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Bad Business (2005)

Bad Business (2005)

Book Info

Genre
Series
Rating
3.77 of 5 Votes: 4
Your rating
ISBN
0425199576 (ISBN13: 9780425199572)
Language
English
Publisher
berkley

About book Bad Business (2005)

I knew that Robert B. Parker was phoning it in on a lot of these later Spenser books, but this one may be among the weakest and laziest of the bunch.Spenser gets hired by Marlene Rowley to see if her husband Trent is cheating on her. After he follows Trent to a hotel liaison with another woman, Spenser finds another detective trailing the lady Trent hooked up with. Things get weirder when that PI tells Spenser that he’s seen a third detective watching Marlene. As usual in this series, someone winds up getting murdered, and Spenser thinks the key is to figure out who hired the other detectives. He discovers several connections to a radio talk show host who advocates open marriages. However, RBP apparently thought that it was too much effort keeping track of all that so he shifted the focus to Trent’s company which is an energy broker. And this was written about the time Enron was folding. Take a guess as to where the story is headed...Seriously, it seems like RBP started out with some ideas about multiple detectives trailing different people and tying it in with a wonky radio show host. There was some potential there, but then he just dumps the other detective characters about halfway through and comes up with some convoluted reasons for the talk show guy to have a connection to the energy company to go with a ripped from the headlines style plot. It almost made me wonder if he didn’t have half the book written when Enron imploded, and he just decided to use a current story rather than continue with whatever he had been originally thinking. Plus, this one is just dull. There’s no action to speak of at all. Neither Spenser nor Hawk so much as punch a thug in the mouth. Almost every scene and bit of dialogue seems to have been something that RBP had written at least once before. And the Susan annoyance factor is extremely high. It feels like RBP was even bored writing it. Next up: Hawk gets shot to pieces and Spenser helps him get revenge in Cold Service. I have the oddest sense of déjà vu for some reason….

Marlene Crowley hires Boston PI Spenser to find out if her husband is cheating on her. What seems like a simple case quickly becomes complicated when Marlene's husband, Trent, is murdered. Trent was a CFO at Kinergy, an energy trading company. Investigating the murder, Spenser discovers several wrong-doings at Kinergy, including spouse swapping, shoddy accounting practices and another murder. Spenser has plenty of suspects and works with the usual crew, including his long-time love, Susan Silverman, and his friend, Hawk, to solve the crime. Robert Parker's Spenser series is what I call cotton candy for the brain. There's nothing groundbreaking here, it's just a highly entertaining read and there's nothing wrong with that. What makes the series work is the snappy humorous dialogue between the characters. My only complaint is that there's not enough Hawk, he doesn't show up until halfway through the book. The mystery itself is fine, if transparent, but I don't read Parker's books for the plot but for the interactions between characters, especially Spenser and Hawk. This is a good beach book.

Do You like book Bad Business (2005)?

This is a typical Spenser book.....which I happen to like. I think I've read them all and usually I am pleased. Bad Business was a keeper.Oh, to be sure, there's the required comments about Spenser and Susan's relationship and why they don't want to get married. There's the required comments about Spenser and Hawk's relationship and how they'd die for each other, etc. There's the required comments about Spenser's checkered career in law enforcement. It's a formula to be sure, but I like the formula.Spenser's comments and observations are pure gold and the case was interesting because it (sort of) explains what happened to Enron.I guess I'm over the fact that Spenser never ages (Parker must have been hearing comments because he includes a NY Times review that excuses this fact inside the dust cover at the beginning of the synopsis) - it doesn't bother me with James Bond, why should it bother me with Spenser? Read all of my reviews of Robert B. Parker's Spenser books at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/searc...
—Dale

The Spenser novels of Robert Parker are characterized by witty, sarcastic dialog between the characters. Even when the plot line is weak, the way they speak to each other always delivers a high level of entertainment. In this story, Marlene Crowley hires Spenser to follow her husband to determine if he is cheating on her. His name is Trent Crowley and he is Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Kinergy, one of the most dynamic companies around. It is an energy trading company and rose from very small beginnings to an apparent powerhouse. Robert Cooper, the CEO of Kinergy and an expert glad-hander, has designs on a run for the U. S. Senate, so he wants to keep his image as clean as possible. When Trent Crowley is murdered on the Kinergy premises, things change. Furthermore, Spenser finds a veritable daisy chain of wife swapping and private detectives following husbands and wives. As usual, Spenser makes enemies, one of which is Gavin, the chief of security at Kinergy. When Gavin is killed, there seems to be no reason for the murders. However, Spenser eventually determines the identity of the murderers, amid the additional discovery that Kinergy is a house of cards. The higher executives have been gradually selling off their stock in anticipation that it will quickly become nearly worthless. The ending is not a great dramatic one, as there is no shootout, just Spenser punching a man. This story is taken directly from the events surrounding the collapse of Enron, with the exception of the internal mate-swapping and the murders, you could replace Kinergy with Enron and most of the story would be factual. I don’t consider it one of Parker’s best Spenser novels, but once again the quality of the dialog makes it very entertaining. Hawk and Vinnie Morris appear, but are not heavily involved, which is a disappointment. In my opinion, the conversations between Spenser and Hawk are the best dialog in the Spenser series. This review also appears on Amazon
—Charles

BAD BUSINESS (Private investigator) – G+Robert B. Parker – 31st SpenserG.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004 – HardcoverSpenser is hired by Marlene Crowley to find out whether her husband, an executive with Kinergy, is cheating on her. But when he finds Marlene is being watched by a fellow PI hired by her husband, and the woman with whom Marlene’s husband is having an affair, is being watched by a third investigator, Spenser decides to find out what is really going on. What Marlene’s husband is murdered, then the head of security for Kinergy, it’s clearly more than a case of wife swapping.*** This was an interesting Spenser as there was must less violence and much more investigation. All the gang is there, but in more realistic roles, although the descriptions of watching Susan eat drives me crazy. The strength is definitely the pacing, characters and excellent dialogue. You are always assured of a few, highly-enjoyable hours with one of Parker’s books.
—LJ

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