Potshot

Rating:
Summary: Gumshoes and Westerns!
Review: For the most part Potshot plays out just like any other Spenser novel.Which is pretty good. But it's nice to see Parker playing with genres and doing something a bit different here with Spenser and his handpicked team. I wish there would have been more with Spenser's magnificent seven. But Potshot is a good solid read. It's nice to see Parker branching out a bit. Here's hoping he does more.

Rating:
Summary: The Magnificent Spenser -- I Mean, "Seven"
Review: Quick read, no mental strain, interesting characters, new locale, solved so far as Spenser is concerned but the Authorities will never know, snappy dialog, what's new?

Parker borrows Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", though this one might be closer to the Western version, "The Magnificant Seven", as Spenser and Hawk and five other tough guys from previous adventures set out to rescue the Yuppie boomtown of Potshot from the sleazy gang that hang out on the edge of town and make their living off extortion and "protection" paid by the locals.

Originally hired by a local businesswoman to bring to justice her husband's killer(s), Spenser is also retained by other local prominent citizens to clear out the riffraff whose activities threaten the actual survival of the town. And they're not too concerned as to how he does it, either.

Of course, he does.

Interestingly enough, as much as "Magnificent Seven", i felt strong echoes of other Westerns in this story (not surprising, given the setting). I was soemwhat reminded of Donald Hamilton's novel (and the film made from it), "The Big Country", whenever Spenser found himself confronting Preacher, the leader of the local Bad Element.

But the film i began thinking of, more and more strongly as i got into the last third of the book, was Sergio Leone's masterpiece, "Once Upon a Time in the West", which i *strongly* recommend; in fact, after reading this book, you might enjoy spending a Saturday or Sunday afternoon watching a double-feature -- "Magnificent Seven" and "Once Upon a Time in the West", both of which are available from Amazon.

All in all, Parker is still not up to his best in this boook, but it's better than some others in the series. I will wanr those who haen't read parker or Spenser before that this is *not* the place to start -- given that Spenser has History with virtually every character in the book, History that is alluded to but never really stated, a goodly part of the book's setup is between the lines.

I'm still waiting for the book when Spenser comes face-to-face with Sunny Randall or Jesse Stone; given the number of acquaintances in common that they have, and the relatively small area in which all three operate, it has to happen.

A Note: Parker has either spent some Quality Time in Atlanta or Done His Research Well -- both in this book and in the second Jesse Stone book he gets the nightclub-and-shopping district, Buckhead, just about perfect. But i think he's still getting the local terminology wrong about roads, with local characters referring to Interstate Highways as "Route so-and-so" -- to Spenser, "Route 20" would be I-20, which cuts through town down by Turner Field. But if he asked an Atlantan how to get to "Route 20", he'd probably wind up about seventy miles north of there, at Georgia 20 near the Mall of Georgia...

Rating:
Summary: There are no bad Spenser books, but...
Review: For me, the key to enjoying a Spenser book is simply not to take it at all seriously. I've always loved Parker's dialogue, although it would be beyond miraculous to find as many truly glib, dry, clever people in one time zone, let alone the city of Boston. The more I read about Potshot, the more eagerly I looked forward to getting my hands on it. The idea of bringing together so many of Parker's quirky angels with dirty faces was intriguing. Then the book arrived. And I read it. And right near the end, Parker essentially said, "...and then there was a lot of shooting and everyone went home." Rats. I've never read a bad Spenser novel, but this one was a let-down. Perhaps Mr. Parker should devote more time to his two new protagonists, Sunny and Jesse.

Rating:
Summary: Like an old friend that you can't get too mad at.....
Review: I remember the wonderful day decades ago now that I chanced upon the first Spenser novel. I haven't missed a one. The early books were so fresh and had such dazzle and snap....but like all of us Spenser has aged and the books have definitely slowed down. Over the years I have been disappointed that they seemed to get thinner and thinner in plot but I have never tired of Spenser, Hawk and Susan. I was actually glad that he brought the whole cast of characters from former books into this one.....but was sad that he did not hang tough and get the bad "guy" in the end. But....I just can't seem to get mad or sad enough to stop reading them....and in fact I still read and enjoy these books....just like I enjoy old friends that I can recall stories from 30 years ago with....

Rating:
Summary: Spenser's Seven Samurai
Review: After twenty-seven other Spenser novels, Robert B. Parker has to have difficulty coming up with a new idea. In Potshot, he provides an very different twist-an adaptation of the Japanese classic, The Seven Samurai (or the US version, The Magnificent Seven). At the request of grieving widow, May Lou Buckman, Spenser journeys to the western resort town of Potshot. It seems a gang of toughs living in the mountains outside the town are terrorizing the locals, extorting payoffs for "protection". Steve Buckman refused to pay, and was found dead by gunshot wound. No witnesses, so no prosecution, even though everyone knows the gang in the "Dell" did it. Widow Mary Lou gets a reference to Spenser, and comes east to ask him to come and help. When Spenser arrives, he finds the situation as bad as described. When the town fathers ask him to help them get rid of the "Dell" gang, he goes on a nation-wide recruiting tour, picking up tough guys from several previous novels-starting with Hawk, of course. The fact that he ends up with exactly seven tough guys to take on a much larger group of outlaws and deliver the little town cannot be a coincidence. Parker's style in writing the Spenser stories has changed since the TV series. His dialog is very close to that achieved by the characters in the teleplays. In fact, all of the recent Spensers have had a sense of being new TV movies based on the series-and that is not necessarily bad. All of them, this latest included, are very pleasant, entertaining reading.

Rating:
Summary: Parker doing what he does best
Review: Much as I didn't like "Perish Twice," I thought "Potshot" was classic Spenser. This book shows how well Parker does what made his reputation: Spenser (and Hawk) at their best. (The link to the magnificent seven can be overlooked.) Very glad to see Parker back in form. I also hope we get Sunny back in better shape than the "Perish Twice" hodge-podge. Robert Parker, if you ever read these reviews, welcome back!

Rating:
Summary: I've had it with Parker.
Review: This started out as the best Spenser book ever and continued that way for more than 200 pages. Then it fell flat on its face. I feel cheated. The complex plot, the wonderful characters -- Hawk, Vinnie, Tedy Sapp, Cholo, Bobby Horse, Fortunato -- suddenly collapsed and vanished. I got a two-page gunfight with one sentence per character. End of story.

I've had it with Parker. In the unlikely event that he stops writing potboilers and gets serious (as in, another thousand pages along the lines of the first two hundred, i.e. a real novel) I'll read him again, even including Susan Silverman (whom I usually skip but who was better this time), awaiting with delight the occasional turn of phrase that made Spencer so popular to begin with. But I'm tired of wasting my time with promises unfulfilled, and the story of Parker's last four or five books has been good idea, great plot, comedown ending, hope for better next time. God, what a shame. I really did like those first two hundred pages.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best Spenser, but pretty good
Review: I thought the last Spenser, Hugger Mugger was not all that great, but Potshot is much better. Not the best, but an entertaining read nonetheless. It is a fast and easy read, I finished it in about 3 hours. It is nice to see many of the characters from earlier novels have a reunion of sorts, although I typically prefer the Spenser novels when they are set in Boston, and not "on the road". The dialogue is typically good, with lots of deadpan humor involved. A very light read, but good, especially if you are a Spenser fan.

Rating:
Summary: Tired old ****
Review: As with all Spenser novels, this was a quick and enertaining read. In comparison, watching the Brady Bunch is enertaining (at times). Parker is too caught up in fulfilling his book contract, so he dredges up all his "thug" charachters from previous books and puts them in a location together. This format does not work. Each of the supporting charachters had a unique quirk to their charachters, that just doesn't work in a crowd (with the sole exception of Hawk). This book is just plain lousy, as compared to previous installments, and Parker continues to bore his reader silly with the tales of his long time love interest, Susan. He should kill her off and solve her murder. That would make an interesting end to this relatively dead series.

Parker has produced some quality work. His early Spenser work, and the first installments in his other series were excellent. Unfortunately, most Spenser books written in the nineties and later, the Raymond Chandler foray, and the second installment in his new series are formulaic and lazy. I believe success and old age have made Parker lazy.

As a long time Parker fan, I believe this will be the last book I ever pick up by Parker.

Rating:
Summary: Another disapointment!
Review: I have read this novel twice, once the day I received it, once again a week later. Both times it was abysmal. Following up a very weak Spenser novel ( Hugger Mugger)with yet another contrived, self-plagered, poorly plotted outing is a bad sign. There was a time that Mr.Parker rarely, if ever, had two poor offerings in a row. That time has passed. In fact, his last four novels have been sub-par, and besides Perish Twice, Potshot maybe his worst work ever. When I first read of the plot concept, I was quite excited. Spenser backed by a motley crew of thugs, pugs, and lugs, all set in the wild, or not so wild as it turns out, west. Unfortunately, Mr.Parker may as well have had a cast of mimes backing his protaginist, for all the play they receive. In fact, the heat, which seems just this side of Satans inferno, gets more attention then most of Spensers posse. I realize that the desert is quite hot, yet Spenser hails from Boston, a city that has heat, humdity and smog warnings which caution people on the hazards of owning lungs on an overcast August day. The dialoge, which was once Mr.Parkers forte, is contrieved, seemingly cut from previous adventures and pasted where applicable. Mr.Parker has related to us, through the voice of bit characters, that Spenser is a "literate detective" and "not even a little bit fat...", ad infinitum. Dispite this overkill, we are again reminded of these virtues, as well as Spensers iron-clad monogamy. If all that were not enough to beat down an already near dead novel, the villians, local law enforcement, and the client that hires Spenser are all cookie cutter, bland rip-offs of previous Parker characters. The local sheriff might as well be Jesse Stone , Mr.Parkers other recurring male protagonist, for all his honorable faults and misplaced intentions. The female client could be one of 27 or so other female clients in the cornicopia of Parkers fiction. Like watching a once great athlete become ordinary, and then a has-been, the decline of this once great series has been painful to most of Mr.Parkers avid readers, myself included. A few ominously placed comments on aging and death, are perhaps a clue that the Spenser series maybe heading into the sunset. I can only offer up the opinion, a stance that would have been unthinkable three books ago, that it is indeed time that Spenser be put out to stud. When an author of Mr.Parkers caliber and deft prose styling, gathers together his best characters from a span of some 30 odd years, fails to pull of an outing that is even mildly entertaining, it is a high sign that the well has been go tapped one time too many, and now is bone dry.