The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"I could tell he was impressed with the gun in my hand. The only thing that would have scared him more would have been if I had threatened to flog him with a dandelion."

Robert B. Parker's The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), the very first novel in the Spenser series, must have been written as a pastiche of hard-boiled crime fiction from the 1930s - 1960s. How else to explain the dated language in a novel written only about 50 years ago? The dialogues sound like they have been taken from a 1940s movie starring Humphrey Bogart or from a Raymond Chandler's book. Ross Macdonald's novels from the 1950s read a lot more contemporary than this.

A university president hires Spenser to retrieve a valuable fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript that has been stolen from the university library. The head of campus security suspects that a radical student group is responsible for the theft. Spenser talks to the young woman, a member of the group. And then the plot explodes...

People are killed, and police get involved; we meet Lt. Quirk and sergeant Belson for the first time. The plot is actually well constructed and captivating. Naturally, Spenser gets in a grave danger, yet - despite being Hawkless and Vinnieless - he emerges victorious at the end and even saves the young woman!

While the language is dated by the author's design, the novel makes me realize how much the times have changed in half a century. A university professor smokes while teaching a class! The campus has its own porno shop! Everybody, including the police officers, drinks hard liquor all day! (Well, this may not have changed that much...)

Anyway, this is an interesting, good read, even if it feels like it was written 80-90 years ago. I am curious in which installment of the Spenser saga will the author drop the pastiche mode, which means that I need to look for all the early volumes.

Finally, I love the name of Spenser's romantic interest: Brenda Loring. A pretty transparent allusion.

Three stars.


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