By Robert B. Parker
The big news for longtime Spenser fans: After 29 years on the job, Parker's private eye has a new pooch, a pointer puppy to replace his late beloved Pearl. The alpha dog of gumshoes, however, has plenty of bite left in him. This time out, a client asks Spenser to investigate the murder of her mother, who was shot dead during a 1970s bank robbery by a radical revolutionary group. When he investigates the dead woman's checkered past, Spenser discovers the killing may not have been random. Rummaging in the remnants of the flower power era—during which, a dippy hippie source observes, the burly Boston detective was "probably off somewhere doing push-ups"—Spenser gets support with firepower and wisecracks from his superbad sidekick Hawk, as well as a brief helping hand from Paradise, Mass., police chief Jesse Stone, who stars in his own Parker series. There's nothing extraordinary about this Spenser episode, whose highlights include a shootout in an empty Harvard Stadium rendered in taut minimalism. But even an ordinary Spenser—now a bit more introspective at the beginning of the Pearl II era—is enjoyable enough. (Putnam, $24.95)
BOTTOM LINE: Spenser is still the top dog
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