A cheating husband and a wayward wife provide Spenser with an unconventional and dangerous surveillance job. When Marlene Cowley hires Spenser to see if her husband, Trent, is cheating on her, he encounters more than he bargained for: Not only does he find a two-timing husband, but a second investigator as well, hired by the husband to look after his wife. As a result of their joint efforts, Spenser soon finds himself investigating both individual depravity and corporate corruption.
How can a leftover slice of pizza point to a thief? What does an upside-down year have to do with a street address? And why will a turned-around clue catch a cheating treasure hunter?
Even if you start out with a brain that's operating perfectly well, by the time you're halfway through these 36 whodunit puzzles you'll be lucky if you can remember your name! You start by getting caught up in an argument among some musicians, and try to find out who started it; then the dispute turns more serious, when one of the choir members gets murdered. Later, a friendly game of cards features a bit of cheating that leads to a killing; and then a backstage whistling incident causes still another death.
Wattles offers techniques for getting in tune with one' s deeper self and thus creating a channel of communication between oneself and universal energy. His is a gentle philosophy that excludes competition, cheating, and lording it over one' s fellows when one has made it, and encourages cooperation.
Added by: otherwordly | Karma: 222.42 | Fiction literature | 23 July 2008
16
From Publishers Weekly
Spenser #31 finds the veteran Boston PI tackling corporate crime in a routine yet absorbing outing. As usual, Spenser enters the case at an angle, this time because he's hired by one Marlene Rowley to prove that her husband Trent, CFO of energy firm Kinergy, is cheating on her. Before long the PI learns that marital cheating is all the rage among Kinergy's players, with the hanky-panky orchestrated by radio personality Darrin O'Mara, who runs popular sex seminars on the side. Maybe all that cheating explains why Spenser keeps running into other PIs hired by Kinergy folk, but it doesn't point to why Trent is found shot dead at Kinergy headquarters. Spenser links Kinergy's slick founder/CEO to the sex ring and blackmails him to gain access to Kinergy's records, unveiling a pattern of accounting deceptions that reveal a company about to go under. There's less violence than usual in this Spenser novel but more detecting, which may explain why there's little of the PI's tough sidekick Hawk but much of his psychologist girlfriend Susan, which may not please the many Spenser fans who grew tired years ago of the love banter between the soul mates. The novel ends with suspects crowded into a room to be questioned by Spenser, a classic yet tired climax that is emblematic of the tale: Parker is treading water here, albeit with some flair and a good deal of humor. One suspects that his heart belongs not to this story but to his other book due out this year, in May, the highly anticipated Jackie Robinson novel Double Play.
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