Rating: 
Summary: I buy Parker for Spenser, Hawk and Susan. Sorry Robert.
Review: All our Yesterdays was not a bad twisted intrigue, although a bit corny (I still couldn't put it down). But I am always disappointed when I pick up a Parker that doesn't include my favorite old characters! I can imagine that the writer wants to stretch out, but his fans (I couldn't even loan this one out...only Spenser my friends said!) are happiest with the characters that we fell in love with: Spenser, Hawk, Susan, and Pearl!
By the way, Small Vices was brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: Not Spenser-quality
Review: Being a big fan of Spenser, I bought this in hardback without looking at the dustcover. Imagine my suprise when I started reading about Ireland's IRA. If the book had started and ended with Conn, Parker could have had a really good book. He just over-extended himself with 3 generations. I finished it, but I didn't enjoy the book once it left Ireland. I kept expecting it to improve-after all, it was a Parker novel. Not one I would recommend to anyone. I didn't even keep my copy, but sold it to a resale shop. I would have sworn someone else had written it and just put Robert B. Parker's name on it. Not on quality-par with Spenser novels or with Perchance to Dream or Poodle Springs
Rating: 
Summary: A nice departure from the Spenser series.
Review: Being a long time fan of the Spenser novels, I was going into the book with a prejudice against liking it. After I sorted out the initial characters I was hooked. I did not want the book to end. Anyone familiar with the Spenser novels will be right at home with the writing style and flow of the book. I especially liked the way he blended the past storytelling with the current day dialoge. A very nice read.
Rating: 
Summary: Parker out of his league
Review: I am a Parker fan and had a hard tome getting into this book. It took me several days to read the first hundred pages but after that I read the rest of the book in two days. This is a nice departure from the Spenser novels, with none of the characters seeming like the Spenser characters, so it has a flavor all its own. In his dedecation Parker says this story is about fathers and sons and while this is true it is about so much more. This novel has so many layers to it and will make an impact on you for days after you finish it.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to get into, but after that well worth the effort
Review: I am a Parker fan and had a hard tome getting into this book. It took me several days to read the first hundred pages but after that I read the rest of the book in two days. This is a nice departure from the Spenser novels, with none of the characters seeming like the Spenser characters, so it has a flavor all its own. In his dedecation Parker says this story is about fathers and sons and while this is true it is about so much more. This novel has so many layers to it and will make an impact on you for days after you finish it.
Rating:
Summary: Parker out of his league
Review: I give Robert Parker credit for being amibitious enough to try something new, something more profoud than his genre novels. But this novel simply does not live up to the challenge. The central romantic relationship is rendered as if this were a Harlequin romance -- corny, to say the least. And the plot, after a credible opening set in 1920's Ireland, degenerates into cliche after cliche. The characters are never believable. Sorry to say, the book is not very compelling or interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Please, Mr. Parker
Review: I love Robert B. Parker's books. He is the only author I buy in hardback because I think the man can write better than anyone in the market today, and I never want to wait for the paperback, or for the new ones to come back at the library. Parker isn't really a one-note author, as his critics claim; he's more of a one-tune author, but if you happen to like the tune, he's always fun. This book is very well-plotted at the action is great, and all three of the main characters are every bit as appealing as Spenser. But please, oh please, pretty please, Mr. Parker, stop buying into the "Playboy" philosophy that men are made more powerful by their uniforms, but women acquire power only when they take their clothes off! And that those women who aren't "picture perfect" aren't worth anything at all! Please? This is the very same attitude that you skewered - and beautifully - in "Taming a Sea Horse," the book about the sleazy smut-peddling Crown Prince Club. Whose side are you on anyway? Other than that major irritation, this book is a very good read, and in my opinion Parker makes the transition from pot-boiler to mainstream well. But....Please??
Rating:
Summary: Three generations
Review: In this melodramatic tale Chris's grandfather was Conn Sheridan who sniped at British troops during the Easter uprising and became an officer in the IRA. Later he went to prison because he was betrayed by a woman and ended up moving to Boston, becoming a police officer. Chris feels frustrated because he has only been to graduate school and feels that he has never done anything. In Boston Conn marries the daughter of a judge. In 1932 his son Gus is born. When a child, Maureen Burns, is discovered in a church basement, Conn learns that the homicide in the commission of a felony was caused by the son of the woman who betrayed him to the authorities. The perpetrator is sent to Zurich and the matter is officially listed as unsolved. Conn dies walking into gunfire. His son Gus becomes a police officer. The child of Gus and his wife Peggy, Chris, was sickly and precocious. Moving forward to adulthood, Chris becomes interested in a grandchild of Conn's longstanding love interest. The strands in the story become disentangled when Chris undertakes a job as a special investigative prosecutor.
Rating:
Summary: Three generations
Review: In this melodramatic tale Chris's grandfather was Conn Sheridan who sniped at British troops during the Easter uprising and became an officer in the IRA. Later he went to prison because he was betrayed by a woman and ended up moving to Boston, becoming a police officer. Chris feels frustrated because he has only been to graduate school and feels that he has never done anything. In Boston Conn marries the daughter of a judge. In 1932 his son Gus is born. When a child, Maureen Burns, is discovered in a church basement, Conn learns that the homicide in the commission of a felony was caused by the son of the woman who betrayed him to the authorities. The perpetrator is sent to Zurich and the matter is officially listed as unsolved. Conn dies walking into gunfire. His son Gus becomes a police officer. The child of Gus and his wife Peggy, Chris, was sickly and precocious. Moving forward to adulthood, Chris becomes interested in a grandchild of Conn's longstanding love interest. The strands in the story become disentangled when Chris undertakes a job as a special investigative prosecutor.
Rating:
Summary: Better than most Spenser novels, give it a chance
Review: OK, here's the deal. Robert B Parker wants to write something different, and he's just cranked out about 6 Spenser novels in a row. So, he sits down and writes this, All Our Yesterdays, a very good thriller, but often trashed novel. Why? Its easy... Robert B Parker is a simpistic writer, often taking for granted that you have read all the earlier novels,and you want no background material and no filler. Well, this isnt a Spenser novel, so background material is needed, you just met these guys. That for one agrivates Spenser fans, they like there novels to start on page one and never drag, but you do need a little background here. Heres the catcher, Robert B Parker also hates background material and explanitory writing. So he writes a vast, sprawling novel existing on three generations, with as little writing as possible.He does it in about 460 pages, (about the lengh of 2 Spenser novels). Does it work? Yes, its a gritty, fun yarn that is fast pased and slightly dark at times. Its also a little sterotypical towards the Irish, but Robert B Parker is Irish, so let that be. Its a welcome change of pace, more filling than most of his Spenser novels. Not a steak dinner filling, but more filling than say a Snickers.
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