Widow's Walk

This book is part of a series about a Boston P.I. known only by his last name, Spenser. The plots all involve murders to be solved, but the crimes don’t appear to be the main focus of the books; rather, they seem to be just an excuse to highlight Spenser’s witty repartee with everyone else, but especially his partner/bodyguard Hawk.

In this story, a wealthy bank manager has been shot through the head while lying in bed at night, without any evidence that a break-in had occurred. His much younger wife Mary is the chief suspect, and her alibi is pretty flimsy. Spenser is hired by Mary’s attractive lawyer Rita Fiore to see if he can find out if someone else actually committed the crime. As a complicating factor, almost everyone show more Spenser interviews gets murdered.

Evaluation: Spenser and his bantering friends are indeed very funny but in my opinion a bit too funny to be realistic. In addition, almost every beautiful woman is inexorably attracted to Spenser; these are good guy-fantasy books. Even so, I enjoyed this book; I laughed out loud often, and if you take this series with a very small grain of salt, this installment at least will provide an enjoyable way to pass a couple of hours. (The Spenser books are very quick reads.) show less

Spenser keeps asking questions of as many people as he can as he tries to find something, anything, that will determine if his client is innocent in the gunshot death of her husband, found in a locked house of which only the two of them had the keys. It can't be suicide because no gun was found. Unfortunately, the more Spenser asks questions, even though he gets no helpful answers, the more his interviewees wind up dead. Again, it makes you wonder if everyone wouldn't have been better off if he hadn't been involved. Although, then a ruthless killer would probably have killed other people in the future. Spenser is decent enough to regret his involvement and the loss. His girlfriend, of decades, has her own issues of loss to deal with: a show more client has committed suicide in spite of her attempts to help him. Parker, through Susan Silverman, makes some vague suggestions about the gay-straight continuum and whether one can move about on over the course of a lifetime. (At least I think that's what was meant.) Hawk and other characters from the series show up and the discussions between Hawk and Spenser continue to be fun; I especially like their "who/whom" talk. show less

This may be my least favorite of the many Parker books I've read. It's hard to care for a book whose author made such a half hearted effort to write it. The lack of character development and confusingly large cast was not compensated by either clever witticisms or engaging action. My reaction is borne out by the large range of reactions of other reviewers, here and at Amazon. Parker was just going through the motions on this one.

Well done, the mystery had way too many turns to even begin to make sense of and the new mintage of Oh Ha all made it worthwhile. Plus Rita is always interesting, though her obsession with getting married is a bit sad. Am I the only one who find the constant reference to Susan as a Jewess weird? I feel like I'm in Ivanhoe reading about Rebecca.

Synopsis: 'When fifty-one-year-old Nathan Smith, a once-confirmed bachelor, is found in his bed with a hole in his head made by a .38-caliber slug, it's hard not to imagine Nathan's young bride as the one with her finger on the trigger. Even her lawyer thinks she's guilty. But given that Mary Smith is entitled to the best defense she can afford-and thanks to Nathan's millions, she can afford plenty-Spenser hires on to investigate Mary's bona fides. Mary's alibi is a bit on the flimsy side: She claims she was watching television in the other room when the murder occurred. But the couple was seen fighting at a high-profile cocktail party earlier that evening, and the prosecution has a witness who says Mary once tried to hire him to kill show more Nathan. What's more, she's too pretty, too made-up, too blonde, and sleeps around-just the kind of person a jury loves to hate.

Spenser's up against a wall; leads go nowhere, no one knows a thing. Then a young woman, recently fired from her position at Smith's bank, turns up dead. Mary's vacant past suddenly starts looking meaner and darker-and Spenser's suddenly got to watch his back.' From Fandom

Review: Oh my do I know the woman accused of murder! If you are a teacher, you've had this person in your class. Parker does a really good job of presenting this personality type. This story has a bunch of sub-plots that are rather complicated...it makes for good reading. show less

While the book was well written (a given considering it's Robert B. Parker), the cast of characters was hard to keep straight. This was even mentioned at one point in the book. So while I enjoyed the read, the distraction of too many characters made this probably my least enjoyable Spenser book.

Don't expect much description or expansive narrative on the Boston setting, but witty banter predominates in this 2002 Spenser entry. The older half of a May-December marriage is murdered and his young, blond, beautiful, dumb wife is accused. Spenser is hired to prove she didn't so it and he puzzles his way through a number of corpses before solving this one. OK story.

Narrated by Joe Mantegna who adds his own flavor to the Spenser character. Nicely done.