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When Lisa St. Claire, the beautiful young bride of a Boston police detective vanishes mysteriously, Spenser joins the search for the missing woman, following a dangerous trail that leads him to a sociopathic Latino ex-lover and into a deadly confrontation with Lisa's dark past. 175,000 first printing. $125,000 ad/promo.
How well do any of us know one another?
| Customer Rating:   | When Spenser agrees to help his friend Frank Belson (a cop) when Belson's wife - Lisa St. Claire - goes missing, and try to track her down - do him a favor, so to speak. Among the first things that Spenser discovers is that Lisa St. Claire is not her name. Apparently she has lived a rather checkered past - Spenser worries that telling Belson this will not be a favor at all. Finally following a trail to Proctor, well North of Boston, Spenser calls on Chollo (from L.A.) to come East and lend his assistance, since Proctor is mostly Latino and Spenser hopes Chollo's presence will help grease the wheels, so to speak. Things quickly go from bad to worse and before he knows it, Spenser goes from a simple job of tracking down a missing wife, to overthrowing a local government.
Definitely an edge-of-your seat book, this one alternated between Spenser's POV and Lisa's - the chapters where we hear Lisa's voice are all in italics and, unlike the main body of the book, stated in third person rather than first - which definitely fits in with the concept, as her abductor dehumanizes her by constantly filming her and playing back the films in her room. It was an interesting way to differentiate between the characters and I think it worked nicely.
This was a great chapter in the Spenser series - too bad I didn't get it reviewed in the proper order. It ended up falling in between the seats in my husband's car en route from the hospital one day and I just found it there a couple days back. So, here you go. Enjoy! |
fun in the car
| Customer Rating: | | excellent type of book-on-tape for those long drives in the car. spenser is great fun. |
RICK SHAQ GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "SPENSER MAKES DO WITHOUT HAWK!"
| Customer Rating: | This is another installment of private investigator Spenser, who once again rubs elbows with criminals and cops alike. No one can successfully intermingle with good guys and bad for the greater good than Spenser. With my favorite sidekick "Hawk" unavailable because he's in Burma ("What can "Hawk" be doing in Burma?" "Better not to know", says Spenser. "Gives us deniability."), When police honcho Frank Belson's wife disappears into "Thin Air" he turns to Spenser for help. As the mystery unfolds, Spenser needs to call in some favors from some of his acquaintances from the wrong side of the law from Los Angeles to Boston. To fill Spenser's need for a Spanish speaking trigger man, Los Angeles mob boss Vincent Del Rio, lends him cold as ice, deadly as a mountain lion, "Chollo". For local Boston "cred", boss man Joe Broz, authorizes Spencer to use his name.
During the hunt for Mrs. Belson, many surprises come out of the woodwork, such as her name was Lisa St. Claire, or was it? Her resume isn't what it said it was, and this all leads Spenser through a history of prostitution, alcoholism, and more, and leads his associates to a show down in the Hispanic turf wars in the barrio.
Throughout this story, Spenser peppers the reader with his famous snappy banter, such as: "Henry Cimoli had been a ranked lightweight until Willie Pep urged him into the health club business by knocking him out in the first round of both fights. It was a lesson in the difference between good and great." In describing Homicide Commander Martin Quirk: "He was always quiet, except when he got mad, then he was quieter." In describing a lush cop: "with a lot of broken blood vessels in his cheeks, and an ugly red vinyl hairpiece on top of his head. It didn't match his sideburns, but it probably wouldn't have matched anyone's sideburns except maybe Plastic Man's." And in describing himself: "I took a shower and put on one of the terrycloth robes the hotel provided. It fit me like a hot dog casing on a knockwurst."
For the addicted Spenser fan, you can't leave this out of your collection. For the about to be acquainted fan of Spenser, this is a good place to start. |
Solid Entry in the Spenser Series
| Customer Rating: | THIN AIR isn't a great novel, but it's an entertaining book by one of the best crime writers alive. The plotline is simple: Frank Belson's new wife has gone missing and he asks Spenser to help find her. During his investigation, Spenser discovers that Belson's wife has quite a number of skeletons in the closet.
This novel is relatively predictable, but it's a fun read because of Parker's remarkable level of skill with language and dialogue. THIN AIR is relatively original because Hawk isn't in it, and also because Spenser has an interesting new Latino sidekick. The result is a storyline that seems relatively fresh and funny.
If you like Parker's work, you should enjoy THIN AIR, although I would recommend earlier entries in the Spenser series if you're looking for something genuinely great. |
Catharsis, Cathexis, What's Next-us? Purgative Pushes to Personality Paradise
| Customer Rating: | When a great writer dramatizes trapped helplessness, I'm ready to eject. I almost squirmed out of reading # 22 in the Spenser series. But, this being the 27th novel I would have read in this 34 book series, I pushed like a Navy Seal through the first couple italicized segments of the kidnaping and ensuing situation, using the "hang in there" ropes provided by the characters' depth of commitment in returning Lisa St. Claire to the safety she had earned hard, by Frank Belson's side as his wife. I began clutching to hope for Frank to keep faith that Lisa wouldn't have left him willingly. I'm glad Parker didn't push the potential of dark tragedy of a soul drop like that. He worked the question just enough to rush the realism, then allow it to simmer under the diligence of "Keep the faith, baby."
I won't go into detail about why Frank turned over the search to Spenser, and why Spenser went to Chollo instead of Hawk, for the first time in a rescue partnership. And, yeah, I'm asking, "What was Hawk doing in Burma?"
In THIN AIR Pearl had progressed to standing on the dining table during meals, and Susan gave a humanity renewing surprise over a Mexican dinner more suitable in volume to Spenser. Dialogue scenes were evenly effervescent, with just the right amount of fizz to counter the interjections of ongoing Italicized segments. I was intrigued with the subtle shifts in patterns-of-psychosis of Lisa and her captor, as each seemed to be enduring an individual "cathexis" ... New word, probably brought into psychological jargon through the same sewer-line-purge-tank as "catharsis" ... Look up the original meaning of that one! "Cathexis" was brought into the plot by Madeline St. Claire, the current plot's previous psychiatrist for Lisa, as a sample of Lisa's uneven vocabulary expansion through reading a plethora of self-help books (too many, too indiscriminately, according to Madeline).
Lisa's attempts to retain a recently seated kernel of healthy self served as an effective drama for exposing the visceral levels of retention-and-resurgence of psychological growth.
Dictionary entry for Nexus: 1 - a connection. 2 - a connected group or series. 3 - the central and most important point. -ORIGIN Latin, from nectere 'bind'.
A bad nexus would ultimately require a cathexis. Get yours here!
Throughout the plot, I was led by the nose with curiosity about how and if Frank and Lisa would be reunited, hopefully at that central and most important point, which I was guessing would be a clean type of Love (considering Spenser's Romantic soul).
Also found another key passage in THIN AIR, which exposed another appeal of this series:
>> "You big with the bad guys, Spenser. You got Santiago helping you, Mr. Del Rio helping you, now this guy Broz, that I don't know, he's helping you. You sure you are a good guy?" "No," I said. I'm not sure." <<
A nice collection of profound quotes could be lifted out of THIN AIR, from Spenser's ruminations discriminating the good in bad guys. Another collection of artistic quotes could be lifted from Spenser's observations of physical settings, weather machinations, and environmental pathos. I'll speak this softly and with conviction, "This is Good Literature."
After finishing this novel, I saw not only why Parker brought Chollo in as Spenser's partner instead of Hawk: The nationality fit the situation. I also saw Parker, a WASP macho male, chef and sensitive guy, as a literary ambassador for the menage of sub-cultural minorities which came to the fore through Media Massages and marked-up messages, from the mid 1970's to the present time. Purposely or not, Parker evolved and designed Spenser for the job of providing missing links between good and evil, and connecting lines of cultural differences, allowing polarities to cathexis, gradually purifying their "acts." We ain't there yet, but Spenser's a good scout.
This was primely-done detective fiction, with trailing ridges of psychological plummets and literary finesse carefully eased out of Spenser's closet ... Pandora's Box? ... Soap Box?
Whatever. THIN AIR was an emotionally weighty yet magical entry in this series, a fuzzy-wuzzy-wabbit pulled out of a deep and dark, very hard hat. Get it. Breathe, one, two, three.
Who is Alice in Wonderland?
Linda Shelnutt |
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