Early Autumn by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,' I said, 'loved I not honor more.'
'Shit,' Susan said."

What a guy that Spenser is! Not only does he quote Shakespeare, Robert Frost, or Richard Lovelace, but he can also beat anyone to bloody pulp. And during breaks between reciting top-shelf poetry and pummeling villains, he deeply cares about fellow human beings. What a guy!

Early Autumn (1981) is the seventh installment in Robert B. Parker's saga about the indomitable, intrepid, brilliant, and witty private eye from Boston. I am continuing my quest to read all the novels in the series in chronological order.

A woman whose ex-husband took away their 15-year-old son, Paul, despite having lost the custody fight, hires Spenser to find the boy and bring him back. A victim of neglect and indifference by the feuding parents, a pawn in their bitter fight, Paul hates both of them equally.

Spenser finds Paul and returns him to his mother. Three months later, though, an attempt is made to kidnap the boy, and the mother hires Spenser again, to live with them and guard the boy around the clock. Spenser feels for the boy, seeing all the psychological damage inflicted on Paul by the parents. The selfishness and vacuity of the parents is painted with a broad brush. They seem like caricatures embodying all the wrong things that parents can do.

Spenser frequently dispenses more or less clever witticisms, a standard for the series. The author has an opportunity to provide some bitter observations, like the following fragment of a dialogue between Spenser and the boy's mother:

"'Why is being married so important?' I said.
'Because that's where the bucks are, [...]Men have the money and the power and if a woman wants some, she better get hold of a man.'"

There is a painfully sad seduction scene, fortunately, it ends on a funny note. Hawk shows up in the plot and becomes almost a completely positive character. Spenser's care about Paul is well-meant, yet it may seem naive to a cynical reader (like this reviewer). Overall plausibility of the plot is not a strong point of the novel. Still, a very marginal recommendation, mainly for being slightly different from the earlier Spenser novels.

Two-and-a-half stars.


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