All Our Yesterdays

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.

Rating:
Summary: A Spenser-less Parker? Believe it!
Review: Pobert Parker hooked this reviewer ages ago with Spenser and Hawk. All Our Yesterdays was picked off the bargain shelf solely on the strength of the Spenser/Hawk series. This three-generational novel extends from 1920's Dublin to modern day Boston, with a combination of first-person flashbacks of the grandson and conventional third-person narration.

Yesterdays has a skillfully crafted plot, and character development often lacking in the Spenser novels. Parker treats the reader to a father-son-grandson who meet problems with realistic reactions, if not always solutions. Conn's gradual change from idealistic Irish rebel to cynical Boston cop seems perfectly reasonable. Gus's change from timid, fearing child to hard-bitten Boston cop does not surprise. Chris's movement--if there is one--from insecure child, fearfully watching his parents fight,to respected scholar does not come off as a contrived plot gimmick.

Throughout, Parker reveals the cynical Conn and the hard-bitten Gus as caring but decidedly unndemonstrable parents. "Sonva bitch," Conn thinks, on the verge of a fight with Gus, "You ARE a good kid." "Damn," Gus thinks at a meeting being chaired by Chris, "He's pretty good." Neither, of course, would convey that feeling to his son verbally. Yet this father-son relationship is warm, genuine, honest. Parker makes the unspoken love manifest.

A Spenser-less Parker? Believe it! Read it! Love it

Rating:
Summary: The Way to Dusty Death
Review: Surprise! Surprise! This Robert B. Parker novel is not only not about Spenser and Hawk foiling the bad guys by playing the game just a little close (or even just over) to the line of legal behavior. It isn't even about a private detective. Parker's All Our Yesterdays (as in Macbeth's "have lighted fools their way to dusty death." is a generational saga reminiscent of Jeffrey Archer--and at least as good. The setting is still the Boston of Spenser, Hawk, and Susan, but not the trendy, yuppie Boston they frequent. Instead we are in Charlestown, the lace-curtain Irish district, and following the lives of three Boston cops. The first, Conn Sheridan, was a sixteen year old sniper during the Easter Rebellion in Dublin. Later, after breaking out of a British jail just before his hanging, he immigrated to Boston where he joined the police. Conn was involved with the young wife of an American industrialist, a Boston Brahmin, in Dublin. Conn's son, Gus, inherits his father's secrets and rises to power in Boston Homicide, while connections to the underworld enable him to send his son, Chris, to Harvard Law. Eventually Chris, who is unknowingly involved with the granddaughter of his grandfather's lover, is appointed special investigator to stop a gang war and catch a serial killer of teenaged girls. Gus, however, already knows about the killer--his father caught him and let him go years before. After everything comes apart, Chris goes to Dublin to find his roots and understand the story his father has finally told him. The book is Chris telling the story in flashbacks to Grace as they try to reconcile their life together. It is a well-told story, with love, hate, war, revolution, cops and robbers, and some interesting twists and turns. It is much more complex than Spenser and Hawk shooting down the bad guys while Susan worries and supports. All Our Yesterdays is a good read.