The Judas Goat

Spenser #5

by Robert B. Parker

Spenser has gone to London—and not to see the Queen. He's gone to track down a bunch of bombers who've blown away his client's wife and kids. His job is to catch them. Or kill them. His client isn't choosy.

But there are nine killers to one Spenser—long odds. Hawk helps balance the equation. The rest depends on a wild plan. Spenser will get one of the terrorists to play Judas Goat—to lead him to others. Trouble is, he hasn't counted on her being very blond, very beautiful and very dangerous.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Detective, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Audiobook

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[James Thane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fifth book in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. By this entry, the character of Spenser, the tough, wise-cracking P.I. has largely taken shape. The two other principal characters, Spenser's lover, Susan Silverman, and his sidekick, Hawk, are still rounding into form. The relationship between Spenser and Susan is already showing signs of becoming alarmingly saccharine, but has not yet become nearly as obnoxious as it would be in later books. Hawk is a bit rougher and more menacing than the character would later become.

The book opens with a scene strongly reminiscent of Philip Marlowe's arrival at the Sternwood mansion at the opening of The Big Sleep. In this case, Spenser arrives at the luxurious mansion and is escorted by a servant into the sanctuary of the home's wealthy owner who wants to hire Spenser.

The man's wife and children were killed by terrorist bombers in London. The man lost the use of his legs in the attack, but survived, having burned into his memory the descriptions of the nine killers. He has now worked with an artist who has created Identi-Kit portraits of the nine. The client gives the drawing to Parker and tells him that he will pay $2500 per head for the capture of the killers, dead or alive. Parker accepts the job, goes to London and by virtue of a simple trick quickly finds a way to get to his targets. Hawk will later join Spenser and help him track the terrorists through England, Amsterdam and Canada.

The plot is preposterous and beggars belief at too many points to mention. But this is one of those books where you simply have to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. It's fun watching Spenser and Hawk at work and while this is not one of the better books in the series, those who enjoy Spenser's adventures will not want to miss it.

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the least satisfying of the first baker's dozen of Spenser mysteries (which are superior to the next baker's dozen, which in turn are superior to the next and last). But, since Parker is a master technician, there is still enough sharp wit, deft description, and mayhem—with a little sex and moralizing thrown in for good measure—to make your reading experience worthwhile.

Spenser is hired by the extraordinarily wealthy Hugh Dixon as an instrument of revenge. Dixon is now a paraplegic, a victim of a London explosion that killed his wife and two daughters. Although gravely injured, he got a good look at the nine right-wing terrorists responsible, and gives Spenser forensic artist sketches to help him in his search. Dixon's offer: a generous expense account, which will be necessary to pursue this international terrorist cell, and $2500 dollars for each individual terrorist, dead or alive.

One of the reasons I don't like this novel as much as many other Spensers is that our hero isn't the bounty hunter type, and all that heartless killing tires him out--and me--quite a bit. But it also gives him an excuse to call up Hawk, who is better suited to heartlessness. Seeing them work together for the first time is both interesting and instructive.

But much of the book seems little more than an excuse to write off a cool two week vacation as a novelist's business expense, as Hawk and Spenser jet from London, to Copenhagen, to Amsterdam, and then to Montreal for the Olympics. There's a lot of that incisive Spenser description, but all the changing scenery—and the many killings—become tedious after awhile.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quadriplegic millionaire hires Spenser to go to London to track down the nine people responsible for his condition and the death of his wife and children. Spenser quickly gets in over his head and brings in Hawk. Can Spenser and Hawk stop gang of terrorists and earn their reward?

The Judas Goat had the most violence of any Spenser story yet. He and Hawk go through the meat grinder, especially near the end. There's no way the two of them would be able to leave the US after the trail of bodies they left across four countries. If you ever wondered if Spenser and Hawk could throw lead with the best of them, wonder no longer. Not only that, they didn't seem like super-heroes in the process. Spenser got shot in the ass, for God's sake!

The best part of this book, outside of the frequent gunfights, is the relationship between Spenser and Hawk. As I've said before, Hawk's Spenser's true soul mate, not Susan Silverman.

Now that I've mentioned Susan Silverman, why don't I got into the reasons I didn't rate this one higher. For one thing, the Spenser-Silverman relationship nauseates me a bit, like that couple in high school that was always touchy-feely and cooing to one another. "You hang up. No, You hang up... etc."

The other thing that got on my nerves was the constant description of what the characters were eating. Yeah, I know, it's been a staple of the Spenser series since the beginning but I think Spenser and Hawk must have eaten fifteen damn meals in this one! I normally like when Spenser cooks but I don't need to know how tough the veal is after he and Hawk have gunned some bastards down!

So The Judas Goat was pretty good but not my favorite Spenser so far. You could find worse reads for an afternoon in the car dealership waiting room.

[Kemper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think Interpol would ever let Spenser and Hawk back into Europe after the blood bath they cause overseas in this one.

Hugh Dixon is a wealthy American businessman who had a wife and two kids until they were the random victims of a terrorist bombing in London. Dixon is crippled, his family is killed, and he’s got revenge on his mind so he hires Spenser to capture or kill the nine terrorists identified at the scene of the attack.

Once in London with no leads, Spenser uses himself as bait by putting a classified ad in the paper offering a reward for information about the bombing. His plan succeeds a little too well, and he’s soon got terrorists lined up and trying to kill him. Needing some back-up, he hires Hawk to help him round up the gang, and they’ll end up trying to stop another terrorist attack as well as avenge Dixon’s family as they track them across several countries.

This one marks several departures from the formula Parker had been working off to this point. This is much more of an action novel than a detective story, but Parker keeps Spenser grounded in what could have turned into an over-the-top plot. Spenser and Hawk work together for the first time, and the differences between the two are explored. Hawk thinks they should just locate the terrorists and shoot them in the head without warning, but he‘ll follow Spenser‘s lead since he‘s the one paying. Spenser’s code demands that he at least give them a sporting chance to surrender, but he’s having a tough time selling himself on the idea that he’s little more than a gun for hire in this scenario.

Dixon is one of the few clients that Spenser will ever have that is not a complete dumbass, and that Spenser actually respects. Parker was obviously doing a homage to The Big Sleep with Phillip Marlowe’s relationship to General Sternwood here.

Next up: Spenser misplaces a woman in Looking for Rachel Wallace

[Jason Koivu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spenser goes on a working holiday to Europe and the Olympics. Hawk joins him. And then there's some canoodling with Susan.

This fifth episode in Parker's famous Spenser detective series keeps the ball rolling, but rolls it in a different direction. If I were to guess, I'd say Parker probably had taken a vacation to Europe and wanted to incorporate it into his books somehow. He managed and the result is fun.

I'm surprised to hear myself say that about The Judas Goat, because the topic/Spenser's target is a group of militant racists and the less of those in my life the better. I generally don't even want to read about them. But I suppose reading about Spenser kicking their butts is fun!

[Bill Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spenser takes a bounty hunting job that takes him and Hawk on an adventure around the globe ending at the Montreal Olympics. Well fleshed out characters and an interesting mystery makes this a top notch entry in the series.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars for The Judas Goat: Spencer Series, Book 5 (audiobook) by Robert Parker read by Michael Prichard.

To me, reading this feels like going back to 1978 in a time machine. So much has changed in the world. It’s kind of funny to think that for it’s time this book was probably kind of progressive.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every now and then, I like to dip into the hardboiled private detective genre for my reading material. Robert B. Parker's PI Spenser series is one of the classics. I found this title entertaining and fun with a few surprising plot twists. Spenser and his sidekick Hawk don't shy away from violence. His girlfriend Susan Silverman is somehow very understanding of his unsettling profession. The literary and pop culture references sprinkled into the prose are distracting. If you don't get it, you can keep on reading. Some of the prose is transcendent in the literary sense. I hope I can return to revisit Spenser in the near future.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

A surprisingly weak addition to this series. Spenser, hired by a man who lost his family to terrorists, takes on the role of international bounty hunter/vigilante/hit man. (About a third of the way in “sidekick” Hawk joins him overseas.) The plot here is minimal at best. And the roles taken on by our two protagonists - snappy dialogue aside - just don’t fit.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, reviews have put me right off this.

Lazy author? Jaunt to London, and this book is the excuse?

Skipping to #6

[Hana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spenser and Hawk do Europe on a dubious mission of revenge. They leave quite a trail of bodies. Wondering how they squared this with authorities in half a dozen countries was only one of the annoying plot oddities. Still, it made for a diverting Sunday evening read.

Content Rating PG for all the bodies.

[Vincent Lombardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another amazing novel by Robert B Parker. Starts great but gets even better when Hawk joins the party. Spenser and Hawk are probably one of the best duos in crime fiction. Bringing them together gave me some of the best laughs i have ever read. Can't wait until the next one.

[Stewart Sternberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe it isn't good Parker, and maybe it reads too much like a throwaway. Maybe. But bad Parker is better than no Parker.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 5 out of 5]

A “Judas goat” is an animal trained to lead a herd (sheep, cattle) into a pen and quite often to slaughter. It’s a very apt title for this early Spenser novel in which the detective is hired to track down nine people who tossed a bomb into a London restaurant, crippling the client and murdering his wife and two daughters. There are no real leads, so Spenser takes an ad out in the paper offering a reward for information about the killers hoping they will do something to give him that one all-important lead. They do and the lead he gets is a look at one of the women attached to the group—a woman he uses to lead him to all of the others.

One of the peculiar things about this novel is there is a lot of “waiting” in it—waiting while conducting surveillance, waiting to see if there really are assassins in Spenser’s rooms and whether or not they will tip their hands, etc. Somehow, Parker manages both to show how difficult Spencer finds it to maintain his focus through these periods and yet at the same time make them very interesting to the reader. I was surprised to learn that there can be so much tension in waiting.

Naturally there is quite a lot of nail-biting action as well. Parker’s novels move quickly from first page to last and always leave you satisfied.

[Marty Fried · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was OK. It was entertaining, light, humorous, and a quick read, pretty much what I expected and needed after my last book, J.K. Rowling's Casual Vacancy, which was tragically sad and heavy.

This was a very quick read, with no surprises and an ending that wrapped things up but didn't really create much of a ripple in the force for most people. The action was a fairly straight line from start to end, no real surprises, but a fair amount of good dialog, thanks to Spenser's girlfriend and his friend/sometimes partner Hawk, who adds a lot of good lines and action.

I'd say it's pretty much standard fare for this series, and if you like the others, you'd probably like this one.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spenser in England. This one dragged a bit initially, as I can’t commit to Spenser-as-Mercenary and the lack of Boston scenery bored me. If I want England I’ll read Dickens or some shit*. All that past us, his hand is forced, he’s still a world class smartass and the scenes with Hawk are worth the price of entry.


*To my UK friends, please know I’m kidding.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Judas Goat was something of a disappointment for me. The plot was preposterous (a fault that might have been forgiven) and required a massive suspension of disbelief, more so than many other issues in this series. Additionally, forgive me this transgression, the whole juvenile moon-eyed over the top in love thing with which the author saddled Spencer vis a vis Susan S. is, frankly, insufferable. I found the intermittent breaks in the main plot where Spencer is either on the phone with or in person with his "perfect girlfriend" distracting from the story's flow and akin to being force-fed cotton candy.

Gripes aside, there's still some fun to be had, what with Hawk joining Spencer in England and Canada as they track some crazy terrorist group that randomly killed the family of a very rich fellow and left him a paraplegic. So, he hires Spencer to bring them back dead or alive (cue the horses, and white cowboy hat). Our intrepid hero quickly finds himself on their hit list and kills a bunch of them, but he's outnumbered and having trouble doing his stakeouts alone. Thus, we get Hawk, who is always a welcome addition to these stories. Spencer will finally manage to use one of the bad guys (or gal, in this case) as a "Judas Goat" to lure the others out in the open, and to give the story its title.

With some tweaking and reigning in of the preposterous ease with which Spencer manages to operate on foreign soil, including killing several folks there, this could have been a solid 4 star tale. Subtract a full star for Susan Silverman's scenes and the stretching of credulity far past its breaking point, and viola-- a 3 star book. Fans should include it, newbies should jump in elsewhere in the series.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Spenser story has him acting as a bounty hunter. A year ago, a wealthy man named Hugh Dixon was in a London restaurant with his family when a terrorist group bombed it, killing his family and severely maiming him, he is now confined to a wheelchair. Yet, a fire still burns in him and he is determined to get his revenge. He hires Spenser to find them, paying him $2,500 per person, dead or alive. When Spenser says that he is no assassin and will not kill them unless he has to, Dixon agrees.
The case takes Spenser to London and away from Susan, a fact that gnaws at him. He learns from the British police that the likely suspect was a group called Liberty and no real evidence has ever been gathered. With nothing to go on, Spenser puts an ad in the paper that he hopes will get their attention and force their action.
The ad has the desired effect and Spenser quickly learns that he needs assistance, so he calls for Hawk. Even though they are outnumbered, Spenser and Hawk are able to take down most of the group, yet their greatest battles are with the leader and his large and extremely powerful assistant named Zachary. The fight is a brutal one, in a rare feature of the Spenser stories they face an adversary that is physically superior to them.
While there is a lot of fighting, there is also a significant amount of emotional action between Hawk and Spenser and Spenser and Susan. Hawk is inclined to just kill people as a matter of convenience while Spenser fundamentally does not like killing, doing so only when necessary. The story is interesting in both the physical action and interpersonal interaction areas.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the cover on the book I read BUT the copyright date is 1978. It has been weird reading these books from 1973 when the 1st one was written by Robert B. Parker. Funny, when I say his name I have to say the full name. And, when I read the books, if you look at the pictures of him on the backs of some of them my image of Spenser is Robert B. Parker. Spenser goes to London in this book. I kind of had a hard time reading some of it in the beginning because his client is a man with money who is in a wheelchair because his wife and daughter were blown up in London by terrorists, 9 specifically, he saw, and he was injured and now can't walk. He wants Spenser to find them. All 9, including the girl, dead or alive, proof. So who gets to be Spenser's Judas Goat. Of course you know what a Judas Goat is!

[Joanne Farley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great instalment in the Spencer novels. This time Spencer finds himself on the other side of the pond in Merry old England. As always you get a solid story but there seems to be a lot more action and blood in this novel then in previous instalments.
I am really enjoying this series.

[Malum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read that the less of Susan Silverman in a Spenser novel, the better that novel is. That must be true because she's barely in this one (although Spenser pines for her constantly like he's 14 years old for some reason) and it's my favorite entry since the first book.

Spenser and Hawk (I wish this series starred Hawk instead of Spenser!) travel the globe fighting terrorists. Almost zero mystery here but the action is cranked way up. It's also far more exciting than the last Spenser novel where his main antagonists were soccer moms.

[Sienna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for number five, because Parker's Spenser is a 5 overall. I hadn't read this one before, what a pleasure! I greatly enjoyed his travels &, as always, his relationship with Hawk &, of course, his loyalty to Susan.

[John Culuris · Rating 3 out of 5]

★ ★ ★ 1/2

[Krissy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst of the series so far. I was just so bored!

[Hobart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---

...I looked at my situation. If they were going to shoot me, there was little to prevent them. Maybe they weren’t going to shoot me, but I couldn’t plan much on that.

“You can’t plan on the enemy’s intentions,” I said. “You have to plan on what he can do, not what he might.”

A boy cleaning the tables looked at me oddly. “Beg pardon, sir?"

“Just remarking on military strategy. Ever do that? Sit around and talk to yourself about military strategy?”

“No, sir.”

“You’ re probably wise not to."

We start with Spenser calling on Hugh Dixon. The word "rich" seems inadequate to express the wealth that Dixon seems to possess. Nowadays, he could probably hire a private security firm to do what he needs—maybe he could've in 1978, too. But he's done his research and has decided to hire Spenser instead because he knows Spenser's integrity and priorities are what's kept him "in the minor league."

We're given a great description of Dixon:

Full front, his face was accurate enough. It looked the way of face should, but it was like a skillful and uninspired sculpture. There was no motion in the face. No sense that blood flowed beneath it and thoughts evolved the behind it. It was all surface, exact, detailed and dead.

Except the eyes. The eyes snarled with life and purpose, or something like that. I didn't know exactly what then. Now I do.

The eyes snarled with a need for revenge. That's pretty much all that's keeping Dixon going. A year before, he, his wife and daughters were in a London restaurant that was bombed. Dixon lived, although he almost died and lost the use of his legs. The rest of his family did not. He wants Spenser to do what the London police have failed to do—find the terrorists responsible and bringing them to justice—either by apprehending them for the police or killing them. Dixon remained conscious during the attack and has detailed descriptions of the personnel involved. Spenser agrees, after insisting that he doesn't do assassinations—unless forced out of self-defense, he won't be killing anyone. It's all okay with Dixon, but you get the clear impression that he'd prefer they died.

Spenser makes travel arrangements (including learning how to bring his gun into London), says goodbye to Susan, and leaves that night. Dixon's London-based lawyer introduces him to a Scotland Yard inspector who worked the case. There's a group called Liberty who claimed responsibility for the bombing. They're small-time, right-wing, and draw their membership from around Europe—they're likely based in Amsterdam, but that's conjecture. Which really doesn't give Spenser much to work on.

So he tries a little something to draw them out. It results in two of them dying and Spenser being shot in the, ahem, "upper thigh." It also gives Spenser a lead to some others. While he calls Susan to tell her what happened, he also asks her to do him a favor—get word to Hawk that he could use some help (this both relieves and worries Susan, she wants him to have backup, but hates that he needs it).

From here, Spenser and Hawk follow leads for Liberty to Copenhagen and Amsterdam. They even have a brief confrontation with the leader of Liberty, a man named Paul. Paul's not one of the men directly involved in the death of the Dixons, however. Spenser and Hawk determine that Liberty has something planned for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, and decide that even though the job is done, they need to stop Paul.

On the one hand, it's hard to believe that security at the Olympics is as lax as it appears, then again 1976 was a different time. Through a combination of luck and good guessing, there's a final confrontation with Paul and one of his top associates that ends in a nine-page fistfight between Spenser, Hawk, and a giant of a man named Zachary. This fight blew my preteen/early teen-aged mind when I first read it, and became the standard by which I judged all similar scenes in fiction (there's one in Lee Child's Persuader that reminded me of this one—although, Reacher didn't have anyone fighting on his side).

While there is some deduction at work, this is largely Spenser as vigilante, not as a private investigator. On the one hand, I prefer the P.I. On the other hand, it's a good story and it demonstrates another side of Spenser that we don't get to see much of early on. And like the rest of these first twelve, it's hard for me to engage my critical faculties.

In addition to the globe-trotting and the intense action scenes, we get Spenser's typical narration when it comes to describing places (one of my favorite elements of each book) and people. Spenser's wit and compassion both get to shine. It's just a fun read. The scene that results in his upper thigh wound is one of my favorites in the series—combining humor, tension, and action.

But the thing that struck me the most this time through is that what seems to really interest Parker—more than Spenser, more than this revenge story, or anything else—is Hawk. We met him in the last book, but we didn't get that much time with him, just a handful of scenes. But he's all over this novel.

Spenser calling Hawk to come help represents a turning point in the series. It's not an automatic thing yet, but from here on out, it's more common for Spenser to call up on Hawk for help than not. The self-sufficient, independent operator develops a real dependence. It's a real boon for the reader, for as fun as Spenser's interior monologues are, having him banter with Hawk becomes a reliable highlight. There might be other, earlier, writers who've had a relationship like this, but I'm not aware of them (and would like to be). In Spenser and Hawk, we get the template that Elvis Cole and Joe Pike follow, or Patrick Kenzie/Angie Gennaro and Bubba Rugowski, or Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear, or Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski, among others. The outsider, the friend/ally that the mostly lawful protagonist can rely on when there's a need for something outside the law.

From Promised Land, we know that Hawk and Spenser fought on the same card in their youth; we know he's stylish (I guess); that he's respectful of Susan; he's an enforcer, a leg-breaker, for whoever is paying for him at the moment; and he has some sort of code that reminds Spenser of his (with significant differences in Spenser's mind, but not so much in Hawk's).

Here we learn a bit more, he can disappear into a crowd, despite his flashy clothes and is almost infallible when tailing someone. Shortly after arriving in London, the two have some drinks while Spenser catches Hawk up on what's going on and notes:

He showed no sign that he drunk anything. In fact in the time I'd known Hawk I'd never seen him show a sign of anything. He laughed easily and he was never off balance. But whatever went on inside stayed inside. Or maybe nothing went on inside. Hawk was as impassive and hard as an obsidian carving. Maybe that was what went on inside.

Later, when Spenser is in Boston to update Dixon, he leaves one member of Liberty with Hawk, as they use her as a source of information on the rest of the group. When Susan asks if that's safe to do, Spenser replies:

“Hawk has no feelings,” I said. “But he has rules. If she fits one of his rules, he’ll treat her very well. If she doesn’t, he’ll treat her any way the mood strikes him.”

“Do you really think he has no feelings?”

“I have never seen any. He’s as good as anyone 1 ever saw at what he does. But he never seems happy or sad or frightened or elated. He never, in the twenty-some years I’ve known him, here and there, has shown any sign of love or compassion. He’s never been nervous. He’s never been mad.”

“Is he as good as you?” Susan was resting her chin on her folded hands and looking at me.

"He might be," I said. "He might be better."

“He didn’t kill you last year on Cape Cod when he was supposed to. He must have felt something then.”

“I think he likes me, the way he likes wine, the way he doesn’t like gin. He preferred me to the guy he was working for. He sees me as a version of himself. And, somewhere in there, killing me on the say-so of a guy like Powers was in violation of one of the rules. I don’t know. I wouldn’t have killed him either.”

“Are you a version of him?”

“I got feelings,” I said. “I love.”

“Yes, you do,” Susan said.

Part of this conversation will repeat throughout the series—is Hawk better than Spenser? Are the two versions of each other (this was touched upon already in Promised Land)? Does Hawk feel?

Hawk will contend that the two of them are more similar than Spenser will admit, but in The Judas Goat and in countless other books, he will note that Spenser's abundance of rules helps him to deny that similarity, over-complicates Spenser's life, and one day will get him killed. There are times when Spenser agrees to all of that (even the last), but those are the only terms upon which he can live his life, so that's how it's going to have to be.

Exciting, amusing, tense, and we get to delve for the first time into the character that's arguably Parker's greatest creation. The Judas Goat really has it all. If only so I had an excuse to read this one again, I'm so glad I started this little project this year. It will serve as a decent jumping-on point, for those who want one, and it's a great spot to return to for long-term fans.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 5th in the Spenser series, first published in 1978, the year I graduated High School. I never heard of it back then.

I liked to re-name the Spenser books, but should this one be "Spenser's Travels" or "Spenser Gets Shot In The Ass"? Spenser denies it, insisting variously that he received an injury to the upper thigh, the back of his lap, his hamstring. It's a fun one, with lots of quips, and travels. Spenser observes that one pseudo-intellectual has sorted their books by size. I like that.

The set-up is that a very rich man lost his wife and daughter in a terrorist attack, and he wants Spenser to find the terrorists. So, Spenser travels to London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Montreal, for the 1976 Olympics. The ring of racist fools is connected to a larger organization of more dangerous racists. Each location was authentically and affectionately and convincingly brought to life. I don't think there is any question but that Parker went to each, and was especially impressed with the Montreal 1976 Olympics.

In the prior book, the damsel complained that she was a "Judas Goat". That probably came out of a thesaurus, and captured Parker's imagination. The goat, of course, betrays the predator, but is also betrayed by the goat's keeper.

Parker falters badly in a very silly scene about how the female terrorist they captured becomes overpoweringly aroused when humiliated and confined. Parker has begun to drink the psychiatry kool-aid. He began to talk it up in the prior book, and its presence will continue to grow. Ugh.

The action (violence) is very good. The tactics and pacing of the hotel and Tivoli scenes were fascinating and highly suspenseful. The big fight between the giant racist against Hawk and Spenser compelled repeated re–reading.

In the series, this marks the first active teamwork with Hawk. In the books, Hawk is quite a good character. So why does it look so stupid on tv, especially since Avery Brooks captures a lot of the details from the books? And of course, he is a useful device, to compare and contrast. I predict we'll see more of Inspector Downes, who was very smart and quick in London.

Spenser deals with separation from Susan in his travels.

You can often catch Parker's thoughts about his own writing process reflected in the novel. Spenser talks about how he has seen "The Magnificient Seven" so many times, and says "It's like watching a dance, or listening to music. It's not plot, it's pattern." Speaking of which, I have noticed that both Vermeer and Amstel Beer has been mentioned in every book so far. Superstitious or a loyal fan?

They later made a tv movie of this, but it was almost completely different.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Spenser
SETTING: London
SERIES: #5
RATING: 4.25
WHY: Hugh Dixon’s wife and kids were blown up by a group of 9 terrorists while in London; he himself barely escaped death. He’s hired Spenser to find the perpetrators and doesn’t care if they are dead or alive. Spenser soon finds the task overwhelming; he needs help. And who does he turn to? Hawk. This is the first book where Hawk is featured as Spenser’s partner in a job. The group they are after aren’t well organized, but it is tricky to find so many of them. Spenser selects one of them as a “Judas goat” who will lead them to the others. The different setting and the addition of Hawk as a partner make this one well worth reading.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Spenser's fifth adventure, the body count is rather high. This case takes him to London, Amsterdam and Montreal. Great late 70's descriptions of the manner of dress back then. This is also the first case, he asked Hawk for help/backup. Lots of beer consumed and wisecracks galore, as usual.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book used to come up when I searched for "goat" in the library catalog as a child. I was mad because it wasn't actually about goats. Now I am an adult who reads detective novels, so I am reading it.

[itchy · Rating 5 out of 5]

eponymous sentence:
p21: "...I need a Judas goat."

space:
p31: I rejected Flanders's offer of a cab and strolled back up the Strand toward the May fair in the slowly gathering evening.

p62: "Tell him to get the first plane he can to London and call me at the May fair Hotel when he gets to Heathrow."

spelling:
p31: I stopped hallway down and looked at the two mounted sentries in the sentry box outside the Horse Guards building.

case:
p98: "if you can think of it somebody will do it," I said.

label:
p131: We stopped on the way in the hot bright summer morning at a Dunkin' Donut shop, and had coffee and two plain donuts apiece.

p131: "Did William Powell take Myrna Loy to a Dunkin' Donut shop?"

grammar:
p136: "If you see Zachary," Hawk said over his shoulder, "and you want to do him in, it okay...."

cement:
p144: I twisted his forefinger back as hard as I could and the automatic hit the cement floor.

Spenser turns his act international (and tows Hawk along--the honkie and the schwartze) as he takes on terrorists. Just, wow.

I should have started a body count for the series.