Melancholy Baby

Robert B. Parker has created a gallery of interesting and (generally) lovable characters who populate his three series of Boston-based crime novels. Each of the three main characters (Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall) has his or her own independent series, but some of the minor characters pop up in more than one of the series. For example, the Boston and Massachusetts state police and the local head of the FBI are the same characters in all three series.

My least favorite character is obviously one of Parker’s favorites: Spenser’s girl friend, Harvard trained psychoanalyst Susan Silverman, who appears as an omni-competent shrink in several Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall novels. Wikipedia and the Boston Globe say that Susan was show more more than loosely based on Parker’s actual wife. Parker is usually an excellent writer who avoids clichés and trite adjectives. Yet here he has Sunny Randall describing Susan in Melancholy Baby:

“Her nails were perfectly manicured. Her black hair was thick and shiny. Her makeup was amazing.”

Come on Bob, amazing makeup?! In every other encounter the reader has with Susan, she is elegantly dressed, stylishly coiffed, and gushingly described. The author is so enamored of his character that he abandons and obtunds his usual snarky style.

In Melancholy Baby, Sunny Randall is going through some tough emotional times because her ex-husband Richie, whom she still loves, gets remarried. She then takes on the case of Sarah Markham, a troubled young girl who wants Sunny to find out the identity of her actual birth parents. Complicating Sunny’s assignment, Sarah’s ostensibly adoptive parents claim they are her biological parents (but won’t take DNA tests). Sunny’s investigation offends some powerful interests, and two people end up executed, gangland style.

The book might have been more accurately called Melancholy Babies, because both Sunny and Sarah find solace in consulting the chicly-attired Susan Silverman. Parker is at his weakest when relating the conversations that transpire in the psychiatric sessions — I can’t imagine anything that insipid would help anyone. Nevertheless, the rest of the book is pretty good. And one of the minor characters, a New York cop named Corsetti, is an absolute delight.

(JAB) show less

[And now this review is associated with the correct book!]


Hi, my name's Stephanie Plum Runny Sandall Sunny Randall, Boston PI, and I'm sexy and clever, like Stephanie Plum - except I really am clever, not completely clueless. In fact, I'm not much like Stephanie at all apart from we're both good looking; I have sensible (if cliched) reasons for doing the work I do, rather than getting totally out of my depth because I can't pay my bills. I'm not obviously a female-wish-fulfilment fantasy but rather a real person. My first book came out about the same time as Stephanie's but doesn't seem to have become famous, despite not being preposterous and having a realistic protagonist. Why is that? I have a series of books but not a huge one with show more a ridiculous gimmick about the titles. Anyway, I don't need to be famous because of my dog and my friends, one of whom is another cliche; the gay friend of the female protagonist. He's not a stereotypical gay friend of the female protagonist, though, 'cos he's a tough guy, rather than a camp or effete comic relief kinda gay friend of the female protagonist. Why aren't there any gay detectives with female lesbian friends? Or lesbian detectives with straight friends, or gay detectives with gay friends? Or...

Anyway, if you've read books from several of my creator's series you will probably notice some recurring themes and motifs; alcohol abuse, people who aren't over their divorces, fathers who care about their daughters more than their mothers do, clinical psychologists. Several of those are in this book, too. In fact my psychologist is the girlfriend of another PI from a different series of books...how weird is that?

You should read my books if you want some competent, realistic, if not exceptionally good detective fiction. show less

I like Sunny. I'm not entirely convinced by her feminist credentials, but I like her anyway. I get that she's more flawed and more in need of therapy than Parker's other characters, I just can't help wondering if that's because she's a woman or not. In this book she solves the riddle and engages the services of Dr. Susan Silverman which was a treat all by itself.

Parker is the author I turn to when I want to breeze very quickly through a book without needing to engage my brain. It's sort of like comfort food, pleasing but not great nutritional value. Interesting story with lots of characters we've met in other books. No need for back stories, we already know them. But this story just doesn't engage. Kid doesn't believe her parents are really her parents and Sunny is having trouble that her ex has remarried. But when hard work is needed, she lets her mob ties solve her problem. Ho hum. Yes my expectations were low but this one went under them. Where's V.I. Warshawski when we need her?

Far from a Melancholy Book...., February 9, 2009

Robert B. Parker's 'Melancholy Baby' is a great read, although I did guess the ending about halfway through. Still, the chapters are short, the paragraphs are well-written and my attention was easily kept.

This was my first Robert B. Parker book, and I'm already happily onto the next.

J.R. Reardon
author, 'Confidential Communications'

Boston college student Sarah Markham is convinced that she was adopted and hires PI Sunny Randall to find out the truth. Sarah's parents insist that she isn't adopted but they say they can't find her birth certificate and they both refuse to take a DNA test. The Markham's are so vague and uncooperative when Sunny questions them she is sure they are lying and sets out to find the truth about Sarah's birth. Sunny is also finding out some truths about herself - her ex-husband is getting married and she sees a psychiatrist (Susan Silverman of Robert Parker's Spenser series) to deal with her conflicted feelings about her, her ex, and her parents.

This is the first non-Spenser Robert Parker book I've read and I was a bit apprehensive thinking show more Sunny would just be Spenser in a skirt. I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, Sunny has some of the same characteristic traits as Spenser, including being a dog owner and having a sidekick she can call on if she's in trouble (gay Spike is Sunny's Hawk). But Sunny is a more complex character than Spenser and her visits to Susan Silverman, interspersed with her search for the truth about Sarah's parents, add a dimension to this book that's missing from the Spenser series. While it's interesting and refreshing to see Susan Silverman from the viewpoint of someone other than Spenser, Parker's a little too in love with his own character and his repetitive descriptions of Susan's manicured nails wear thin very quickly. Parker's writing is mostly dialogue driven and doesn't vary much beyond "I said", "he said", and "she said". Still, Parker has a keen sense of humor and his new character, Detective second-grade Eugene Corsetti, is a perfect example of Parker at his best.

This was a quick, enjoyable book to read. show less

A little different from what I usually read, but he's good. He makes you laugh, but at the same time you're thinking "what's going on here?" and not in the "i-am-lost" sense, but more like "I-want-to-know-more-what-a-mystery!" sense.
I haven't read any other Sunny Randall books from him yet, but I didn't really need to read them to understand what was going on, or to get an idea of who Sunny is and what her herself, which is something good. :)