Customer Reviews:
 Spenser And Hawk's Excellent Adventure July 15, 2007
I was looking forward to this novel because whenever Parker gets away from his formulaic Spenser novels, he is one damn, fine writer! Picking up Double Play, I was thinking of his Love And Glory which is an excellent novel about romance during WWII. I was expecting another entertaining period piece although on a different subject. What I got instead was Spenser and Hawk transported back in time into the bodies of Jackie Robinson and his bodyguard. They speak in the same stunted shorthand, are both too tough and irresistable to the ladies... very, very familiar ground. Place this one in the modern day, switch Robinson's and his bodyguard's dialog, and you've got a Spenser novel. That's all well and good if you're in the mood for a Spenser novel, but I was hoping for something more. Now I'm not knocking Parker's long-running series. I read them for the dialog, which can be witty and is always well-paced. But the Spenser series is overrated in my mind and certainly is not a worthy successor to the Hammett/Chandler/Spillane tradition. The early ones are very good, but the current ones are very thin. And so is Double Play. Instead of a captivating trip back in time, we get a superficial Spenser novel with different names for the characters. This is a waste of material and potential, leaving this reader disappointed. So if you love Spenser no matter how he is dished up, then Double Play is for you. If you're looking for more, look elsewhere.
 RICK SHAQ GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "THIS IS THE BOOK THAT HOOKED ME ON ROBERT B. PARKER!" June 22, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I of course, had always heard of Robert B. Parker, and I had also heard of Spencer. I even watched the old TV series "Spencer For Hire". But, despite my voracious reading, I had never read one of Parker's books. Then one day, I saw one of my idol's, Jackie Robinson's (See one of Shaq's prior reviews.) name on a cover of a book, and low and behold, it was by Robert B. Parker. I bought it, and "WOW", was I hooked! What creative genius, for Parker to combine a true, real life hero, with fictional characters, in a real landmark event, (Jackie breaking baseball's color line.) with a fictional side story, and if that wasn't enough, to have Parker deftly, insert his own, actual childhood, into the story, is simply fascinating. The stories main character, is Joseph Burke, a wounded World War II veteran, who becomes a boxer, a strong arm for the mob, and finally, he is hired by Branch Rickey, to be Jackie's bodyguard during his rookie season. The beginning of this book, makes you feel like you're watching an old Jimmy Cagney or Humphrey Bogart movie, and then you're into baseball and the human condition. And finally, as you're deep into the story, little Bobby Parker, steals the show. Have you ever read a book, that is so good, that as you're reading it, you don't want it to end? Well, this is that book! Buy it! P.S. I have since read twenty-five Parker books, including the entire Jesse Stone series. I now feel like Spencer and my "main man" Hawk, are my drinking buddies!
who thought I would agree with ng about anything June 11, 2007
I wouldn't have thought I did, but as far as his thoughts about this book, I find them right on. As a fan of both baseball and Spenser, it was a foregone conclusion that I would pick the book up, but I wouldn't have predicted how deeply it would move me or how often it would come back to my thoughts. If you like Parker, you'll like Burke, another in the Spenser/Stone/Randall style of protagonists. Add to that thoughtful (if ficitionalized) history of the integration of baseball, and some of the issues about it that might not have occurred to you in only passing thought and you have a total winner
An Infield Double August 26, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book several years ago when I first began my "Robert Parker Phase." I'm a baseball fan, so I of course enjoyed the book but it wasn't really a WOW or "this is a great book" kind of book. And I am a huge Robert Parker fan.
Robert Forster's narration absolutely makes this book both wow and great. He catches the malaise of the character in just the right way. There is almost a delayed reaction in the reading, just as if Burke was too tired and too unattached to answer. Parker's books are 99% dialogue, with a lot of he saids and she saids. You don't even notice them in the audio version because the narrator does such a fine job of dropping his voice down after he says the meat of the sentence, and often even attaches emotions to the he saids and she saids.
I grew up in Mississippi before civil rights. It was very painful to hear some of the language spoken because my father talked like that as a matter of course. He was born in Selma, Alabama in 1918 and I like to think he didn't know any better, but that's no excuse. I cannot imagine the confidence and security Robinson must have possessed to put himself through what this books hints at were his experiences.
This book is not even five hours, and it was over way too quick. I plan to listen to it many times.
This is a character study of two very different people, but both with an honor that can't be disputed.
Five stars, yes, five.
 Swing Batter, batter, batter... May 9, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A while back I had the misfortune to pick up a copy of Robert Parker's COLD SERVICE. Let it be known that I am a longtime fan of Spenser, but sad to say the book left me cold. I crawled into the distant hills and practiced my coyote calls, thinking mournful thoughts of fallen heros and the death of the great American "tough guy" novel.
Thankfully I picked up DOUBLE PLAY. I read this at a dead run, panting breathlessly as I flipped each page. Parker was back in form, firing shot after shot of high calibre entertainment. I could feel the sense of fun and unspoken passion hunkered down behind each paragraph, the zeal of Parker's original dozen or so Spenser novels before he began phoning them in.
Burke is a flawed tough guy, and a whole lot nastier than Spenser ever was. Keep him that way, don't water the whiskey, straight back with a Kirk Douglas grin. I smell a series here, and fans of Parker's previous work can pick this book up with confidence.
I recommend it highly.
Yours in storytelling,
Steve Vernon (author of Long Horn, Big Shaggy - A Tale of Wild West Terror and Reanimated Buffalo)
|
