The Professional

A Spenser Novel

By: Robert B. Parker

Narrated by: Joe Mantegna

Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

A knock on Spenser's office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer with an interesting story. Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years she's developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: they've all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhower- and now he's blackmailing them for money. Shaw hires Spenser to make Eisenhower "cease and desist," so to speak, but when women start turning up dead, Spenser's assignment goes from blackmail to murder.

As matters become more complicated, Spenser's longtime love, Susan, begins offering some input by analyzing Eisenhower's behavior patterns in hopes of opening up a new avenue of investigation. It seems that not all of Gary's women are rich. So if he's not using them for blackmail, then what is his purpose? Spenser switches tactics to focus on the husbands, only to find that innocence and guilt may be two sides of the same coin.

With its eloquently spare prose and some of the best supporting characters to grace the printed page, The Professional is further proof that "[t]here's hardly an author in the crime novel business like Parker" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

©2009 Robert B. Parker (P)2009 Random House

Disappointing final book

I have been an avid Spenser fan and mourn the death of Robert Parker. Unfortunately, his last entry into the series was a bit of a disappointment to me. First, let me say the positive, Joe Mantegna does his usual, excellent performance. He has become Spenser to me much like Dick Hill is Jack Reacher and Len Cariou is Harry Bosch, other favorites of mine. The story itself leaves much to be desired.

I actually found the plot quite boring. With the exception of the regulars, the new characters were so vacuous that I could not care less about their stories and if they lived or died. There was no suspense or tension as Spenser, Hawk and Susan were never in any danger and were pretty peripheral. There was essentially no action whatsoever. Finally, there seemed to be inordinately long stretches where all that was going on was Spenser and Susan dissecting the meaning of love and their relationship. It almost seems as if Mr. Parker realized this would be his final entry and was writing this to someone close to him.

Thank you Mr. Parker for all of the pleasure you have brought to us in the past. I will miss the regular entries into this entertaining series of books.