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

"My jaw was very sore where Marcus had hit me. It had stiffened overnight, and I had to talk through my teeth. I sounded as if I'd just graduated from Harvard."

The minimal amount of humor does not save Robert B. Parker's Ceremony (1982), the ninth installment in the Spenser series, from a below average rating. The setup sounds promising, yet the novel does not quite deliver.

Susan Silverman, Spenser's girlfriend and a high-school guidance counselor, asks him to find one of her charges, April Kyle, who dropped out of school. The meeting between Spenser and the girl's parents gives us an opportunity to meet the world's worst father. Spenser uses his police contacts to learn that they know the girl as the 'queen of gangbangs,' as she often goes with several men, while drunk or stoned.

It does not take Spenser long to discover April's involvement with the prostitution business in the local red-light district. The story grows darker when Spenser's search takes him to a kinky brothel and the connections with a local crime boss are discovered. This being the early 1980s, we have an extended scene of an orgy

"The room was a swarm of debauchery, a maelstrom of naked and part-naked limbs and torsos. It looked like a feverish animation of one of those Gustave Doré illustrations for The Inferno."

This being a Spenser novel, we also have an extended scene of mayhem; even the readers who are not connoisseurs of violence will have to admit that it is written well. I am unable to describe the denouement without spoiling the plot, so let me just mention that some readers may find one of the aspects of the conclusion ethically dubious.

As it often happens in Spenser novels, the ease with which Spenser gets police's approval of and collaboration in his activities, is grossly implausible. He is able to arrange police intervention to come at the right place and time.

Ceremony is an unremarkable episode in Spenser's saga. I can't quite recommend the novel. I will continue reading the books in their chronological order because I am interested in the development of the author's style, and the evolution of the social and cultural background of the stories.

Two stars.

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