This is an ancient paperback that Su 2/5/06 and according to the flyleaf I finished it that afternoon.
This is one of The Spenser Series. Spenser's first name is never revealed through the entire series. I spent a little time looking through the book to find his first name before I learned the truth.
The author's curious living arrangement:
"I plan to have sex with my wife for the rest of my life, but I never want to sleep with her again".
He and his wife lived in a three story home near Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. She had the top floor, he had the bottom floor, and they shared living spaces on the middle floor.
In the novel Spenser is very much in love with Susan, however they do not live together.
Pithy dialog that leaps off the page. Spenser is a real 'wiseacre'.
PREMISE:
Wheaton, MA has become a major distribution point for cocaine. Decades ago a wealthy factory owner from Columbia had trouble getting workers so he organized workers to come from his home town in South America.
Spenser is being paid by a newspaper to find out who murdered one of their young reporters who was sent to the town to check out the coke trade. The authorities said that he was a womanizer and probably this was why he was murdered.
Hawk- Spenser's friend and he is called in when the job proves dangerous. A huge black man with a shaved head.
From the book's page at Publisher's Weekly:
"The TV series Spenser: For Hire is based on Parker's bestselling series of mysteries starring a Boston private detective, and this taut thriller will no doubt match its predecessors' success. The murder of newspaper reporter Eric Valdez takes Spenser to Wheaton, Mass., where Valdez was investigating a Colombian cocaine operation. After a meeting with the police chief, Bailey Rogers, the detective is waylaid by thugs whom he beats handily. Spenser confirms his suspicions that a grocery wholesaler, Felipe Esteva, is dealing the drug and paying off the police. The next murder victim, however, is Rogers, whose young son drives a truck for Esteva. Spenser daringly hijacks a fortune in cocaine and offers to sell it to Esteva, as dangerous a ploy as the macho detective has ever attempted. When his only ally, a state trooper, is ""reassigned,'' Spenser brings his lover Susan to help with psychological warfare and his sidekick Hawk to face Esteva's mob. Parker keeps the reader's adrenalin pumping overtime until Spenser and company claim the victory."
I loved the book and would definitely read more of The Spenser Series or anything by Robert B. Parker.
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