would give up.
While this novel is a sort of “who dunnit”, it’s by no means a cozy mystery. Parker does not toss out a mixture of clues and red herrings and expect the reader to put them together before the detective identifies the villain in the drawing room. Instead, we learn what’s going on as Spenser does and to make certain we are keeping up with the plot, Spenser explains his progress to people at various points in the novel. So from that perspective, this is more like an adventure story than an Ellery Queen. That’s not to say that there isn’t an important mystery at the heart of the tale and that uncovering the bad guy isn’t a lot of fun.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
In many ways this struck me as a classic Spenser plot. He starts out being hired to investigate the theft of an illuminated manuscript, but not too far into the novel he becomes very protective of a young woman who has been framed for murder. While it’s never phrased in these terms, Spenser’s personal code won’t let him stop trying to clear her and so he pushes on when others would give up.
While this novel is a sort of “who dunnit”, it’s by no means a cozy mystery. Parker does not toss out a mixture of clues and red herrings and expect the reader to put them together before the detective identifies the villain in the drawing room. Instead, we learn what’s going on as Spenser does and to make certain we are keeping up with the plot, Spenser explains his progress to people at various points in the novel. So from that perspective, this is more like an adventure story than an Ellery Queen. That’s not to say that there isn’t an important mystery at the heart of the tale and that uncovering the bad guy isn’t a lot of fun.
If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.
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