Product Description

The town of Potshot, Arizona, is under siege by a band of murderous marauders, and the law is helpless to stop them. But now there's a new gun in town-Boston P.I. Spenser-and he's gathered a posse of the best and baddest to back him up.

"Parker still finds clever ways to invigorate his Spenser series." ( Entertainment Weekly)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #183501 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Amazon.com
Maybe Spenser's driven all the bad guys out of Boston. Which is too bad because on his home ground, the tough and tender PI and Hawk, his trusty sidekick, don't need a gang of other guys to do their work. And the hired guns they round up to help them clean out a nest of ne'er-do-wells who have the desert town of Potshot, Arizona, terrified aren't nearly as amusing as, say, John Dortmunder's criminal colleagues in Donald Westlake's caper novels.

The thugs who populate the Dell, a scrubby little enclave just outside of town, have the locals in their pocket, which is why the pretty blonde who hires Spenser to find whoever killed her husband points him toward the Preacher, who rules the Dell and its denizens. But Spenser's not as certain as his client that Steve Buckman died at the Preacher's hands. As our hero and his ethnically diverse but politically incorrect henchmen (one gay shooter, one Latino, one black, one Native American--all that's missing is Annie Oakley) investigate, it turns out that Spenser's right, as usual. The action ranges from Las Vegas to L.A., Atlanta to New Mexico, but much of it is a humdrum travelogue as Spenser rounds up his gang from all over the country to take on the Preacher and his musclemen. While Potshot isn't one of Robert B. Parker's best, it's still not bad. The one or two lines devoted to introducing Spenser's backup buddies don't begin to do any of them justice, and there's a lot more description of the artillery the guys pack than usual. But they do fill up the white space, and when the action lags, there's always Susan's dirty talk, shopping jones, and dietary obsessions to divert the reader. There's a midlife crisis somewhere in this evergreen series that's just waiting to erupt. Whether it's Spenser's, Susan's, or Parker's, however, remains to be seen. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
HThe Spenser series remains fresh after 28 novels in about 30 years. How does Parker do it? Through recurring characters as alive as any in fiction, and through exceptionally clean, graceful prose that links the novels as surely as do the characters. The author also refreshes himself through other writings the Sunny Randall series, for example, or Gunman's Rhapsody, a tale about Wyatt Earp that Putnam will publish in June. So even when Parker resorts to a bit of gimmickry, as he does here, the vitality of his storytelling prevails. The manifest gimmickry is Boston P.I. Spenser's corralling of sidekicks from previous novels Hawk, of course, but also gay Tedy Sapp from Hugger Mugger, sharpshooter Chollo from Thin Air, Vinnie Morris (from several novels) and a few others to deal with trouble in the Arizona town of Potshot. Spenser is hired by a sexy blonde to look into the shooting death there of her husband, who tangled with an outlaw group known as the Dell, which for years has extorted the citizens of Potshot. There's an eventual shootout, of course (there are enough parallels between this tale and that of Wyatt Earp to guess that Parker's forthcoming Earp novel inspired this one), but not before Spenser digs into the town's secrets, uncovering the expected but in detail, always surprising domestic mayhem and corruption. Genuinely scary villains, sassy dialogue, a deliciously convoluted mystery with roots in the classic western and Parker's pristine way with words result in another memorable case. (Mar.)Forecast: A BOMC Main Selection, this novel will hit the charts, as Spenser novels do. The gimmick involving the many sidekicks should only help sales and may even draw back a few readers who have strayed from the series.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Spenser, Parker's famous sleuth, goes west to find a murderer and clean up a nest of mountain hoodlums in the 28th installment of the series. After reconnoitering Potshot, AZ, the scene of the crime, he decides he needs reinforcements, so he calls in allies from around the country. These dangerous men a Native American, an African American, a Georgia cracker, a Mafioso, and a homosexual provide much of the book's humor, as Parker has fun with stereotypes, and reader Joe Mantegna has fun with accents. The characterization of women is equally stereotypical, but less amusing to this feminine ear. Parker's women are there to provide sexual tension and little else, a fact that Mantegna emphasizes. He raises the pitch of his voice and slows the pace and successfully insinuates that sexual conquest is uppermost in the characters' minds. This will be popular with Spenser fans and those who don't mind political incorrectness. Juleigh Muirhead Clark, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Lib., Williamsburg, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

just plain bad
How can a book that is at least 125 pages too long manage to have an abrupt and unfulfiling conclusion? Maybe if Parker would quit cranking out books like they were on an assembly line, he might produce a work that is at least entertaining.

Fun story, uneven narration
Joe Mantegna, who played Spencer in the recent A&E movies, does a passable job in narrating this tale. His Spencer is erudite and dry, really done quite well.

He does less well, though, with the other rolls. Hawk's accept is different every time he speaks. Susan and the other women sound -- well, anything but sexy. And I'm sure that, even with the "unabridged" label, there would have been some way to elide out the over-repetitive "he said"/"I said" bits of dialog -- what works well on the printed page is horribly distracting when read aloud.

All that said, so to speak, it's a decent enough Spencer tale -- a "Magnificent Seven" with Spencer in the lead (and Hawk as Yul Brynner). A light and frothy audio book quite suitable for commute time.

Go West, Young Man: Potshot by Robert B. Parker
You may not know it, but I actually rather like the Spenser novels. Very simplistic usually, they are guaranteed to have lots of action and minimal plot twists. Evil is usually just that, evil. No moralizing or explanation as to why the evil is evil, it just is and must be eradicated. Like any Steven Segal movie, these novels have their place. Sometimes you just want to sit back and read and know that the good guys will in all likelihood, save the day and maybe the fair maiden in distress. Sometimes, not thinking is good.

The usual is true of this effort by Robert B. Parker. Spenser is far a field from his hometown of Boston, as he has been in the last several novels. This time, like many a "B" western on any late night cable channel, Spenser is called in to save the town and protect the fair maiden.

Potshot, Arizona is a mall town catering to the new class that drives the American West, Yuppies. They have come, bought up the town, and at least some of them have plans to get rich any way they can. But, up in the old mining camp above the town lurks a gang of toughs of various stripes known as the Dell. The Dell is led by a charismatic figure known as The Preacher. The Preacher has organized the group and focused their energies on collecting protection monies from the town merchants.

There was resistance to the protection payments and Steve Buckman led the resistance. Steve and the his wife (who would be the required fair maiden) Mary Lou Buckman ran a small outdoor day tour service. Steve is threatened publicly by the Dell with death and soon is dead in the middle of dusty Main Street with no witnesses. May Lou knows the Dell did it, she just isn't sure which one and hires Spenser to find the killer.

Spenser first scouts out the situation and then recruits Hawk and all the usual suspects as he investigates the case. High Noon this is not, but the allusions to it are thick and heavy throughout this approximately 300-page hardback novel. This is Robert B. Parker at his usual smirking best and as such, can be an entertaining read, if so inclined. Long time Spenser fans will not be disappointed as the tradition continues.