Rating: 
Summary: Good, not great
Review: Parker is starting to find his own style in this one, not just emulating his heros Chandler and Hemingway. And it's a good read. It's also the first in a long line of simplistic 'the kid is messed up and the parents are to blame' storylines. It's as if Parker went to a couple of counseling sessions with a Freudian psychologist and decided he understood everybody's motivation, and that gets more irritating over the years rather than less - particularly if you, like me, are the parent of a troubled teen. Life just isn't that simple. Also, if you read the whole series, you can watch Spenser move away from his prejudices against gay people, but if you haven't read the later books, this one might offend you.
Rating:
Summary: Introducing Susan Silverman
Review: Robert B. Parker, God Save the Child (Berkeley, 1974)One of the great enduring mysteries in the literary world-and it says quite a bit that a piece of genre writing has had such a pervasive cultural effect-is the first name of Robert B. Parker's longstanding favorite good guy, Spenser. What short memories we have, for it's revealed in God Save the Child, the second Spenser novel. (The book contains the one scene where someone says his first name and isn't later contradicted. And no, I'm not going to tell you what it is.) Not only that, but it also pinpoints Spenser's age, which is something that's come up in more than one recent review. And yes, he is getting up there. (I won't tell you that, either. But pretty soon, the A&E made-for-TV movies will have to case Don Ameche and Garrett Morris as Spenser and Hawk.) For any Spenser fan, those two things alone should be reason enough to go back and correct any error they may have made by not reading this at their earliest opportunity. To cap off the must-read things about this book, it's where Spenser first meets Susan. Okay, get thee to a bookstore and get to work. In this case, Spenser is hired to find a runaway kid. After a few days of wheel-spinning by both Spenser and the cops, a ransom note turns up; the kid's not a runaway, but a kidnap victim. Spenser enlists the help of a smart-aleck state cop and the kid's guidance counselor (Susan Silverman), and things go about the same way they usually go in detective novels. Those used to later Spenser novels will find the prose much drier than the average Spenser novel; whether Parker hadn't yet developed the distinctive Spenser style or whether the publisher was leaning on him to sound more like Ross MacDonald is anyone's guess. But don't worry, you won't be hurting for wisecracks, culinary commentary, and other such Spenserian traits. While the book itself is vintage Parker, it's plain to see that the publisher was still thinking of Parker in dime- novel terms back in 1974. Hopefully reprints have corrected some of the more egregious errors of spelling and grammar, but if you happen to get your hands on the mid-seventies Berkeley paperback (...), be prepared for some painfully obvious screwups, if you happen to notice such things. I considered using the book to start a bonfire the second time Spenser "payed" a bill. (Amazing that they didn't spell his name Spencer throughout.) Obviously, it's not a knock on Parker, but still worth noting for those who get annoyed by proofreading errors in their pulp fiction. ****
Rating:
Summary: Classic Spenser!
Review: Robert B. Parker, God Save the Child (Berkeley, 1974) One of the great enduring mysteries in the literary world-and it says quite a bit that a piece of genre writing has had such a pervasive cultural effect-is the first name of Robert B. Parker's longstanding favorite good guy, Spenser. What short memories we have, for it's revealed in God Save the Child, the second Spenser novel. (The book contains the one scene where someone says his first name and isn't later contradicted. And no, I'm not going to tell you what it is.) Not only that, but it also pinpoints Spenser's age, which is something that's come up in more than one recent review. And yes, he is getting up there. (I won't tell you that, either. But pretty soon, the A&E made-for-TV movies will have to case Don Ameche and Garrett Morris as Spenser and Hawk.) For any Spenser fan, those two things alone should be reason enough to go back and correct any error they may have made by not reading this at their earliest opportunity. To cap off the must-read things about this book, it's where Spenser first meets Susan. Okay, get thee to a bookstore and get to work. In this case, Spenser is hired to find a runaway kid. After a few days of wheel-spinning by both Spenser and the cops, a ransom note turns up; the kid's not a runaway, but a kidnap victim. Spenser enlists the help of a smart-aleck state cop and the kid's guidance counselor (Susan Silverman), and things go about the same way they usually go in detective novels. Those used to later Spenser novels will find the prose much drier than the average Spenser novel; whether Parker hadn't yet developed the distinctive Spenser style or whether the publisher was leaning on him to sound more like Ross MacDonald is anyone's guess. But don't worry, you won't be hurting for wisecracks, culinary commentary, and other such Spenserian traits. While the book itself is vintage Parker, it's plain to see that the publisher was still thinking of Parker in dime- novel terms back in 1974. Hopefully reprints have corrected some of the more egregious errors of spelling and grammar, but if you happen to get your hands on the mid-seventies Berkeley paperback (...), be prepared for some painfully obvious screwups, if you happen to notice such things. I considered using the book to start a bonfire the second time Spenser "payed" a bill. (Amazing that they didn't spell his name Spencer throughout.) Obviously, it's not a knock on Parker, but still worth noting for those who get annoyed by proofreading errors in their pulp fiction. ****
Rating: 
Summary: Great development of the Spenser character
Review: This is Book 2, and Spenser is as feisty as ever. A couple comes to his office and says they never thought of using a Private Eye before; he's bored because he's heard it so many times. Turns out their kid has vanished, taking his guinea pig with him. This is in Smithfield, bastion of the rich up on the north shore. The local police chief is portly and doesn't like Spenser much. So what else is new? One thing is new - Susan Silverman, the High School Guidance Counsellor. She's feisty and beautiful. Their meeting-scene is rather overdone, though. She drinks a lot, which is MUCH different from later stories. He tells of his nose-breaking and she likes his carving of the "Indian on the Horse" (in front of the MFA) which he did in the first book. She's sad that she's only a guidance counselor and can't really help people. I have a feeling that many guidance counselors out there would have some objection to her point of view. You can make a difference anywhere you are - if only you do your best. Susan becomes a staple to the series, the love-partner of Spenser throughout the books, the one that brings sense to his sometimes frayed world. Unfortunately, at least in this book, she doesn't seem to be helping much. The story is extremely simplistic in dealing with the causes of child unhappiness and the ways in which it can be "fixed". The story has a good dose of homosexual behavior, drugs and fetishes - all soon to be part of the Spenser trademark plotline. What is EXTREMELY interesting to me is that while the "later" Spenser is very much a hip guy with gay friends and easily defending gay rights, he most definitely did not start out that way. Some of the stereotypes shown here border on insulting. There are other trends forming here. Alcoholic couple, the "artistic" wife is drooling all over Spenser. Also interesting is the repetition of tennis references (which I didn't think Spenser played), and his reference to the comfort food of the chop suey his mom used to make. His dead mom? State Cop Healey makes his first appearance here. Despite in general being a huge fan of Spenser stories, I hated the ending, but read it and decide for yourself on that one.
Rating: 
Summary: Silverman Introduced
Review: This Robert Parker novel is perhaps best known for the introduction of the continuing character of Susan Silverman, Spencer's girlfriend/companion throughout later Spencer novels. Other than her introduction, this is not one of Parker's best works. The plot moves a bit slowly, and there is a bit too much psychobabble/amateur psychology (perhaps later fixed by the transfer of these plot issues to the Silverman character, rather than the Spencer character.)
All in all, a Spencer to read, but not one of the more compelling Spencer novels.
Rating:
Summary: Great Plotting
Review: This, the second of the Spenser series, is a really good read. The plot twists and characters are all believable. The author handles the subject of teenage homosexuality with great aplomb. I would recommend this to anyone!
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