Pun Salad

Posthumous Spenser novel. How depressing those words are. Writing machine Robert B. Parker left a few books in the publishing pipeline when he passed away earlier this year, and hanging over every Spenserian wisecrack here is the thought: you won't be reading too many more of these.

And this one is pretty good. Spenser has been on a streak in recent books: things don't work out well for clients who engage his private eye services. It's even worse than average here—dust-jacket spoiler coming up—his client only makes it to page 13.

Spenser had been hired to oversee a ransom demand for a stolen painting, the (fictitious) "Lady with a Finch" by the (equally fictitious) 17^th century Dutch painter Franz Hermenszoon. His client is the supercilious Ashton Prince.

"May I count on your discretion?" he said.

"Sure," I said.

"I'm serious," he said.

"I can tell," I said.

He frowned slightly. Less in disapproval than in uncertainty.

"Well," he said, "may I?"

"Count on my discretion?"

"Yes!"

"At the moment, I don't have anything to be discreet about," I said. "But I would be if I did."

He stared at me for a moment, then smiled.

"I see," he said. "You're attempting to be funny."

"'Attempting'?" I said.

The payoff doesn't go well, especially for Ashton. Spenser, being Spenser, feels it necessary to crack the case anyway, even lacking a paying client. He is, as always, relentless and indefatigable. Soon, he rattles enough cages to put himself in danger.

My impression is that Spenser devotes a higher-than-average amount of time doing detecting here, which is good, and there might be fewer pages than normal containing tedious banter with his sweetie Susan—also good.