Potshot
By Robert Parker
I can’t really take potshots at this book, but it doesn’t ever really hit the mark either. Robert Parker does The Magnificent Seven! Spenser, the ultra tough, ultra smart hero of Parker’s long running detective series is hired to investigate a murder out west. But to solve the crime he has to go head to head with a small army of marauding thugs holding the local town in terror. Even Spenser has his limits so he gathers together his own "Magnificent Seven" comprised of just about every tough guy Spenser has ever met and respected during the run of his series. Spenser and just six friends against a small army? Nope, it’s not fair. The bad guys never stand a chance!
Parker’s writing was once the best in the detective genre, in my opinion, but took a serious downturn for a while starting around the novel Valediction. Things got pretty bad for several books, but lately have slowly begun to pick up again. Like his last couple of Spenser novels Potshot is not as good as Parker’s earlier work, but is still pretty good. The most interesting thing, if you’ve followed the books from the beginning, is how Hawk has become more…I’m not sure what the proper word is, maybe decent? But whereas once Hawk would have ambushed the bad guys he now is more like Spenser in ‘doing the right thing’ which becomes obvious when he is compared to the other tough guys Spenser brings in on this case. One new development in the series that I don’t like is how Spenser’s career seems to go in trends lately. For a while all he did was pro bono work and now, when he’s begun taking paying jobs again, he has had to watch the bad guy walk away from his crimes twice in a row. That is not very satisfying especially for a character that has always shown the determination to bring the bad guy in that Spenser has previously shown. Still, Potshot is better then most of what is out in the detective genre these days and, if nothing else could make it good, there is very little of the obnoxious Pearl, Spenser’s dog or the whiney Susan, his girlfriend. That helps a lot.
Grade: B
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