Perish Twice

Here is what Robert B. Parker does really well: create dialog about tense or ironic situations. For example, here his heroine private eye, Sunny Randall, is confronting minatory Tony Marcus, the head of Boston’s black mafia. Sunny’s ex-husband, Richie Burke is present to offer some protection:

“If something happens to Sunny,” Richie said, “you’re dead.”
“We’re all dead, sooner or later,” Tony said.
“Sooner,” Richie said.

Here is where Parker can be boring: several female characters are having “man problems,” so he suggests they go see a shrink. The benefits of psychoanalysis (of which I am more than mildly skeptical) are a persistent theme in Parker’s crime fiction to the point of being cloying.

Parker can be show more really funny. In Perish Twice, Sunny’s older sister Elizabeth leaves her husband of many years and meets a new man in a bar. The scene is too long to quote in its entirety, but every sentence lets the reader know that her new guy is a monumental creep: dumpy, open collar showing grey chest hair, pinkie ring, and a large gold neck chain.

And, in Perish Twice, there is a good triple murder (involving unrequited love, lesbians, and hookers) to be solved, which Sunny handles adroitly. The plot is sufficiently complex that Parker has Sunny reprise all that has happened to a Boston homicide detective, and in the process reminds the reader about all the important events thus far related.

This is my favorite Sunny Randall novel. It compares favorably with Shrink Rap, written two years later, which explored many of the same themes.

(JAB) show less

I've read all the Spenser books, even those by Ace Atkins. However, this is the worst Robert B Parker book I have ever read. Basically take Spenser, substitute Sunny Randall in the plot, and instead of being bored hearing about Susan, the boredom with Sunny is hearing about her dog Rosie. Throw in most of the cops and gangsters from Spenser books and then wrap the whole thing up with a non ending and you have a waste of time. Gets 3 stars because Parker does know how to do natural sounding dialogue.

Sunny Randall continues with her complicated life, her ex-husband boyfriend and various friends with influence. She has to deal with three different issues, her sister and her husband's affair, where her sister won't take advice and starts dating all the wrong men. Her friend who is trying to find out what she wants from life, where she appears to have it all but is still unfulfilled. Then she has to deal with her client who is determined to be offended (a cliche ridden feminist) and is getting death threats, something that appears to resolve itself when in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity one of her workmates is killed and the man who appears to be stalking her appears to kill himself. However Sunny isn't happy that show more everything is resolved and decides to keep poking at it, something that leads to her having pot shots taken at her.

It's an interesting read and I did enjoy Sunny, some of the feminist cant was a bit cliched but otherwise a lot of the issues rang quite true. This is a series I look forward to pursuing. show less

Private detective Sunny Randall has her hands full with three cases-- finding the stalker of a prominent lesbian feminist (Mary Lou), finding if her sister's husband is cheating on her, and helping her best friend Julie who is having marital problems. Mary Lou turns out to have a hidden weakness (men); and one of her coworkers is murdered, in a case of what may or may not be mistaken identity. Meanwhile, Sunny herself is dating her ex- husband. Outlined in cold print, all this sounds like an unlikely plot for an interesting detective novel, but I enjoyed it reasonably well. The plot takes unexpected twists, and the solution was more than I could predict. It's not Sherlock Holmes, but I found it quite ok for an airplane reading experience.

I'm not sure that this is officially a mystery: while the solution of who killed whom works, I suspect that other solutions are also possible. On the other hand, that's not why you read a Robert Parker book. Sunny Randall is funny and clever. Her sister, however, is not; in fact, I don't know anyone as dense as she is. There are a lot of people who are or were in serious relationships who become involved with others. I read this before the first book in the series, which I am now reading; not a problem.

A quote I liked: "There's a key on a nail on the right-hand side of the porch, under the overhang. Don't you dare touch it."

PLOT OR PREMISE:
Sunny Randall is back, and she has a new part-time job as advisor to the love-lorn. Her first customer is Mary Lou Goddard, a prominent feminist (à la Rachel Wallace, from the Spenser series) who thinks she's being stalked. When Sunny figures out who the stalker is, Goddard wants to drop it all and fires her. Doesn't stop her from continuing to investigate, even though she has no client. The second customer is her sister -- who hires her to catch the sister's husband in the process of cheating. Which Sunny does, and then spends the rest of the book dealing with the dysfunctional sister. And the third and final customer is her normal confidant and best friend, Julie, who runs into marital problems in this book.
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WHAT I show more LIKED:
This is a first-rate mystery, with typical Parker twists and turns and links to criminal types. It provides a different spin on the normal Spenser series, while still staying within the same ballpark.
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WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
The storyline with the sister is hard to take because you just want to mentally slap her; which is okay because Sunny wants to slap her too, although I can't figure out why she doesn't. The third storyline with Julie is okay, but started to grate near the end.
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BOTTOM-LINE:
Good story and first-rate mystery
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DISCLOSURE:
I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I was not personal friends with the author, nor did I follow him on social media. show less

Kind of bit-ty with an ending so abrupt I'm still worried my edition's missing the last few pages. Sunny Randall so far is a blonde Spenser and a little too dependent on the men in her life. The plot here was weaker than most Parkers and kinda meaningless. With no client and no resolution, Sunny is kinda extraneous.