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'Sudden Mischief' by Robert B. Parker

Latest On Spenser: Heavy On Character, Light On Plot

Sunday, April 05, 1998

By Robert Croan, Post-Gazette Music Critic

	Sudden Mischief By Robert B. Parker $22.95

This time, the plot's only OK and the mystery element all but nonexistent, but Robert B. Parker's written so many Spenser novels, it must be getting harder to make each one fresh and different.

All this doesn't mean that "Sudden Mischief isn't a fun read. For anyone who may not know by now from the books and TV series, Spenser is a super-macho man - a private eye who can take on any two or three adversaries at once, and win - unless they're holding a gun to his head.

Or, as occurs at one point in the present tale, to the head of his girlfriend, the beautiful and affluent Boston psychotherapist, Susan Silverman.

Spenser is more than a mere macho man, however. He's sensitive, smart and literate, due to a few quirks in his upbringing.

One gimmick of Parker's narration is his penchant for digressing into his hero's past when the plot gets bogged down - at least two or three times per novel.

This time around, Parker delves into Susan's past along with Spenser's.

She's a reformed Jewish-American Princess whose parents' conflicts are haunting her in middle age.

At the beginning, Susan's ex-husband, a seemingly successful lawyer, calls and tells her he's in deep trouble. He's financially strapped, and a group of women are suing him for sexual harassment.

Susan, by profession and inclination a problem-solver, puts Spenser on the case, but her ex tells Spenser he's doing just fine.

When Spenser starts to investigate, an assortment of thugs appear at his office door to rough him up and warn him off. There's hardly any need to say he gets the better of them and stays on the case.

The fact that a few unlikely people turn up dead only strengthens Spenser's resolve.

The local color is fun for anyone who has lived in New England. The trappings of crime, however - money laundering, politics between neighboring police forces - are almost tangibly made for a Grade B TV police show.

Susan delves further into her pysche than we want to know about, while Spenser finds himself a true moralist who can't give a much-deserved beating to a man who has put a contract out on him.

The mischief may be more in Parker's manipulation of his readers than any logic of the plot, but his characters do have a certain irresistible charm. I

know I'll be first in line for the next Spenser.