School Days

Author: Robert B. Parker

List Price: $24.95 

Pages: 304

Publisher: Putnam Adult (September 27, 2005)

Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.3

ISBN: 0399153233   

The celebrated¹ series continues as a troubled teenager accused of a horrific crime draws Spenser into one of the most desperate cases of his career.

Lily Ellsworth-erect, firm, white-haired, and stylish-is the grand dame² of Dowling, Massachusetts, and possesses an iron will and a bottomless purse. When she hires Spenser to investigate her grandson Jared Clark's alleged³ involvement in a school shooting, Spenser is led into an inquiry⁴ that grows more harrowing at every turn.

Though seven people were killed in cold blood, and despite Jared's being named as a co-conspirator by the other shooter, Mrs. Ellsworth is convinced of her grandson's innocence⁵. Jared's parents are resigned to his fate, and the boy himself doesn't seem to care whether he goes to prison for a crime he might not have committed.

Book review

Any new installment⁶ in Parker's long-running series starring tough, wisecracking Boston PI Spenser is a pleasure, and this time out high-maintenance girlfriend Susan Silverman is out of town, giving readers unfettered Spenser face time.

The wealthy Lily Ellsworth hires Spenser to prove the innocence of her grandson, Jared Clark, accused of a Columbine High School-style shooting that has left five students and two teachers dead. Jared has confessed to the crime, and Spenser faces major opposition⁷ from local law enforcement officials, school authorities, dysfunctional parents, opposing lawyers and deadly gang-bangers.

As always, Spenser solves the case in a surprising manner, shoots some bad guys and has several attractive women offer him sex, all of which he handles in his proficient⁸, wisenheimer way. Susan's German shorthaired pointer Pearl gets a lot of attentive⁹ babysitting, but longtime sidekick Hawk¹⁰ is nowhere in evidence. Those who have stuck with Spenser as Parker invented (and set loose) other case-crackers will be rewarded once again with another solid installment in this fine, enduring series.

Parker's other works include the classic POODLE SPRINGS, a novel completed from an unfinished manuscript begun by the late Raymond Chandler, and PERCHANCE TO DREAM, the sequel to Raymond Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP. Ironically, Parker wrote about Chandler in a chapter of his doctoral thesis about the evolution of the American Hero, beginning with the colonial period and ending with the twentieth century mystery writers. As fate would have it, Parker has now become one of the best of them: "Robert B. Parker has taken his place besides Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald" (The Boston Globe).

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Parker attended Colby College in Maine, served with the Army in Korea, and then completed a Ph.D. in English at Boston University. He married his wife Joan in 1956; they raised two sons, David and Daniel. Together the Parkers founded the Pearl Productions, a Boston- Based independent film company named after their short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in Parker's last few novels. He and Joan now live in the Boston area.

Parker began writing his Spenser novels in 1971 while teaching at Boston's Northeastern University. Little did he suspect then that his witty¹³, literate¹⁴ prose and psychological insights would make him keeper-of-the-flame of America's rich tradition of detective fiction. Parker's fictional¹⁵ Spenser inspired the ABC-TV series Spenser: For Hire. More recently, his Spenser novels, SMALL VICES¹⁶ and THIN AIR were made into television films for the A&E network.