Melancholy Baby

Sunny Randall #4

by Robert B. Parker

When Sunny Randall helps a young woman locate her birth parents, she uncovers the dark truth about her own past.

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

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

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

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

[And now this review is associated with the correct book!]


Hi, my name's Stephanie Plum Runny Sandall Sunny Randall, Boston PI, and I'm sexy and clever, like Stephanie Plum - except I really am clever, not completely clueless. In fact, I'm not much like Stephanie at all apart from we're both good looking; I have sensible (if cliched) reasons for doing the work I do, rather than getting totally out of my depth because I can't pay my bills. I'm not obviously a female-wish-fulfilment fantasy but rather a real person. My first book came out about the same time as Stephanie's but doesn't seem to have become famous, despite not being preposterous and having a realistic protagonist. Why is that? I have a series of books but not a huge one with a ridiculous gimmick about the titles. Anyway, I don't need to be famous because of my dog and my friends, one of whom is another cliche; the gay friend of the female protagonist. He's not a stereotypical gay friend of the female protagonist, though, 'cos he's a tough guy, rather than a camp or effete comic relief kinda gay friend of the female protagonist. Why aren't there any gay detectives with female lesbian friends? Or lesbian detectives with straight friends, or gay detectives with gay friends? Or...

Anyway, if you've read books from several of my creator's series you will probably notice some recurring themes and motifs; alcohol abuse, people who aren't over their divorces, fathers who care about their daughters more than their mothers do, clinical psychologists. Several of those are in this book, too. In fact my psychologist is the girlfriend of another PI from a different series of books...how weird is that?

You should read my books if you want some competent, realistic, if not exceptionally good detective fiction.

[Scott A. Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Randall is really growing on me. Too bad there’s just two of these left. Very good mystery that despite knowing where it was going, figuring out the mechanics kept it interesting. Interesting having Susan for the second book in a row. Parker’s universe is a great place to read.

[Bil Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple well worked story

I liked the straight forward story development in the book. The light hearted parts may have depended on some knowledge of the sub characters from other books. A good read

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunny's ex-husband Richie Burke has gotten married. Sunny is in a great funk. Susan Silverman is recommended to her and she begins to see her regularly.

Sunny is hired by Sarah Markham to determine who her parents are. She goes to visit the Markhams who say that Sarah is being foolish but they are very vague about their past. And they refuse to take DNA tests. So, Sunny seeks out everyone she can find who Sarah went to high school with. She learns that Sarah became quite rebellious when she entered junior high school. But she can't find anything else.

So she looks into George Markham's past and discovers he never did work at a radio station in Chicago or New York but instead at the radio station in Moline. The very famous talk show host, Lolly Drake, got her start at the same station some 20 years ago.

Then two goons show up at Sarah’s dorm room and smack her and her boyfriend around. He flees and is never seen again. Sunny now has a new lead. She has a confrontation with the two goons. Spike is protecting her back. They give her the name of a lawyer in New York City who gives her the name of another lawyer. Peter Franklin happens to be Lolly Drake's lawyer. Another clue.

Then Franklin is murdered in a park near his office. Then George Markham is killed in a similar fashion. All roads lead back to Lolly Drake.

Sunny asks Richie's Uncle Felix if he can help her find the person who took that contract.

This was a good read. The funny banter is between Sunny and a Boston cop and later her banter with a NYC cop.

[Carole Hardinge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided to give the Sunny Randall series another chance after not caring for the third book. This one returned to the style of the first book in the series which I had liked. I also enjoyed the crossover appearance of Dr. Susan Silverman, from the Spenser series.

[Sunhawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A one-day read. Parker's female character, Sunny, gives him latitude to explore a different way of writing: longer sentences and paragraphs, ample divergences into the life of his characters, and in this book, a whole 'nother view of Spenser's woman friend Dr Susan. Great cop characters, refreshingly competent and distinctive: Costello (emphasis on the first syllable of Eugene) is a New York cop we can love; hope we see him again. Parker avoids one of the constants in the PI genre here: while there are murders 'off-stage', at no time does our main character seem to be endangered or damaged. I find this refreshing.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

So after reading a series of Robert B. Parker legacy authors’ novels involving his original characters, I’m ending my work catching up on the Parkers I’ve missed…In this original Sunny Randall, by Parker himself, we have a conflicted Sunny, in therapy with Dr. Silverman, investigating a family of a troubled young girl…The young girl wants proof that the family that raised is not her birth family…Soon the bodies accumulate, as the layers of the mystery unfolds…Good stuff, except the Mississippi River flows through the Quad Cities in a East/West bend, putting Iowa on the North bank and Illinois on the South bank…Not East and West!

[Jerry B · Rating 3 out of 5]

We’ve been enjoying knocking off the six entries in Parker’s Sunny Randall set – “Baby” is our fourth. We’re accustomed now to expecting a decent mystery, with plenty of therapy sessions and psychological mental meanderings thrown in on the side as Sunny ponders both her family relationships and her failed marriage to still-loved ex Richie. The “whodunit” part seemed particularly fun – Sunny is hired to prove or disprove that Sarah Markham’s parents are really adoptive rather than biological, and that plot was quite engaging and suspenseful. One quibble might be that Sunny seems too ready to have her clients becomes roomates with her, shades of book one, "Family Honor." Sunny meanwhile has a new therapist, while ex Richie has a new wife, so we continue to learn more about her emotional issues. Some scenes late in the book with her father seem to clear up most of her family situation.

So another maybe unspectacular but plenty entertaining entry in a very likable set – we only wish there were more than just two more to go!

[NATUI · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading the book by Minette Walters, I began this book. After the first few paragraphs I checked both covers and publication information to see if there were any disclaimer that the book was written for anyone with a 10th grade education or lower. I could barely stand to read the choppy sentences, and the use of "I" in the first two pages began to sound like a stutter.

I put the book down and tried again the next day with the mindset that I didn't actually have to use the majority of my brain to follow the story. Surprisingly, once I made that adjustment, the plot presented itself in a fairly interesting manner. I enjoyed it as much as one can reading at this level. I would actually think about reading another in the series if I came across it. The characters developed deeply enough by the end of the book that I would be interested to see in which direction the author takes them. This time, however, I will not make the mistake of doing any heavy reading before I begin.

[LJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

MELANCHOLY BABY (Private Investigator-Boston/NY-Cont) – VG
Robert B. Parker – 4th in series
Putnam, 2004 – Hardcover
Private Investigator Sunny Randall is hired by troubled college student Sarah Markham to prove that she’s adopted in spite of her parents saying she’s not. At the same time, Sunny is trying to figure out why she is unable to live with anyone.
*** I love Parker. He creates strong, ethical yet human characters, excellent dialogue, strong sense of place, and very good mysteries. Sunny is tough, but loves her dad and her dog, knows when she needs backup and is true to those around her. This is a great series.

[Brenda Humphreys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melancholy Baby by Robert B. Parker is a crime novel. It is the fourth of six novels in the Sunny Randall series, thus far. However, it is not necessary to read the books in order. The detective, Sunny Randall, is the main character in each book. The other books may share parts of Sunny’s life, which would entice interest to read the other books. I like Sunny and would read the other books to delve into more of her life. She is a likable character.

I picked this book up at the library because it looked interesting. As I started reading, I noticed that most of the text is dialog, and the pages are thick. So I knew it wouldn’t take me long to finish the book. After I started reading another of the author’s books, Death in Paradise, I noticed that this is just his style with dialog and short chapters.

Continue reading on my website: https://brendahumphreys.com/book-revi...

Melancholy Baby Synopsis

The primary focus of the Melancholy Baby is the Sarah Markham Case. However, there are two other aspects of the story that get a lot of attention also. They are Sunny’s feelings about her ex-husband getting remarried and the shared custody of their dog, Rosie.

Sunny Randall, the main character, is a private investigator. She and her husband, Richie, have been divorced for five years, and he recently got remarried. Even though she is the one that wanted the divorce, she doesn’t like the idea of him getting married to someone else. To help Sunny to figure out why she can’t live with anyone, except for her dog, she talks to a psychotherapist regularly. About two-thirds of the book is Sunny talking to her psychotherapist about her husband, her childhood, and the Sarah Markham case.

Sunny’s dog, Rosie, is a large part of the story in Melancholy Baby. Rosie is introduced on the first page, implying that she is Sunny and Richie’s child. Richie came over to his ex-wife’s house to pick up Rosie to take her for a few days, as per their shared custody agreement. Sunny’s family and friends also treat Rosie as if she was a part of their family. They all love and spoil her.

“He cut a small wedge of cutlet off and gave it to Rosie. She took it carefully from the fork and ate it.

“Daddy,” I said. “She’s not supposed to eat like that from the table.”

“I know,” my father said. “But I’m her grandfather. It’s permitted.” (page.256)

Sarah Markham Case

Sarah Markham is a college student who hires Sunny to find her biological parents. Her parents insist that she is not adopted; however, they will not get a DNA test to confirm it. Positive DNA results would close the case immediately. Since they refused a DNA test, there had to be some secrets.

Sunny’s first thought was that Sarah was lying. Sarah did not want to answer any questions. If Sunny was going to figure out Sarah’s birth parents, she needs to cooperate and give Sunny some information. Relentlessly, Sarah finally answered the questions.

There is some danger in the Melancholy Baby, but it doesn’t feel like danger. Some men beat Sarah and her boyfriend up and told her to stop the investigation of her parents. This incident seemed suspicious as if Sarah made it up.

“Well,” I said. “Somebody, for some reason, doesn’t want this investigation to go further. Can you imagine who that would be?”

Mr. Markham took in some air.

“Of course, Barbara and I would like it to stop. It is painful for us. But you can’t believe we would harm our own daughter.” (page 96)

My Analysis of Melancholy Baby

Later in the story in Melancholy Baby, murder happens. Why would someone murder people just because a young woman wants to find her birth parents? The calmness of the deaths mystified me while reading the story. The investigation throughout the book didn’t seem too dangerous. I kept thinking that there should be no one killed during this type of case.

Murder in the story surprised me because it was very calm before and after the killings. I felt that murdering people just did not go along with the story. Killing people in the story was no big deal. I would not call this book a thriller. The killings are matter-of-fact. It is not horrifying as I would think it should be.

I loved Rosie being part of the story because I love dogs, especially small dogs. She receives so much love and affection. It warms my heart to see people treat their pets like their own children.

The ending of Melancholy Baby wasn’t that great. The crime was solved, but still, a lot of unanswered questions remained. I would have liked to know more about what Sarah thought at the end. The information received during the investigation must have been a big shock to her. The author didn’t say anything about what happened to her afterward. The readers don’t even see much of how she reacted after hearing the truth.

Recommendation

I would recommend this book for people who like crime drama novels. Although it is a fast read, it had enough action in it to keep my attention. The story intrigued me to want to keep on reading to see what would happen next. I wanted to know how it would end.

Buy: https://amzn.to/2VsO2Sm

I enjoyed this book enough that I would like to read the other books in the series:

Family Honor (Sunny Randall Book 1)
Perish Twice (Sunny Randall Book 2)
Shrink Rap (Sunny Randall Book 3)
Melancholy Baby (Sunny Randall Book 4)
Blue Screen (Sunny Randall Book 5)
Spare Change (Sunny Randall Book 6)

[Judy Hankom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunny Randall continues her private investigating business in Boston. Rosie is her dog that she shares with Richie, her ex-husband.

The story begins with Richie going to marry again, this time to Kathryn. Sunny knows she will hate her. Sunny is really broken up by this news. She still loves Richie and he still loves her.

An attorney calls Sunny asking her to do an investigation for a young client, Sarah Markham. She believes her parents are not her biological parents. But her parents insist that they are her real parents. They also will not allow DNA testing to be done on them.

Sunny is still continuing to see her psychiatrist. Only now he tells her he is retiring and he will find a new one for her. Her new shrink is a woman and she is helping Sunny to find out why she is so mixed up.

Sunny knows that something funny is going on with Sarah's parents. For one thing, her father has no job; he says he made good investments. Sunny does not buy this at all. So she goes to Quad Cities in Iowa to investigate how Sarah's dad started out in the radio business. She meets up with a few people who tell her Lolly Drake, now an important talk show host, got her start there, too.

Next thing, Sarah is at Sunny's door, asking for help. She was staying with her boyfriend when two thugs broke in, scaring off the boyfriend and beating her up. So she ends up staying with Sunny.

Sunny goes to New York to meet with Lolly's lawyer. He ends up dead. And Sunny becomes more convinced than ever that Lolly is somehow involved with this case.

A good mystery.

[The Library Lady · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here we go again with another young woman that Sunny befriends, but that we'll never hear a word about again.And here, Robert B has written things up so that he can include the stand in for his wife, Doctor Susan Silverman, the Perfect Jewish American Princess, as Sunny's shrink.

Many years ago, when the "Babysitter's Club" books were at their height, a mom told me that she was reading them with her daughters, but that they were reading them mindfully. And one of their revelations had been that the introductions, where the girls took turns narrating ALWAYS DESCRIBED THE CHARACTERS IN THE EXACT SAME WAY. Real people don't do that. If you asked 5 different people to describe, say, me, they'd all say different things based on their experiences with me and their own world view.

So here comes Dr Susan, and all Sunny talks about is how perfect she is, how great her clothes are, how great her makeup is, on and on and on, and you might as well be having Spenser narrate this. In fact, more often than not, Parker, earnestly trying to write in a woman's voice, fails and channels Spenser. He'd have been much better off writing these in the 3rd person, as he did the Jesse Stone books.

And like that mom, reading these books a little mindfully has given me some interesting thoughts about Parker. But I'll save them for when I finish the last books in the Sunny series.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor Sunny, she’s going through a rough time, her ex-husband Ritchie’s remarried and now she has to deal with how she really feels about that and seriously explore her relationship within her father and her family. She’s really going through a tough time.

Enter Sarah Markham, college student, wants to hire Sunny to find her birth parents. Sarah knows, she just knows that her parents aren’t real and her parents continue to deny her accusations. But her mother can’t remember what hospital she was born in and she has no birth certificate. How weird is that? Of course you’d wonder.

Sunny takes a break from her psychiatrist’s appointments to work on the case. She convinces Sarah to move in with her during the investigation to keep her safe when bodies start to show up. A lawyer who was helpful (and she got quite "close" to) ends up dead along with Sarah's father, both contract killings. What is going on? The trail is incredibly convoluted but in the end, the answers are found in a small town radio station.

Sunny’s work with her psychiatrist is giving her some of the tools she’ll need in the new world, sans Ritchie. Thankfully she’ll always have Spike and Rosie (and Ritchie on visiting days).

[Robert Mckay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sunny Randall series is the second-best of Parker's PI series (Spenser being the best). But while I like Sunny, she's so shrinky that she gets annoying. And Parker apparently had a complete lack of understanding of what love is, which shows through in all his series, and very clearly here. Because he was adrift on what love is, so is Sunny, who uses the word freely, but without any understanding of what it is, what it requires, what it leads to, what it prohibits.

The problem with complaining about that is that if you take out the parts where Sunny ruminates (however blindly) on her life, what's left is a novella. Parker's mysteries never were books that took days and days to read, but as he got older he wrote more superficially, and his publisher put in more white space, so that two books of equal thickness, one from the 70s and the other from, say, 2000, would contain different word counts. The Sunny Randall series suffers from this as well.

So I've complained a lot - and yet I keep coming back to the books because they are, after all, good mysteries when the navel-gazing isn't on stage. When Sunny quits contemplating herself, she's a good, smart, tough detective, and that's why I like the series.

[False · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't a review of the book. Just my personal notes. I have read all of Robert B. Parker over the years, including the newer books post-death. I've said before that his estate did take care to secure multiple writers to take on the voice of Parker and his creations with success, although for me, there will always be that "something" missing. In looking at Good Reads, I realized most of what I had read wasn't showing because I read the books so long ago. At first I was going to skim the books to add them to my list, but I decided to undertake a re-read of all of them. I must have thirty waiting and more to come. I noticed the family didn't hire a writer for the Sunny Randall successions. She was the only one not carried forward. Right now I'm reading through the Jesse Stone series, then I'll break off and go over to the Virgil and Hitch. I still contend the best book Parker ever wrote was his first, The Godwulf Manuscript, and I may save that for the last. There's a lot to be melancholy about in this book. Parker had five more years to live. What was going on in my own life and Sunny Randall explores the issues in her work and personal life about relationships and what it means to be part of a family, and what family means, and the choices we make in life. Much deeper than his usual blithe adult comic style.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sunny accomplishes a lot in this book, involving her parents and Richie. My next 2 books are on my nook. There are new books coming out in 2018 I will look forward to purchasing.

Page 100 "Are we getting oedipal here?" I said.
"What do you understand by the term 'oedipal'? . . .

I have an epiphany on page 142, roflmao, and I am correct weeeee

NOW THIS IS IMPORTANT:

Page 178 . . . "Peple can be drunk with grief."
"Except," I said, "I didn't see a lot of grief. I saw a lot of rage, but no grief."
Brian nodded. "She didn't seem too griefy to me," he said. "How about the daughter." . . .

Page 201 . . . "Truth is not merely fact," she was saying, "it is also feeling, honestly expressed, don't yhou think?"
The guest, a young actor promoting a new movie, nodded.
"It's love," he said, " and honest passion."
I looked at Corsetti. He smiled at me benefolently.
On screen, Lolly looked at the audience.
"You know my mantra," she said. "Where screts exist, love cannot." . . .

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had years of my life and hours of dead time needing to be filled, i could read another of these. Several more. It read quickly--under two hours--and didn't get boring. The author, a man, did a decent job at exposing his girlish side and inventing a conflicted female with both guts and common sense. She has no illusions about her relative fighting ability, a 125 pound woman against a 185 pound man, and is perfectly okay with pulling in a big guy for backup.

So, technically, it was fine. But while I liked her a lot, I just didn't love her. Certainly not enough to spend any more hours of my few remaining reading hours with.

[Ed Schneider · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parker is the author I turn to when I want to breeze very quickly through a book without needing to engage my brain. It's sort of like comfort food, pleasing but not great nutritional value. Interesting story with lots of characters we've met in other books. No need for back stories, we already know them. But this story just doesn't engage. Kid doesn't believe her parents are really her parents and Sunny is having trouble that her ex has remarried. But when hard work is needed, she lets her mob ties solve her problem. Ho hum. Yes my expectations were low but this one went under them. Where's V.I. Warshawski when we need her?

[Mark Edlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mystery series - Parker and his ghost (no pun intended) writers continue this interesting series. Sunny Randall, the Boston PI, is given a genealogical challenge when a young girl comes to her to ask her to find her real parents. Of course, things get complicated and Sunny's many friends help her out. Richie is getting remarried and this causes some emotional problems. Another blending with the Spenser series when Sue Silverman becomes Sunny's therapist. I am waiting for them to introduce Hawk.
Pharmacy references - drug store eye glasses.
Canadian reference - comparison of the hills of Massachusetts to the Canadian Rockies (really?)

[Michael McCue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Parker's other detectives include Sunny Randall. Sunny is a private investigator in Boston. Her father is a retired police captain. The author has borrowed a few characters from his Spenser series. Spenser doesn't make an appearance but others do. Boston Police detective makes an appearance. Sunny goes to see a psychologist who turns out to be Spenser's long time girlfriend Susan. Sunny is hired by a young woman who believes her parents are not who they say they are. What she finds may be a surprise.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fourth of the Sunny Randall novels but the first that I’ve read. Some characters overlap with the Spenser series, in fact Susan Silverman is Sunny’s new shrink.

Sunny’s client isn’t cooperative or particularly likable for no reason except that she’s 21 and entitled. Sunny and her supporting cast make up for Sarah being so unsympathetic and kept me turning the pages. The why and who of the puzzle were evident early on in the story, but I read the book in one sitting to learn the how. A really fun read.

[Betty Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 . . . very laid back . . . disputed parentage . . . bad guys that do good things . . . ex-husbands . . . shared custody of a dog . . . friends with clout . . . contracts on people who ask too many questions . . . good bad guys/bad good guys . . . female private eye . . . a little too much money floating around with not quite enough work to support it . . . more interesting shrink talk . . . leaves me unsatisfied . . .

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another really good Sunny Randall story. Sunny is in a funk as her ex husband has just remarried. She is asked to take on a case of a 20 year old girl who wants to know who her real parents are. She takes it on as much to get her mind off things as anything else. As she digs into it the mystery deepens and then her client is assaulted followed by the same goons coming after her. From there the action picks up and bodies start dropping. A fun read.

[Doris Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this series. I like Sunny's spunkiness. The storyline about Sarah Markham was interesting and handled very well. The only objection I had to the novel was all the therapy sessions she had with Susan Silverman. I don't think she accomplished much in them because very little was said on either side... either Susan's or hers. It was all kind of slow moving in these sessions. Other than that I still like Robert B. Parker's characters.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a bit of a disappointment. I expect shallow, cardboard cutout secondary characters in Parker's books, but there were a number of plot holes that aren't like him in this one. Even the primary characters seem thinly drawn with oversimplified/curious motivations. It's handy to have these to read when life's circumstances call for a certain amount of mindless drivel, but I get the sense that he was definitely losing his fastball when he wrote this one.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Sunny Randall; she's a strong woman battling with her independence, and her love for a man who wants the ordinary life. This book deals with her agony over his recent marriage to another woman, and her empathy for a young woman who is attempting to find out the truth about her birth parents. A great read, and one that keeps you interested to the last page.

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second time reading this book and I love it as much this time as I did the first time!! I miss Robert B. Parker's writing so much!! I am rereading my way through this series that was written by Robert B. and hoping that when I get to the books written by Mike Lupica that I will enjoy them just as much!!! Fingers crossed!!!!

[Marsha Whitfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. First book I have ready by Robert Parker. I enjoyed it. P.I. Sunny Randall is helping a troubled young girl find out who her parents are. To get to some of the answers, there is no telling what Sunny has to do or who she encounters. All the while, she is also seeing a shrink to try to figure out her own issues. Very good book.

[Tamia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book started off being very interesting. However, the ending was too predictable and cliche for me. There weren’t any effective plot twists for me. The parts about her dad have left me...unsatisfied