Thin Air - Hardcover

Parker is the internationally best-selling author of the Spenser mysteries. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A multy-talented film stage and television actor, won an LA Drama Critics Award for his performance in Travesties. His Broadway credits include Amadeus, Dracula, and Bent, for which he received a Tony nomination.

Spenser Lite: less death, more wit. Though at times the violence in past Spenser novels has strained credulity, it often had a cathartic effect for both reader and hero. But lately author Parker includes less gunplay and fisticuffs. Symbolic of the change is the fact that, in this twenty-third Spenser adventure, the detective's friend and ultradeadly ally, Hawk, is off in Burma, leaving Spenser on his own when longtime pal Frank Belson of Boston Homicide needs help. Belson's beautiful young bride, Lisa St. Claire, has disappeared. When Belson is wounded in an ambush that may be related to Lisa's disappearance, Spenser undertakes the search. The trail initially leads him to L.A., where a friendly mobster--who may have an interest in the resolution of the case--lends Spenser the use of Chollo, a sort of Hispanic Hawk. Eventually, Spenser concludes that Lisa is the captive of Luis DeLeon, the second-ranking bad guy in the aging New England mill town of Proctor, where he--and presumably Lisa--are ensconced in a well-armed fortress. The ending is predictable, if less violent than one might except. Lisa is by no means the first damsel in distress to be rescued by Spenser, and frankly, the plot has become a drag. The captors are always deranged, confusing love with power, and the victims are in jeopardy as a result of poor taste in lovers. Silly women, brave Spenser. Still, longtime fans will stand in line for this one, and in their defense, even flawed Spenser is good reading. Wes Lukowsky