Good, solid story; quick paced and engaging. The characters are familiar but not quite the same as when Robert B. Parker was writing them; so far he seems to be taking some of the regulars in new ways but not so much that they seem out of character. Overall, I enjoyed another Spenser adventure.

Listened to the audiobook because I have loved Robert Parker and Joe Montegna (the reader). I realize that Robert Parker is deceased and don't love the idea that his books are being written by others. I found it to be entertaining, but not the same. Won't be reading any of the other newer books, but will go back to the ones actually written by Robert Parker.

(scheduled for February 04, 2023 read December 25, 2023)

I have seen the movie in early 2023 because it was on Netflix and Mark Wahlberg is in it, so I had to watch it. I then noticed that there is book which seems to be the same as the movie, but later I noticed that it belongs to a series with over 40 books so sadly I didn't really understand this one - except that I had seen the movie before and knew what it was about.
The book is different from the movie and follows a different storyline but can be read when you need something different between other books you currently read.


I wouldn't consider this as a favorite but I think in order to understand the story you need to read the whole series starting with book one - maybe I will do in the future but as of now I'm not interested into reading this series because it's not really my genre I read in and I have other books I want to read before I start a huge series again.

Devoured this one as soon as it became available. Great stuff.

Typical Spenser novel. This one was particularly fun because it went into the history of the area a bit and being from there, I quite appreciated it. Hawk’s not in this one, but lots of other favorites are. Well done.

Spenser’s character continuity was mostly on point; there was one scene where I felt it strayed (from Bob’s writing) just a little.

4 stars.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Note:
I listened to the audiobook. 3-star performance.

I told myself early in the Spenser novels that if Hawk isn’t prevalent, the highest rating a Spenser novel can get is 3 stars.

The trade off in this novel is that there is also very little Susan.

Found myself having a hard time locking in on this one. Too much business talk, not enough sleuthing and ass-kicking for me.

Atkins does an admirable job of picking up Parker's thread while also making the character & book his own. A fun summer read.

This was one of the more enjoyable Spenser books I have read in a while. I had a hard time tucking into the last one as it was the first not written by Parker, but I think I have gotten past that now. I especially liked the plot's tie in to the very current casino issue here in the Commonwealth. It felt a bit weird having Spenser remind us often that Hawk was away for this one, but Parker himself did that on occasion when he felt he was going to that well a bit too often. Perhaps Atkins is trying to slowly make this a bit more his by using Z as the sidekick. Any way, a solid entry in the series.