9-9-99
Well, we're all old enough, God knows, so that a little harmless helling around isn't going to make any nevermind. So it is that Miss Pym is old enough to have watched Robert B. Parker live his own lives out in the Spenser series. Maybe it's all been our active imaginations, placing Parker in Spenser's life (or maybe vice versa). But it seems to me that the worst Parker books were right after he divorced Joan (while at the same time, Spenser split up with Susan Silverman). Then Parker and Joan came to an accommodation. They live in the same house, but they do not share the same space. Each has a separate floor and, one assumes, separate entrances and exits. And every Wednesday night they have a date. Dinner and the rest of the evening. And, no, we don't know what else. Let us draw a discreet curtain over what follows dinner. But it seems to have worked. During the helling-around years, years of great commercial success, maybe Parker and Spenser needed that 'space in our togetherness'. And maybe Parker just needed to be able to cat around whenever he chose. And just maybe as we all stagger into what one lyricist called the September of our years, things throttle down. The pheromones become more selective. Just because we can doesn't mean we will.
What has all this to do with Parker's new book, new series? You'll see in a minute.
In "Family Honor" (Putnam; $22.95; 336 pages) there is a new sleuth, a female sleuth. Is she a female Spenser? No. Well, then, is she a female Parker? In the sense that we all, if we're any good, grow to assume the best characteristics of all genders, maybe so.
Sunny Randall is tough, smart, a P. I. who's been a policewoman, who's father was a cop and who's the best of the new breed. Tough as a ten minute egg, she's also beautiful (think Helen Hunt, for whom Parker wrote the book and who is destined to play Sunny in the movie, "Family Honor.")
Naturally Sunny has a dog; wouldn't be a Parker book without a swell dog. This one is a bull terrier named Rosie, who spends her time trying to get her stomach rubbed. Sunny has a female friend who's a shrink and a gay male friend who's a superb chef (which is a side of Parker that comes out here; (not gay; chef) and a tough bozo. Think Hawk.
Having peopled his story with these interesting characters, he goes back to his original plots ("God Save the Child"; "Early Autumn"; "Ceremony"). Trapped, psychically battered children of rich parents.
Brock and Betty Patton (think rich about to be political for him; Martha Stewart at her suburban worst for her) hire Sunny to find their daughter, Milly, who has disappeared. Since there are no ransom notes, it is assumed she has left of her own accord. Sunny is to find her; bring her back home.
Sunny is the daughter of a Boston policeman and a mother who appeared emancipated at the very beginning of the Feminist Revolution. The Father, working full time, pulls Sunny and her sister together; while the mother is out volubly chanting slogans such as "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." So we get to know what Sunny (and by extension Parker) thinks of all the Politically Correct, Feminist stuff that has gone down in the last thirty years. Her mother hasn't a clue, according to Sunny.
Sunny has an ex-husband, too. He is the son of Mafiosi; his father and his uncles are still. But Rick is quiet, still connected and still connected to Sunny. He didn't want the divorce; but Sunny did. She didn't want the house though; Rick's parents had given it to them. Although they are divorced, they are still connected. They have a date for dinner every Wednesday and they are still unwilling to give up all connectedness to each other. She doesn't like to ask him for favors, but when she does, he gets them done in a quietly, seriously deadly fashion.
With Rick's help Sunny finds Milly, hooking on the streets of Boston. Sunny takes Milly home (a loft overlooking Boston Harbor, where Sunny is learning to paint), and some serious stuff happens while Sunny helps Milly learn how to focus her built-in compass so she can survive in the world.
And what of Sunny who can't be married to Rich, but can't let him go. They agree to maybe a real date with each other every Wednesday evening; dinner and whatever. And maybe weekends?
Yeah. That'll work.