God Save The Child
Ratings14
Average rating3.7
New York Times bestselling author of the Spenser series of crime thrillers - Book 2 in the series - Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives. It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists. But when push comes to shove, when a boy's life is on the line, Spenser can speak that language too. "A brillant, and cynical, comic tragedy or tragic comedy of manners. Long may Parker wave." -- Los Angeles Times
Series
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50 primary books52 released books#2 in Spenser
Spenser is a 52-book series with 50 released primary works first released in 1974 with contributions by Robert B. Parker, Michael Prichard, and Stefan Rudnicki.
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This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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He hunched the chair forward and wrote a check on the edge of my desk with a translucent ballpoint pen. Bartlett Construction was imprinted in the upper left corner of the check—I was going to be a business expense. Deductible. One keg of 8d nails, 500 feet of 2x4 utility grade, one gumshoe, 100 gallons of creosote stain. I took the check without looking at it and slipped it folded into my shirt pocket, casual, like I got them all the time and it was just something to pass along to my broker. Or maybe I'd buy some orchids with it.
Promised Land
Healy I knew of . He was chief investigator for the Essex County DA”s office. There were at least two first-run racketeers I knew who stayed out of Essex County because they didn't want any truck with him.
Healy said, ‘Didn't you used to work for the Suffolk County DA once?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Didn't they fire you for hotdogging?”
“I like to call it inner-directed behavior,” I said.
“I'll bet you do.” Healy said.
The Godwulf Manuscript
noir
God Save the Child
Susan Silverman wasn't beautiful. but there was an intangibility about her a physical reality, that made the secretary with the lime-green bosom seem insubstantial. She had should-length black hair and a thin dark Jewish face with prominent cheekbones. Tall, maybe five seven, with black eyes. It was hard to tell her age, but there was a sense about her of intelligent maturity which put her on my side of thirty...When she shook hands with me, I felt something click down the back of my solar plexus.
I said hello without stammering and sat down.
I had just finished washing my hands and face when the doorbell rang. Everything was ready. Ah, Spenser, what a touch. Everything was just right except that I couldn't seem to find a missing child. Well, nobody's perfect. I pushed the release button and opened my apartment door. I was wrong. Susan Silverman was perfect.
It took nearly forty years of savior faire to keep from saying “Golly.”...
“Come in,” I said. Very smooth. I didn't scuff my foot; I didn't mumble. I stood right up straight when I said it. I don't think I blushed.
So, sticking your nose into things and getting it broken allows you to live life on your own terms, perhaps.
“Why do you want to know?” [Susan asks]
“Because it's there. Because it's better to know than not to know in my line of work.”
know
God Save the Child
This is one of the early Spenser books. It is a decent enough story though not up to the standard of some of Parker's latter work. However, this is the book where Spenser meets a very important person – Susan Silverman. That alone makes it worth reading.
