Robert B. Parker has written many tough-guy detective novels in the style of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. He has also been lauded by modern writers for reviving and changing the detective genre itself, and is well established as a top crime writer.
His detective, Spenser, has appeared in thirty-eight novels beginning in 1973 and even a successful TV series, Spenser for Hire. I haven't read those yet, but he is praised for introducing many characters of different races, religions and sexualities.
Another series introduced Jessie Stone, an ex-LAPD detective turned police chief of a New England Town - eight of theses have been turned into TV films starring Tom Selleck. Helen Hunt asked him to create a female detective Sunny Randall, for a film which never materialized, and another series was begun.
Split Image is the first Parker novel I have read. It unites Sunny Randall with Jessie Stone in Paradise, New England, where she is tracking down a young runaway involved with a psuedo-cult. Meanwhile, Jessie and his force find a dead man in the trunk of a car. He was the bodyguard of a local retired Mafia boss who lives nearby. His ex-rival, another mafia boss, is also retired and they live next door to each other. Why? They each married a beautiful woman — twins, and they are very close. The wives have a not-so-secret hobby sleeping around and they often switch partners to see if anyone would realize. After the bodyguard, one of the gangster bosses gets killed, and there are many who aren't sad to see him go. The two detectives explore their cases separately, and talk about them when they get together socially.
I found Sunny tough and lively. If this was the 80's, I'd cast Connie Selleca in the TV role, she'd make a good team with Selleck. Sunny has her own detection gang including a large driver/bodyguard Spike, who no one believes is gay. I can see Tom Selleck in the Jessie Stone role, but he wasn't a dynamic character to me. An interesting sidebar through the story is Sunny and Jessie talking to and about their respective therapists. When Jessie and Sunny get together as a couple, it throws a nice turn to the story. Of the two, I would read another Sunny Randell mystery and probably pass over a Jessie Stone.
I guess with his great reputation I should have started with a Spenser novel. This was pretty light reading — the kind you can whip right through as each chapter is about two pages long. This novel had 67 chapters, with the story lines alternating and overlapping.
The interesting thing about his writing was the lack of exposition, it is almost all dialogue and it is the best feature of the book.
Parker was chosen to complete the unfinished Raymond Chandler book Poodle Springs in 1989 and they have a similar style. He also wrote a sequel to The Big Sleep in 1991.
Robert Parker died in 2010 at the age of 77. Being such a breezy read, I wondered if someone else carried on as ghostwriter "in the style of" as Split Image was not as high quality as I was expecting. His estate has decided to continue the Jessie Stone and Sunny Randall series with ghostwriters as of 2011, so I assume this was indeed one of the last written by Parker himself.
If you have to ask, if it doesn't ring true — it's a little distracting as you are reading.
Not as captivating as I would have liked, a little disappointing. I would try an earlier Spenser for my next Robert Parker novel.
2010 / Tradeback / 318 pages
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