Rating: 
Summary: One of Parker's best
Review: I loved "Double Play." It's been a long time since a book has so resonated in my consciousness. Let me tell you why.
Robert B. Parker and I are about the same age. We were both 14 in the summer of 1947 when most of his book takes place. Like Mr. Parker, I spent my youth listening to ballgames on the radio. I, too, had been a Brooklyn Dodgers fan (until the summer of 1946 when they were supplanted in my affections by the St. Louis Cardinals - but that's a story for another time). I, too, listened to all the wonderful old radio shows of the day, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, and on and on that Mr. Parker discusses in his "Bobby" sequences. I saw Jackie Robinson play against the Cardinals in St Louis in that summer of his rookie year, 1947 - I wonder where Burke was? Mr. Parker's mother, a spirited woman who he describes as, "often wrong, but never in doubt," and his father, who dealt with his wife's bossiness with slightly bemused tolerance, reminded me of my own parents' personalities and relationship. Even the unconscious racism of 1940s Springfield, Mass. was reminiscent of the racism that prevailed in Oklahoma City at the time.
The exciting story of the developing respect between Burke, the tough WW-II combat veteran, failed boxer, and body guard; and Jackie Robinson is well told and a lot of fun. Sure their relationship has overtones of Spencer and Hawk but, what the heck, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." And we can always count on a Robert B. Parker novel to give us three dimensional characters and smart, endlessly entertaining dialog. For example, Burke, although only about 22 in 1947, is older than his time on earth would indicate - and infinitely sadder, too. I think I would have liked "Double Play" a lot, even without its connections to my own childhood but the combination of Mr. Parker's formidable storytelling talent and the time in which his book is set served to make it doubly rewarding for me.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Pastoral Parker
Review: In today's news there'll probably be a report about another steroid scandal, an outrageous sum of money being given to a utility outfielder, or an irate player who feels he is being 'disrespected' by his owners because he's only getting a few million dollars.
Parker's book brings us back to a simpler era of baseball, but when an event that wasn't so simple shook the entire baseball and social establishment up to a degree that arguably hasn't been matched since. This lean, spare novel conveys the joy of 1940's baseball while bringing us back to how life was in war-time America, and the period shortly after the second World War. Parker tells the tale of Robinson by focusing on a fictional bodyguard hired by Branch Rickey to protect Robinson. The criminal elements of the novel combine with the social aspects of Robinson's groundbreaking season and make this book a compelling page-turner.
It's a nice feeling to encounter a book that you wish would never end. This book gave me that feeling.
Rating: 
Summary: Half a Double Play
Review: Robert Parker's creative, fictionalized approach to the problems Jackie Robinson faced when integrating baseball makes for fascinating reading. But the other half of his double play, the personalized reminisces of "Bobby," alias him, growing up and loving girls and baseball, is basically self-agrandizement; the interesting historical observations -- and there are some --could be told within the story in Parker's as-always brilliant narrative. The Robinson character is not quite fleshed out (although it is in no way Hawk while the hero, Burke, is much like Spenser, Parker's long-running detective). No, the details in the story didn't happen but they might have. And the danger and tension surrounding Robinson were very real.
You don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this -- but you will lose little skipping the "Bobby" chapters.
Rating: 
Summary: A Nice Departure from Parker's Popular Spenser Series
Review: The first Robert B. Parker novel that I ever read was MORTAL STAKES, the third of the Spenser books. The book concerned, along with many other things, professional baseball, and even at the early point in the series Parker's and Spenser's wit was razor-sharp. References were made in those early books to Spenser's service in World War II, something that, uh, isn't referenced much anymore, given that Spenser would be in his early 80s by now and probably not in any shape to be pimpslapping the occasional villainous cad he might encounter. I kept coming back to Spenser's forgotten military service, however, as I read DOUBLE PLAY.DOUBLE PLAY is not in the Spenser continuum, nor in the worlds of Randall or Stone. It is set in 1947, an era to which Parker is no literary stranger, due to his fine novels POODLE SPRINGS and PERCHANCE TO DREAM. DOUBLE PLAY is in its fashion a historical novel. As Parker so aptly puts it in a short note at the commencement of the book, DOUBLE PLAY is a work of fiction about a real man. The man in question is Jackie Robinson, the first black American to play in what has come to be known as Major League Baseball. That feat was perhaps one of the most significant occurrences of the 20th century with respect to the Civil Rights movement, arguably equaled by the unabashed appeal of Louis Armstrong to white audiences. DOUBLE PLAY, however, is told from the perspective of Joseph Burke, a troubled man whose path makes an unlikely crossing with Robinson's on the eve of the latter's shattering of the color barrier in professional sports. Burke is a World War II veteran, a marine who survived, though barely, the battle of Guadalcanal. Returning home to an empty house and life, Burke, like Spenser before him, becomes a professional boxer but soon finds that he is almost good, in a sport where such a level of competency is simply not good enough. After being employed for a short time as a "collection agent" for an unsavory character, Burke is hired as a bodyguard by Julius Roach for his daughter Lauren, who, in the words of Roach, needs "looking after." This indeed is an understatement. Lauren is trouble, yet Burke is attracted to something within Lauren, and the two begin an unlikely but perhaps inevitable relationship. When Burke's employment, and his relationship with Lauren, is terminated, Burke is passed off to a man named Branch Rickey. Rickey is on the verge of presenting Jackie Robinson to the world as the first black professional baseball player. Robinson has been receiving death threats on an almost daily basis; Rickey feels that Robinson needs protection, as well as a guardian angel, as it were, to keep him out of trouble. The message, though implied, is clear: in order for Robinson to succeed, he does not need to be as good as his white counterparts. He needs to be better, on and off the field. Burke and Robinson accordingly begin a relationship that is, if anything, even more unlikely than Burke's star-crossed relationship with Lauren. The men have some initial difficulty --- white cab drivers won't pick them up because of Robinson and black cabdrivers won't pick them up because of Spenser, for example --- but the men soon develop a relationship based on mutual respect and the similarity of their circumstances. They are both fish out of water, doing the best that they can. It isn't long before they both make some people extremely angry. Burke foils one assassination attempt on Robinson's life, only to discover that an unhappy episode in Burke's past is now coming back on him and is endangering Robinson as well. Burke is not what one would necessarily call a smart man, but he is very clever. And he has a plan that will not only remove the threat to himself and to Robinson, but also resolve his own unfinished business of the heart. I had the feeling while reading DOUBLE PLAY that the character of Burke might be based in part on Parker's private vision of Spenser's history --- his "hidden years," if you will --- prior to becoming a private investigator. There are similarities between the two characters --- the self-confidence, the military and pugilistic backgrounds, the quiet but deep caring that runs through both men --- but there are differences as well. It is doubtful that Burke knows that there is a spelling of Spenser "like the poet," though we do learn, albeit very briefly, that Burke is a reader; we just never learn what he has been reading. Nor does Burke possess Spenser's refinement. It is these differences, and others, between the two characters that keep DOUBLE PLAY from being a "Spenser meets Jackie Robinson" novel. Ultimately, of course, DOUBLE PLAY is a Parker novel. The story is personal to Parker for a number of reasons --- some of which are revealed in an interesting narrative woven intermittently throughout the book --- but Parker does not hit the reader over the head with examples of the segregation that was the custom of the country at the time. His descriptions of such are subtle and understated, and command attention all the more because of it. Those readers born before 1960 will recall some of the practices related in this work, while readers who are in their mid-30s and younger will know of such matters only by way of anecdote. It is impossible to walk away from DOUBLE PLAY, however, without acquiring a renewed sense of how momentous an occasion Robinson's integration of professional sports was. While Spenser (or Stone, or Randall) fans will not be disappointed with DOUBLE PLAY, it is worth reading for its quiet yet forthright historical value alone.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Rating:
Summary: Complex and wonderfully written
Review: This is Parker at his best. Every once in a while he breaks away from his various detective formulas (there are now three patterns evolving with three different main characters) and writes something that tears at your heart, gets inside your head, and leaves with you with thoughts you had never had before.
Double Play returns us to the segregated world of 1947 and Jackie Robinson's arrival as the first African American baseball player to join the then all white major leagues. Parker captures the turmoil, tension, racism, and complexities of the time. There are twists I had never considered such as the threat to Black baseball of having all the good players join the major leagues (it destroyed what had been up until then a vibrant league).
Parker has this wonderful ability to capture an insight in one sentence. Describing the son of a leading gangster, Parker writes he "is what happens when money and power combine with weakness and cruelty."
On a happier note he reminds us of Branch Rickey's rule that "luck is the residue of intention." Rickey, as the General Manager of the Dodgers who integrated baseball, comes through as a strong and committed person who thought he was both doing the right thing and the smart thing.
Parker's portrait of Robinson as a man who understands how great the burden is that he is carrying and that the hopes of a generation of younger African Americans is riding on his shoulders is worth the entire book.
This is a complex and wonderfully written book that captures far more than I have outlined. I recommend it to anyone interested in being educated and entertained about an important moral moment while reading a fun novel to boot.
Rating:
Summary: At the top of his form
Review: This is Parker on the stretch, away from his favorite characters, away from his Boston setting, plunged into the past. When he's stretched he's at the top of his form and demonstrates his moves on every page. Most of all, the Jackie Robinson story is a story about a time and the first third of the book is background. Parker does the postwar period masterfully and the interspersed personal chapters are a nice, innovative touch. They've drawn some criticism, unwarranted in my opinion. The characters are fresh, the plotting and dialogue as economical as the best Parker, the resolution touching. I read it straight through, disrupting all of my prior plans for the day, and not regretting a moment of it.
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