Early Autumn

By: Robert B. Parker

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

“[Robert B.] Parker's brilliance is in his simple dialogue, and in Spenser.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

A bitter divorce is only the beginning. First the father hires thugs to kidnap his son. Then the mother hires Spenser to get the boy back. But as soon as Spenser senses the lay of the land, he decides to do some kidnapping of his own.

With a contract out on his life, he heads for the Maine woods, determined to give a puny 15 year old a crash course in survival and to beat his dangerous opponents at their own brutal game.©1992 Robert B Parker; (P)2009 Random House

As Good As It Gets!

Parker's Spenser novels never disappoint, but this one is better than most. Not only entertaining, but full of wisdom and heart.

One of the Best

Spencer is his typical wisecracking, head cracking self in this one. Unlike his usual cases in this one Spencer takes on a neglected child. The time and interaction between the two of them are what the kid needs most after a lifetime of being ignored by both parents. Thankfully the amount of time devoted to Susan Silverman in this book is limited. The over the top affection everyone feels for her for no apparent reason; particularly Spencer, gets tiring. Hawk appears in his similarly one dimensional role that seems to be perfect for the genre; he's the perfect weapon. the climatic showdown scene in which he does what Spencer can't; do what has to be done is prototypical Hawk. If you like Spencer this is one of the best choices

Probably the best Spenser book

Spenser is hired by Patty Giacomin to find and retrieve her son, Paul, who has been abducted by her ex-husband. Spenser soon realizes that 15-year-old Paul is being used as a weapon in a fierce and unrelenting battle between the Giacomins, neither of whom actually care much about him. Spenser decides to take care of the boy himself, and to attempt to teach him to become autonomous. This creates a certain amount of tension between Spenser and Susan, and a certain amount of danger for Spenser, who discovers that Mel Giacomin has mob connections.

Most of book contains two story lines: Spenser's efforts to find a way to get Paul out of the battle between his parents, and his teaching of Paul to become an independent person at a very young age.

In my opinion, the best part of the story is the work of Spenser to teach young Paul how to deal with the disasters of his family life and prevent them from consuming him.

If you like Spenser, you should find this book very enjoyable; swiftly paced, well-written, and full of telling and enjoyable details.

Early Autumn. By R.B. Parker

I love all of the Spenser stories.
However, this is easily my favorite (I have read and re-read several times).
All the previous reviews I have read describe the storylines very well.
Parker does a great job at writing about what matters when faced with making various decisions in life.
He does this through Spenser when the PI takes a young man under his wing and saves him from his parents neglect!
Spenser teaches Paul (who shows up many times later in future Spenser stories) how to "man up".
Their relationship start roughly since the young man has a lot of trust issues, but tenacious Spenser gets through finally and helps the boy to a much better path of life.
GET THIS ONE!! You will like it.

better audio required

The audio was sketchy. I had to turn it up and down all the time