Looking For Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"I always had the sense that when I came upon her suddenly in a slightly unusual setting, a pride of trumpets ought to play alarms and flourishes. I stepped up to the bar next to her and said, 'I beg your pardon, but the very sight of you makes my heart sing like an April day on the wings of spring.'
She turned toward me and smiled and said, 'Everyone tells me that.'"
(The 'she' is Susan Silverman, of course.)

Let's begin with a brief summary of the setup of Robert B. Parker's Looking for Rachel Wallace (1980), the sixth novel in the Spenser series. An executive of a publishing company hires Spenser to protect Rachel Wallace, a writer, whose new book about "tyrants in high places who discriminate against gay women" is just about to be published. Being outspoken in her feminist views, Ms. Wallace has received death threats.

Spenser meets with Ms. Wallace: while she is a serious and earnest yet rather humorless person, Spenser persists with his trademark wisecracking, which makes the meeting pretty tense. The tension in their relationship keeps building up until Ms. Wallace disappears.

In a clear contrast with the previous five novels, where Spenser is invincible, he gets severely beaten by four assailants:

"I took a deep breath. It hurt my ribcage. I exhaled, inhaled again, inched my arms under me, and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. My head swam. I felt my stomach tighten, and I threw up, which hurt the ribs some more. I stayed that way for a bit, on my hands and knees with my head hanging, like a winded horse."

In general, this sixth novel in the Spencer series is a tiny bit more realistic than all the previous installments. It does not read as a pastiche or parody. The psychological portrait of Ms. Wallace even has a degree of plausibility.

The usual banter between Spenser and Susan adds some humor to the novel:

"'Where does it say that cooking steaks is man's work?' I said.
Her eyes crinkled and her face brightened. 'Right above the section on what sexual activity one can look forward to after steaks and mushrooms.'
'I'll get right on the steaks,' I said."

"Chronologically enriched" readers will also notice how social mores have changed in just 41 years since the novel was published. If the book were to be published today, it would unfortunately have to be edited for several impolitic passages, to meet today's exacting standards.

Anyway, I will keep reading Spenser novels in their chronological order; I find this installment a bit better than the previous ones, so things are looking up!

Two-and-a-half stars.

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