In Boston, private detective Spenser meets young Daniel Lopez, whose Guatemalan immigrant mother, Marisol, was murdered six weeks ago in Miami. \u201cIt has come to my attention, Mr. Spenser,\u201d he says, \u201cthat a lot of my life story turned out to be a lie.\u201d Because of a DNA test, Daniel thinks he is the unacknowledged son of Vic Hale, voice of the right-wing, anti-immigrant Boston podcast All Hale. Thought to be the next biggest podcaster after Joe Rogan, Hale hates anyone who doesn\u2019t look like him. \u201cKing of the mouth-breathers,\u201d says Spenser\u2019s colleague Hawk. An \u201cawful, awful man,\u201d says Susan Silverman. Daniel, who is on his way to Harvard Law School, simply wants Hale to acknowledge his paternity and insists he doesn\u2019t want money. Hale refuses. More people wind up dead, and a bigger and more complicated story develops that ends in a showdown. Spenser, of unknown first name, is the classic creation of the late Robert B. Parker. He\u2019s tall, great-looking, and loyal to Susan, his psychologist girlfriend and always-eager sex partner. Lawyer Rita Fiore calls him \u201cthe Incredible Hunk,\u201d but she respects that he\u2019s spoken for. Setting the series apart is the smart dialogue that\u2019s often good for a chuckle\u2014though the plots are always serious, Spenser misses few opportunities to flaunt his wit. Occasionally, it grates on his enemies, and even readers may roll their eyes at his constant efforts to be funny or make arcane literary references. Reflecting on the strength he once had, he conjures Samuel Taylor Coleridge: \u201cWhen I was young?\u2014Ah, woful When!…Ah! for the change \u2018twixt Now and Then\u2026\u201d But that\u2019s a noir P.I. for you: tough and handsome, erudite and wiseass. Meanwhile, Hawk is not shy about poking fun at his friend and ally\u2019s quirks. Author Lupica faithfully maintains the atmosphere and characters that Parker created.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Boston, private detective Spenser meets young Daniel Lopez, whose Guatemalan immigrant mother, Marisol, was murdered six weeks ago in Miami. \u201cIt has come to my attention, Mr. Spenser,\u201d he says, \u201cthat a lot of my life story turned out to be a lie.\u201d Because of a DNA test, Daniel thinks he is the unacknowledged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}