5 September, 2001: Looking for Rachel Wallace
I'm a big fan of the first dozen or so Spenser books; I think Robert Parker has a nice ear for dialogue and I enjoy his characters. By about Crimson Joy, I think the series had started to become repetitive, but I still read 'em anyway. Going back and reading some of the older books, however, is more of a treat; there's a real rhythm to them that I think most other detective novels never fall into. Looking for Rachel Wallace isn't the best of early Spenser -- there's not enough Hawk or Quirk, it was written 1980 and the central plot point (the world's reactions to the titular Rachel Wallace, a lesbian feminist writer) hasn't really aged well, and Wallace's reconcilliation with Spenser at the end seems rather too neat, as does some of the dialogue about gender issues. Still, Wallace is a nicely drawn character and Spenser behaves in an enjoyably non-cuddly manner for much of the novel. And it contains possibly the definitive Spenser line:
"You think you should have noticed them sooner?"
"Yeah. I was too busy arguing patristic nomenclature with you. I should never have had to hit the curb like that."
And amen to that.