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Family Honor

Family Honor

List Price: $30.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: mildly entertaining
Review: Introducing Sunny Randall - tough newly divorced female detective, ready to take on Boston's organized crime, including her ex in-laws, who love her to death. A powerful family asks Sunny to locate their missing teenage daughter, after waiting over a week. Sunny realizes there doesn't seem to be a lot of love in this family. After finding the girl, she wonders whether or not she should return her to the family. Then the real fun begins, trying to discover why the girl ran away. Corruption at the highest levels of Massachusetts politics is not far away, along with kinky family activities.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Spenser as played by Helen Hunt
Review: It read like a merger between the Spenser novels "Early Autumn" and "Ceremony," (especially the TV movie adaptation of "Ceremony" Lifetime did a few years back, since Spike sounds like the same one in the aforementioned TV movie) but spun it around by making Spenser a short blonde woman who only got into the business to pay the bills between painting sales. Setting it in the same universe as Spenser and Jesse Stone did make it entertaining, and made me wonder if Parker'll ever do a crossover between all three.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A female Spenser.
Review: It seems to me that all Parker did was give Spenser a sex change operation and name him/her Sonny. Save your money. The best thing about this book is the dog, Rosie, at least she's the one that Parker talks about the most. Give me Spenser, anyday.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Been there, read that.
Review: Let's face it, folks, Sunny Randall is just a female Spenser, and this book is just another Spenser book with the names changed.

Same characters, same dialogue, same PLOT, for God's sake! If I didn't know better, I'd swear that this was a cynical attempt on Robert B. Parker's part to cash in on the current popularity of female sleuth novels.

Hey, and just so you know where I'm coming from, I've read and enjoyed every Spenser novel from The Godwulf Manuscript on. AND I think that Parker has shown that he CAN write something other than Spenser books by creating the Jesse Stone series, which is markedly different, although just as satisfying, as the Spenser series.

Just my two cents.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Spenser had a Sex Change
Review: Okay, all true Parker fans know that he only knows how to write a couple kinds of characters. So I expected Sunny Randall to act and sound a lot like Spenser (and Jesse Stone, and Philip Marlowe in Parker's rendition of Raymond Chandler). I also expected a Hawk-like character; no one is fooled by the fact that Spike is white and gay. If that had been the only problem with this book, it would have been okay - Spenser and Hawk aren't bad characters to repeat. But the mystery was disappointing. Why is it assumed that all 15-year-old girls who run away from home are hooking? Or that her parents are to blame? Sunny takes these facts for granted, and it spoils the book's believability. Does anyone else recall poor April Kyle, rescued by Spenser in two different novels? Hey - maybe Sunny read those books too. Maybe they're required reading for a PI license in Boston. Come on, Mr. Parker - show us some imagination. We all believe you have one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So what?
Review: Okay, ditto on the Spencer/Stone/Parker fan interested to see how he handles a female heroine. Okay, ditto on the similarities between Spencer/Sunny, right down to the dog. But to it all I say a resounding so what? By the end of the book, I was so interested and attached to Sunny, Richie, Spike, Brian, Millicent, and ever her mother, I didn't care! So, write on, Robert (all puns intended)! Long may you type!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not Great
Review: Parker introduces a new character, only she's not new. It's Spenser as a short female PI. She has Spenser's sense of humor, but is deeply imbued with Susan Silverman's consuming self-interest. The woman are all selfish (...). And she spews cliches made popular by the many Spenser books preceding it. Event he story line is merely a rehash of Early Autumn (one of Parker's finest). All in all, a disappointment.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: want my money back
Review: Parker's dedication was, I concentrated on you Joan. He should concentrate on his writing. The computer enables fast editing and that is all he does. Sunny and Spenser are the same, just cross dressing the characters. Of course the gay guy is Hawk in a nice suit, and all the bad guys are the same. I bought the paperback for a flight home and was wishing for the plane to crash before I choked down another boring, boring page of the same old Parker has been doing for the past twenty years. What is worse are all the glowing reviews from the paid of reviewers.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Like one of the better old Spenser novels
Review: Robert B. Parker 's Spenser novels have gotten stuck in a rut, a result of needing to keep the storylines consistent with the characters' past history. I continue to read them avidly, but they seem a little stale.

All he has done here is to keep the same basic cast characters but change their names, genders, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. This simple gimmick actually works quite well.

"Family Honor" reads and feels just like a Spenser novel--a fresh, rejuvenated Spenser novel, like the ones he was writing a decade ago. It's like seeing the same group of actors in a new sitcom after a few too many years of seeing them in the old one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fast, Fun Read
Review: Robert Parker has a winner with his new detective, Sunny Randall, a divorced, former cop turned Boston P.I. who owns a miniature bull terrier and really wants to be a professional painter. She's smart, tough and very good at her job. This story revolves around the disappearance of a wealthy teenager, Millicent Patton and Sunny works her way through a violent pimp, murder and government conspiracy to solve the case. In the process, she gets help from her ex-husband Richie, the son of a mobster and her dearest friend, Spike, a colorful, tough gay man. Together this threesome make things happen. Parker has put together a terrific and memorable cast of characters and has no equals when it comes to his witty one-liners and irreverent dialogue. The story is fast paced and entertaining with a strong climax and satisfying ending. Sunny Randall is a fresh new character and hopefully, we'll be seeing more of her in the future.


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